Someone to Stay Read online

  He wasn’t prone to losing things, exactly, but had a terrible memory when it came to remembering where he put certain items. His phone was probably the biggest offender - perhaps closely followed by his car keys back home, when he was back home.

  After putting his hands in his pockets at least five times, Jake decided that he would have to return downstairs and ask the staff if they’d seen it. He and Dan had lingered after mostly everyone had left, just talking about the film they were about to make, talking about Dan’s family and kids. Dan was one of the few people in this industry Jake felt he actually connected to - Dan didn’t enter it looking for anything but himself. He liked to create things. He liked to shape things. And that’s what he was good at.

  The dining area was mostly put back together - and conveniently, his waitress from dinner was there, shuffling tables back into what he assumed were their original places. He cleared his throat, and she stilled when she saw him.

  “Oh, hi,” she said, after a brief hesitation. “What can I do for you?”

  Jake stepped closer. “I’m sorry to bother you. But it appears I’ve lost my mobile. Did you happen to find one?”

  Comprehension dawned on her face. “Oh, yeah, I did. It was on the floor. Let me go get it.”

  She left him alone, shuffling off to the kitchen. He caught the sounds of dishes being washed as the door opened, that unmistakable clang, clang sound only found in restaurants, and then silence washed over the room as it shut.

  It was only about a minute before she appeared again, face flushed. He couldn’t help but notice that she was quite pretty: brown hair done back in an elegant knot, defined eyebrows with expressive green eyes. But it was the way she moved that struck him: with confidence, but not overbearingly so. To him, it seemed obvious that she knew exactly who she was and what she wanted out of life, and he felt a slight pang in his chest, wondering what that would feel like.

  He realized that he had distracted himself, and he flushed a little, blinking as he looked down at the phone in her hands.

  “This is what I found. Is this yours?”

  He took it, fingers brushing hers, the slight touch startling. His thumbprint unlocked the mobile, the familiar background and array of apps a strange relief.

  “Ah, yes, I’d say so,” he replied, recovering quickly from that awkward moment. “I really appreciate your help.”

  She nodded. “It’s no problem, sir.”

  “Oh, please, call me Jake,” he said. He extended a hand to her and smiled warmly. “Jake Mason.”

  Her eyebrows knit together, her eyes unreadable. She extended her hand, too, and they shook.

  “I’m Cassie Mills. It’s nice to meet you. How are you liking Kittanning?”

  Letting go of her hand, Jake ran his through his hair, a small smile on his face.

  “Honestly, I’ve seen so little of it, I can’t say. Your downtown is quite picturesque. And the view of the river, and the hills, is quite beautiful.”

  “How long are you here for?”

  “About two months. I believe August 25th is the official end date.”

  “Oh, you’ll have plenty of time to see what we have to offer,” Cassie said, laughing. “It’s not exactly a big town.”

  Something about her instantly invited him in - she seemed so open, in a way he couldn’t explain. He wanted very much to ask her to show him this town, to take her to her favorite spots and go for a walk along the river - but then he thought of the cameras outside, the paparazzi. And then he thought of how audacious it would be to become involved with someone he would inevitably leave in two months. And then, a nasty, sinister voice whispered in the back of his head, she’d only use you anyway.

  “Perhaps I’ll do some exploring, then,” he said finally, after what he imagined to be an inordinately long pause. He dipped his head to her. “I thank you again for helping me find my mobile. Perhaps I’ll see you around.”

  If she found his behavior odd, she didn’t give it away. “Oh, it was no problem. Have a good night, Jake.”

  He gave her a small - albeit awkward - wave as he left the dining room, noticing that the other waitress from dinner had exited the kitchen. Perhaps it was good timing on his part to end the conversation there. He didn’t wait for the elevator - he bounded up the stairs to his second floor room, quietly traversing the corridor so as to not alert Alexa of his presence if she happened to be in her room at all. After gaining entrance to his own room, he placed the Do Not Disturb sign on the handle, shutting and locking it behind him.

