Chapter 6: The Weekend Before
The scent of her perfume had faded from the sheets, replaced by the persistent, lonely smell of dust and old coffee. Marc lay awake in the dark, the neon "OPEN" sign from the garage below painting a bleeding red rectangle on his ceiling. Her folded denim shirt was a dark shape on the chair. He hadn’t moved it.
A week had passed. Texts came in flashes—a photo of a script piled on a hotel bed, a close-up of terrible craft service sushi, a voice note of her laughing about a co-star’s ridiculous on-set obsession with kombucha. He’d sent back pictures of the Bronco’s progress, a snapped shot of Gus napping against a tire stack, the moon over the city skyline from his rooftop. It was a conversation built in fragments, a bridge made of matchsticks spanning a canyon.
Then, late Friday night, his phone buzzed with a call, not a text. Her number.
“I’m at LAX,” she said, her voice scratchy with fatigue. “Flight gets in at six AM. Can I… come over?”
He was already sitting up, the sheets falling away. “Yes.”
He spent the hours before dawn in a state of suspended animation. He didn’t clean. He didn’t pace. He just sat at his small kitchen table, listening to the hum of the refrigerator and the distant, intermittent wail of sirens. The city was a sleeping machine, and he was a single still cog.
A key turned in the apartment door’s lock—he’d given her his spare the morning she left, a silent act of faith. She pushed it open, a duffel bag slumping from her shoulder. She looked eroded. Her blonde hair was stuffed under a battered baseball cap, her eyes shadowed. She wore oversized sweats and sneakers. She looked, more than ever, like someone trying to disappear into their own corners.
She didn’t say hello. She dropped the bag, toed off her shoes, and walked straight into him where he sat. He wrapped his arms around her waist, his face pressed against the soft cotton of her hoodie. She was shaking, a fine, almost imperceptible tremor. He just held on.
“Bad flight?” he murmured into her hoodie.
“Bad everything,” she said, her voice muffled. “Just… hold on.”
They stayed like that until the tremor subsided, until the first gray light of Saturday morning began to dilute the darkness. She finally pulled back, her hands coming up to frame his face. She studied him, her blue eyes searching his as if checking for damage. “You’re here,” she said, simply.
“Where else would I be?”
A ghost of her real smile appeared. She pulled her cap off, shook her hair loose, and then leaned in to kiss him. It was less a kiss and more a transfer, a slow, deep sigh of shared breath that felt like a homecoming. The taste of stale airplane and mint gum, the feel of her cool hands on his neck, the solid reality of her weight in his lap—it all coalesced into a single, anchoring point in his universe.
She broke the kiss, resting her forehead against his. “I have thirty-six hours,” she whispered. “Then I’m back for two weeks of reshoots. Sixteen-hour days. No life.”
“Thirty-six hours is plenty,” he said, his thumbs tracing the arcs of her cheekbones.
“It’s nothing,” she countered, but she was already unbuttoning his worn flannel shirt, her fingers nimble and urgent. “Six weeks of principal photography is nothing. That’s what I kept telling myself. But it felt like a year.” She pushed the fabric off his shoulders.
The dawn light strengthened, filtering through the cheap vinyl blinds and striping their skin with pale gold. There were no more words for a while. There was the quiet rustle of clothing, the groan of the old bedsprings, the sharp intake of breath that was both his and hers. It was slower than their first time, less frenetic, but layered with a new and desperate currency. Every touch was a claim staked, a memory minted against the coming absence. Her mouth on his shoulder, her nails scoring gentle tracks down his back—these were silent arguments against the separation.
Later, tangled in sheets that now smelled of them both, of sweat and skin and her specific, clean scent, she traced the lines of his hand. “Tell me something real,” she said, her head on his chest. “Something that happened here.”
He told her about Mrs. Gabletti’s shih tzu getting loose and running into the garage, about Gus trying to corral it with a timing belt. He described the specific, satisfying thunk of the Bronco’s new brake calipers seating perfectly. He talked about the weird silence in the apartment after she left, how he’d finally taken her folded shirt and hung it in his closet, not because he didn’t want it out, but because seeing it every day was a distraction he couldn’t afford.
She listened, her breathing steady. “I like that,” she said. “The distraction part.”
“It’s true.”
“I know.” She rolled onto her stomach, propping her chin on his chest to look at him. “My week was all unreal. Fake snow on a soundstage that smells like plastic. Listening to my love interest—a guy who calls everyone ‘dude’ and has his assistant chew his food for him—try to summon emotional depth. It’s…” She searched for the word. “Soulless.”
“So why do it?”
She was quiet for a long moment. “Because I’m good at it. And because once you’re on the train, it’s hard to jump off. There’s momentum. Expectations. Contracts.” She let out a frustrated sigh. “I just… I need it to mean something. The work. And most days, out there, it doesn’t.”
He understood momentum. A car rolling downhill. You could steer, but you couldn’t stop the forward plunge without breaking something.
They dozed, a heavy, sun-warmed sleep. When he woke, the room was bright. She was gone from the bed. A spike of cold disappointment shot through him before he heard the soft clatter from the kitchen.
