Read Online Monsters by Liz Kay - Free Book Online Page B

book up off the table. “So where did all this come from?”
    I laugh. “I have no idea. I couldn’t tell you how it all works.” I pull my bottom lip in with my teeth, but not in a nervous way. I’m doing this on purpose. Jason smiles.
    Tommy crosses the room and sits in the chair across from us. Heleans forward, rests his elbows on his knees, and looks at Jason. “So, what are your thoughts?”
    â€œWell”—he turns to Tommy—“I’ve read the script, and I like it. I do. I think it has potential.”
    â€œBut?”
    Jason tosses his hands up. “I don’t know. There’s some fucked-up shit in this thing, no offense.” He reaches across the couch like he means to pat my hand, but there’s a lot of space between us. He doesn’t even come close.
    â€œI think,” I say, “you’re focusing on the wrong things.”
    Jason looks back at me. I swirl the vodka in my glass, watch the ice spin and settle.
    â€œThe story isn’t about the things that happen. It’s about the people they happen to. All of this violence that sort of builds up around them, that isn’t the story, Jason.” When I say his name, I look back at him. I look him in the eye. “It’s just the lens through which we discover these characters, who they are, what makes them, what tears them down.”
    Jason takes a breath, he raises his eyebrows, he looks at my breasts. I lean and stretch my arm to set my glass on the table, and when I sit up, I may shift my shoulders back a bit.
    â€œOkay, keep talking,” Jason says, and I do. I talk about the characters and the book and the script. I talk about Tommy, how much I trust him with this, how much I’m willing to trust Jason because Tommy says I should
.
Tommy is watching me too, but I only look at Jason. Jason I can handle. Jason I’ve got.
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    By the time Jason leaves, he and Tommy have a handshake deal that they’ve sealed with yet another round of drinks. In the foyer, Jasonkisses my cheek a little sloppily, and his hand slides a bit lower on my back than his third wife would probably like.
    When Tommy closes the door behind Jason, he leans his head against it for a moment, lets his hand rest on the door frame. “Oh shit,” he whispers. “We’ve got him. We’ve fucking got him.” He turns around, and he’s smiling. Not just a smile really, more like a grin. “And you.” He walks toward me, grabs me by the shoulders. “Jesus, who are you? Why have I never met this Stacey before? I have to hang out with boring, uptight, pissed-off-all-the-time Stacey, and he gets fun, sexy Stacey. That’s kind of bullshit.”
    â€œFuck you,” I say, shoving him backwards and turning toward the living room.
    â€œSee? There’s my girl. There’s the Stacey I know.”
    I drop down on the couch, lay my head back, close my eyes, but I feel him sit in the spot where Jason had been. I hear his feet thunk onto the table.
    â€œYou look beat. Go lay down,” he says, and he sets his hand on my leg, so he must be sitting closer than I’d thought. “We’ve got hours before dinner. Go get some sleep.”
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    When I open my eyes, the light from the window has faded. It’s seven forty-five, and we’re supposed to be leaving at eight. I didn’t bother to set an alarm because I can never sleep. Except today, which is brilliant.
    I’d at least had the good sense to take my clothes off and lay them over a chair in the corner so they wouldn’t get wrinkled. I slip them back on, walk into the bathroom to touch up my eyes, my lips, pull my fingers through my hair. I shake it out and let it fall around myshoulders.
This is not about Tommy,
I think because of course it isn’t. I just like to make a good