  After breathing a sigh of relief, he plopped onto the couch. It was barely past seven, and he was already exhausted, ready for bed, but wanted to hold off as long as possible to overcome the jet lag he felt. He dove into the carry-on bag resting on the coffee table in front of him, pulling out Crime and Punishment, his current classic novel that he was failing miserably at reading because he was only fifteen pages in and had started it over a week ago. He settled down to it, opening it to his marked page.

  There was something nagging him, in the back of his head, that he couldn’t quite rid himself of. Like there was something he was forgetting. The words on the page swam before him as he failed to concentrate on them; he instead thought of Cassie, whom he figured must feel herself quite lucky at meeting him tonight. He wondered bitterly if she was bragging to her friends about their conversation, about the way he had seemingly stared at her.

  He sighed out loud, shutting the book, tossing it aside and leaning back deeply into the couch. Had he always been this miserable? And, on that note, how narcissistic could he get, really? Was there ever going to be an interaction he had after which he didn’t constantly question the motives of the other person? As far as he could tell, Cassie was entirely unmoved by meeting him. She didn’t appear nervous. She didn’t ask for an autograph or a photo. Must everyone he meet have some ulterior motive?

  Jake ran his hand through his hair again, his head beginning to pound again. He wondered numbly when he had become so cold.

  It was nearly ten o’clock by the time Cassie left the hotel for home. After dinner was done, and Jake and the bearded man had finally departed, putting everything back together plus side work and preparation for the breakfast buffet for the next morning, took a bit longer than usual.

  She was thoroughly beat - those buffet chafers were extremely heavy, despite the help she got from Matt and Trish - and her feet practically dragged on the sidewalks. She allowed herself to look up at the summer sky where the stars were dimly twinkling. She heard the sound of cars crossing the bridge, just out of sight, echoing.

  After Jake had left she had forced herself to forget him and that strange encounter. She could now thoroughly say that she had never met anyone like him before. He seemed so kind, and just so...different. Distant, she supposed. And, after he flashed one of those smiles, she could understand why Sam was all freaked out about him being here. His charm was disarming in a way she had never experienced before. And not to mention, charm of any reasonable measure period was hard to come by around here.

  She wondered why he had taken the time to talk to her at all. She could tell he was, at least at first, invested in their conversation, until the end when he got all clammy and ducked out of there. She had wondered briefly if she had said something wrong, but then she heard dishes and saw that Trish had come out of the kitchen into the dining room.

  “Was that Jake Mason?” Trish had asked, a mild look of surprise on her face.

  “Yeah. It was his phone I had found,” Cassie had answered, moving back to pulling tables around. Trish joined to help.

  “He was a lot nicer than I thought he’d be.”

  “Yeah, he was,” Cassie replied. They had said nothing more on the subject.

  The porch light was on at her mom’s house, and she grabbed her keys, quietly opening the door in case her mom was asleep. Once inside, she could see the dim light of the TV bleeding into the hall, brandishing eerily over the house plants.

 
She stepped into the mostly dark living room, her mom asleep in her chair, her knitting laying forgotten in her lap. Cassie gently picked it up, placed it on the wicker basket at her mom’s feet.

  “Mom,” Cassie said quietly, turning to the TV. The local news. Jake’s face splayed across the screen, clips from some of his films. The quiet voices explaining that he was in Kittanning, and he would be for at least two months. She grabbed the remote from the end table and muted it. “Mom,” she said again.

  Her mom opened her eyes. Her mom, Jessica Mills, was 49 - a “young mom” they had said when Cassie was in school. She couldn’t remember a time when they were ever apart. She had left home briefly a couple of years ago to go to the University of Pittsburgh, for two semesters. She hadn’t liked it and came back home.

  “Oh dear, I fell asleep at the television again,” her mom said, her voice soft with sleep.

  Cassie chuckled. “Yeah, you did. I figured you didn’t want a crick in your neck, so I’m waking you up. It’s a little after ten.”

  She stopped mid-stretch. “Oh God. You walked home this late at night?”

