“Why?” he asks, setting his cup down on the counter behind him.
“Because I want people to see us happy and smiling together. I don’t want the only picture of us together to be the one private moment.”
“You know that no matter what picture you put out there, the other will always be there, right?” Something I don’t need him to tell me because I know how it works. “And that the world loves a scandal, so it’s easier for them to grasp onto the gossip than on the reality.”
“I know that whatever happens with us, even if we are together for ten years, that picture will always be there, but I want to have others there also.”
“If that is what you want to do, I’ll stand behind you.” I’m surprised but not really; that’s the real Tyler.
“Don’t you want to read it?” He shakes his head at the question.
“If you want me to, I will, but I don’t need to.” He comes to me, and I turn on the stool. “If you need to do this, then do it. I stand behind you, every time.” He stands between my legs now, and I kiss him, tasting the coffee on his lips. He peels the shirt off me, then picks me up, and turns to the bedroom.
“Wait,” I tell him, and he stops in place. “I want to post it, and then I want you to take me back to bed.” He walks back to the island and sets me back on the stool. I open my Facebook and Instagram and post it at the same time, attaching the other photo of us. The one where both of us are smiling, and his arm is over my shoulder. I close the computer, and he takes me back to bed, where we stay well into the evening. His phone goes off most of the day, no doubt because of the social media post that is now trending all over the place.
How I fell for the Hollywood Playboy
Jessica Hawthorn
If someone would have told me that going on a thirty-day press tour would be life-altering, I would have laughed at them and went on with my day. What I will say is this. I fell for a man, who, at the end of the day, is just a man regardless of his job. A private and intimate picture was stolen and distributed to every single paper and online publication out there, making our secret feel dirty. And I’m done with people trying to dissect and ruin it, so this is my comment on the picture.
I was asked . . . no, I take that back. I was ordered to go on this press tour, regardless of how I felt for Tyler. I’m not going to lie, and I have people who can confirm the two of us started off on the wrong foot. We didn’t even try to hide our animosity toward each other.
I tried to push him to the edge of the cliff, going above and beyond his limits, and he tried to get me thrown off the press tour. I guess it really was like two kids on the playground not getting along with each other. But in the end, I had a job to do, and I would stand by my commitment.
One day, I was running on the treadmill. It was maybe six forty-five, and he got on the one next to me. With just the two of us in the room, what was I to do? I looked over and said good morning. I think I got a grunt, I’m not even sure. But at least I got something, right?
I guess that was the first thing we had in common because we both got up at six every day to run on the treadmill. Every morning, we would run side by side. Sometimes we would talk, sometimes I would ignore him or vice versa, and then sometime during those early morning miles, the unthinkable happened. I stopped resenting him.
I watched him interact with others with a smile on his face the whole time. I watched him stand in line and sign autographs for hours with his fans. After I stopped resenting him, I started respecting him. It wasn’t easy to be him. The press was always there trying to catch his every moment, to catch when he stopped smiling so they could speculate as to the why, to catch the one moment they could report on, me included. He lives his life under the microscope, and I don’t know how he does it with a smile on his face.
Ten journalists were invited on this press tour, and I expected him to interact with us only when he needed to, but I was wrong. He got on the bus just like we did, and he sometimes even carried his own bag. He took the ten of us out to eat the best ramen noodles from a small little hole in the wall. The next day, he took me for a motorcycle ride. He wasn’t Tyler the actor—he was Tyler the man—and I started to look at him differently. He wasn’t the condescending a-hole I thought he was. He is thoughtful, he is kind, he is funny, he is compassionate, he is considerate, he is courteous, and he is generous. He is all that and more, and more importantly, I get to call him mine.
I won’t go into detail of how we started this because that is for him and me, and those moments are all ours. WE get to keep that.
The only thing I will admit to is that I fell in love with a man, and lucky for me, he feels the same way I do. So there you have it, folks. How I fell in love with Hollywood’s Playboy. I won’t hide it anymore, and I won’t deny it. Tyler Beckett owns my heart. Cheesy, right? But hey, you do cheesy things when you fall in love.
Sincerely,
Jessica
The next day, the letter is still trending, and I spend the day unpacking my stuff. Tyler sits on the bed dressed in shorts, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap on his head while he flips through the channels on the television. “When is Australia?” I ask him, sticking my head out of the closet. I’m wearing white shorts today with a gray sweater.
“In five days,” he says, looking over at me. He tried to get out of it, but then he turned the tables around and forced his hand. He would only go if I went with him. So I glared at him, then agreed to because he deserves to go out with a bang. “The flight is fifteen hours from LA, so I was thinking we could fly into LA in the morning and take off at eleven p.m. We can sleep on the plane, and we’ll arrive there at seven a.m. two days later.”
“I don’t think I’m comfortable in the press tour plane with Yamina and Yolanda, so I can book a flight and just meet you there.”
He shakes his head. “I got us our own plane. I’m not doing the press tour plane.”
“You don’t have to do that. I can catch a flight; it’s the same thing,” I tell him, walking to the bed. “It’s money wasted for nothing.”
“Jessica, we are flying together, period.” He looks at me and then leans forward, grabbing me and pulling me onto the bed. “It has its own bedroom,” he says, pulling me on top of him. “It’s just the two of us. I asked my parents, but my father wasn’t down with wearing a monkey suit again.” I laugh at him. I try to argue with him, but five days later, we are pulling up to the private plane, and climbing up the stairs. A table with four chairs is right at the entrance, a couch set right behind it with another two chairs and their own table.
“Welcome,” the flight attendant says. “We will be taking off as soon as we load the bags.” I smile at her and walk toward one of the chairs, setting my bag on it. “Would you care for some champagne?”
“Yes,” Tyler says, “but we’ll be taking it in the bedroom please.” She nods her head at him, and I look down embarrassed.
“She knows we are going to be having sex,” I hiss at him. “You don’t have to tell everyone.”
“Who said we are having sex?” He winks at me, and I go to sit down. The plane takes off, and the minute he can unfasten the seat belt, he grabs me and pulls me to the back, pressing a button and the door slides open. I walk in, and sure enough, in the middle of the room is a queen-size bed with two chairs on either side. I guess those are for landing. He closes the door behind me, locks it, and proceeds to not have sex with me, first in the bed and then in one of the chairs. We get up in the morning and go out to have breakfast, sit on the couch a bit, and then go and lie in bed. I fall asleep again while he watches a movie. We land with no fanfare; the only thing waiting for us is the car he ordered.