  That unmistakable tone of voice made it very hard for Cassie not to roll her eyes.

  “Mom. We live in the smallest town in the world. The only thing after me might be a squirrel.”

  The older woman stood up, crossing her arms.

  “We’ve talked about this about a hundred times.”

  Cassie stepped back, not in the mood to press the matter. “I’m sorry, mom. But I didn't know I’d be that late.”

  Her mom sighed, lowering her arms.

  “You know I worry. I can’t help it.” She crossed the living room, heading toward the hall, to the stairs. “I’m heading to bed. Good night, dear.”

  “Love you,” Cassie replied, glancing back to the TV. Muted voices moved onto a major crash on 422, a toppled over semi from the looks of it. It had backed up oncoming traffic for six miles.

  She shut the TV off, shrouding the room in darkness. Making her own way upstairs, she held back a sudden, irrational feeling of melancholy she felt sometimes. She ignored the family portraits leading up the stairs, those stark reminders that her family of two should have really been three. Ignoring that gaping hole that sickness had left, sickness that couldn’t be healed.

  She passed her mom’s room, into her own, and took her phone out. Sam had texted her a couple times over the course of the day; Cassie had been too busy to reply and now she knew she should.

  Saw Jake tonight. Don’t freak out. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. I’m feeling bad again.

  Her evasive text was just detailed enough that Sam probably wouldn’t call her - she knew better than to try to ‘fix’ Cassie during these moments. She shrugged her clothes off, making her way to the shower, washing the day away and that restaurant smell that never seemed to go away unless you scrubbed.

  After she was clean, she went back to her room, putting on pajamas, checking her phone again.

  Please feel better. I’m always here for you.

  She smiled at her phone, set it down. She wondered mildly if she would ever feel better.

  Lying down in bed, she shut her light off, eyes fixed on the window. Being a small town, it wasn’t too often cars would drive by the house so late, but occasionally one would, lights bleeding through the curtain, trailing across the room. Inexplicably, she wondered what Jake was doing right now. Was he staring morosely at the window in bed too, or was he up partying with his crew members? She tried to picture him, but could barely get the details right. The only thing she could remember clearly was that smile, and how it had made her feel.

  It was a bit of a struggle, falling asleep, but she finally did, leaving the world behind her.

  The hum of the background noise faded away, at least momentarily, for Cassie as she sat back in her seat inside the local coffee shop, computer out and fully connected to the internet. It wasn’t even ten, but the place was packed, maybe more packed than usual for a Tuesday. She figured that the movie probably attracted a lot of tourists, and wondered glumly if this was her future for the next two months. She had a paper due in a week and this was one of her favorite schoolwork spots.

  Sam was supposed to be there any minute; she had said she’d be there around ten or so to catch up on the events from the evening prior. Cassie had woken up in a much better mood than she had fallen asleep in, and she had called Sam to ask if she wanted to meet for a coffee.

  Watching the line dwindle down a bit, she wondered how many of these people were film crew members. How many people did it take to make a movie, anyway? She tried to think of all the credit scenes she had watched in her life, but couldn’t think of any she had watched all the way through. Didn’t they kind of go on forever? Was that long list of people going to be here for two months, or were some of those people behind the scenes, in Hollywood?

  These would be great questions for Jake, she mused. And then she realized what an idiotic thought that was. Jake was a guest, at least for the time being, until they set up the campers and trailers or whatever it was that actors stayed in during filming. And after he checked out, she was unlikely to ever see him again, except from afar. She didn’t know him just because they had spoken for a few minutes the night before.

  “Cassie!”

  Cursing at herself for not writing a single word since she sat down, she looked up to see Sam waving at her from the line. There were three people in front of her. Waving back, she closed her computer and took a sip of her caramel latte.

  Sam had been her best friend for as long as she could remember, ever since Sam had moved here when they were in second grade. From the first day that she was introduced and the teacher had her sit at Cassie’s grouping, they had been practically inseparable. Cassie smiled at the memories; they had gotten into a lot of trouble together, had a lot of fun together.

  Looking at her now, Sam sported a short blond cut that highly accented her fair complected face, in that stylish way Cassie could only envy. She was dressed casually in a pair of jean shorts and a tank top, a nod to the already humid morning. As if sensing her gaze, Sam turned to look at her. They wrinkled their noses at each other from across the coffee shop.

  Cassie knew that Sam was going to grill her about last night. She always seemed to know what was happening in the pop culture world, whereas Cassie couldn’t care less most of the time. But Sam grounded her in a lot of ways, and over the last fourteen months, reminded her that life wasn’t always so bad. They rarely argued about anything important, and Cassie could count on only one hand the number of times they’d ever been in a real fight.

  “Ugh, what’s up with the crowd?” Sam said as she came over to her, iced coffee in hand. She sat down across from Cassie, crossing her legs, her decorative sandals catching the light.

  “I know, right? I guess because of the movie.”

  “We’ll totally talk about that, but first I wanted to make sure...are you okay? I mean, really?”

  Cassie met her eye, and then dipped her head, suddenly finding the white cap on her coffee cup quite interesting.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I don’t know what got into me, you know?”

  She looked up to see a small, empathetic smile on Sam’s face. “Yeah, I know. And you know I’m always here for you, if you want to talk.”

  She did not say that glaringly obvious thing. And Cassie was grateful for it.

  “Thanks. I do know that.”

  There was a brief moment of silence, as they looked at each other, trying to decide who should speak next. Sam broke down first.

  “So? Let’s talk about Jake. And last night. I can’t believe they closed the restaurant! Just tell me everything.”

  Cassie laughed a bit at her enthusiasm.

  “Well, okay. Dinner was fine. It was full of a bunch of people I didn’t recognize, except for Jake, of course, and this one other woman next to him.”

  “What did she look like?” Sam asked before Cassie could say anything else.r />
  “Hmm. She had long, black hair. Dark skin. I recognized her from -”

  “Hearts Over Atlantis!” Sam finished for her, her excitement poorly contained, and Cassie recalled that was the sci-fi movie they had seen together that Sam liked so much. Sam looked around the coffee shop, and elected to lower her voice a bit. “That’s Alexa Thompson! What was she like?”

  Cassie hesitated, but decided to tell the truth. “She wasn’t that nice to me, honestly.” Noting Sam’s disappointed face, she added, “But, who knows? Maybe she was having a bad day. She and Jake seemed friendly enough.”

  Hearing that, Sam perked up. “Ohhh, but I heard they had a falling out three years ago. Remember when they were in All Systems On together?”

  Having never heard of it, Cassie shook her head.

  “Well, it wasn’t that good,” Sam replied, waving her hand dismissively. “But the rumors were that they were practically dating, and then suddenly they weren’t talking to each other anymore. Maybe the rumors aren’t true, then, if they were sitting right next to each other? Or maybe they made up?”

  They fell into silence - Sam’s, Cassie suspected, was of a more contemplative nature than hers. She took another sip of her cooling latte, the coffee shop’s customers filtering out quickly.

  “What about Jake Mason, then? What was he like?” Sam prompted her.

  Her question forced Cassie’s memories of Jake to float more strongly to the surface; he’d made an impression on her, she had grudgingly admitted to herself this morning. Although she had made a promise to herself that she wouldn’t judge these people solely based on their professions, she couldn’t help but feel a little biased toward her way over life over his.

  But that warm handshake, and the way his eyes had met hers.... She cleared her throat.

  “He was kind. Very polite. I was pleasantly surprised.”

  Sam nodded. “He’s got quite a reputation for being a nice guy. Did he say anything to you?”

  “Yes. He actually came back to the dining room, after dinner, because he had dropped his phone and was looking for it. I was there when he came in, so I got it for him. I said, ‘Here you go, sir,’ and he said, ‘Oh, please call me Jake, I’m Jake Mason’ and introduced himself to me. I asked him how he liked it here. He said he had barely seen more than what he could from the hotel, but he thought the hills and river were beautiful.”