He found her standing at his sink, washing the week’s accumulation of coffee mugs. She wore his t-shirt, the one with the faded band logo he’d never heard of. It swam on her. Her hair was a mess, her face free of any makeup, and she looked more beautiful than any photo he’d ever seen of her.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said, leaning against the doorframe.
“I know,” she said, not turning around. “I want to. It’s… real.” She said the word like a sacrament.
They spent the day in a bubble of mundane grace. He made eggs. She toasted bread. They took the Bronco for a long, aimless drive, the windows down, her hand resting on his thigh. They didn’t talk about her flight that night. They talked about engine displacement, about the best burger joint in the city (they disagreed), about the stubborn rust spot on the Bronco’s tailgate.
In the afternoon, back in the apartment, she saw his toolbox sitting open by the door, left from fixing a leaky faucet. She knelt, picked up a socket wrench, and fitted a socket onto it with a precise click.
“Show me,” she said.
“Show you what?”
“Something. Anything. How this works. How you see it.”
So he sat on the floor with her, the tools between them. He showed her the difference between a six-point and a twelve-point socket. He explained torque, how it wasn’t just about strength but about feel. He let her tighten a bolt on a loose hinge on his coffee table, guiding her hand until she felt the moment it was “snug, not strained.”
She watched his face as he talked, her expression one of intense focus. He realized, with a jolt, that no one had ever looked at him like that while he explained a simple mechanical concept. It wasn’t admiration. It was comprehension. She was learning his language.
As the evening bled into dusk, the unspoken deadline gathered in the corners of the room. She packed her duffel bag with a slow, deliberate sadness. She put on her own clothes—the armor of her other life. The transformation was subtle but absolute. The woman in the designer jeans and soft cashmere sweater was Sydney Sweeney, the actress. He could see the mask settling, even though her eyes when they met his were still entirely, vulnerably her.
Her phone buzzed on the table. A car was downstairs.
She walked over to his closet, opened it, and took the denim shirt of his she’d worn before off the hanger. She folded it carefully and placed it in her bag. “I’m keeping this,” she said, her voice defiant.
“It smells like me,” he said. “And grease.”
“I know.” She zipped the bag closed. The sound was final.
At the door, she turned to him. The neon sign’s red glow caught the side of her face. “Thirty-six hours wasn’t enough,” she said. The lie from the morning was gone. The truth was raw between them.
“No,” he agreed.
She kissed him, a deep, lingering press of lips that promised nothing and everything. Then she straightened her shoulders, the movement small but significant, and picked up her bag. “Don’t wait up,” she said, a weak attempt at their old, light-hearted tone.
He caught her wrist as she reached for the doorknob. His grip wasn’t forceful, just an anchor. The red glow from the neon sign painted a streak across her cheek like a wound.
“Sydney.”
She froze, her back to him. Her shoulders were tight under the cashmere. Down on the street, a car horn gave a single, polite tap. The sound was a judge’s gavel.
She turned. Her eyes were glassy, fierce. The polished mask was gone, completely shattered. What was left underneath was pure, undisguised want, and a pain so deep it stopped his breath. The look lasted only a second before her mouth was on his, a collision of teeth and tongue and stifled sound.
It was a kiss that tasted like salt and goodbye. Her bag thudded to the floor. His hands fisted in the expensive sweater, pulling it up, needing the heat of her skin. She tore at his belt buckle, the metal clattering against the doorframe. There was no grace here, no slow discovery. It was a frantic race against the clock ticking in both their chests.
She walked him backwards, shoving him until his legs hit the edge of the bed. He sat, looking up at her. The city’s light from the window cut her silhouette into something stark and powerful. Her fingers hooked into the waistband of his jeans and boxers, shoving them down his thighs. His cock sprung free, already fully hard, aching.
“Don’t talk,” she ordered, her voice ragged. She pushed her own jeans and underwear down in one rough jerk, not even stepping out of them. They tangled around her ankles as she climbed onto the bed, straddling his lap. Her cunt was already wet, the heat of it radiating against him. She grasped his shaft, her grip firm, and positioned him at her entrance.
She looked him dead in the eyes, her breathing shallow and fast.
"I have thirty minutes before I really have to go," she said, each word a hard, separate pellet of sound. "I need you inside me now."
She didn’t wait. She sank down onto him, a sharp, encompassing descent that forced a grunt from his lungs. She took him deep, one relentless slide until he was buried completely, hilting inside her tight, wet heat. A choked gasp escaped her lips. She clenched around him, a pulsing, visceral grip. For a second, they were just locked there, joined, breathing each other’s air.
Then she moved. Her hips rolled, a brutal, efficient rhythm. There was no teasing, no playful buildup. This was fucking, pure and simple. Her nails dug into his shoulders. Each downward thrust was a claim, each rise a surrender to gravity. The bedsprings shrieked in protest. He gripped her hips, his rough mechanic’s fingers leaving marks on her skin, helping to drive her up and down his length.
“Fuck, yes,” she hissed, her forehead dropping to his. Sweat beaded along her hairline. “Just like that. Don’t stop.”
He could feel every detail—the silken clutch of her inner muscles, the slick friction as she rode him, the coarse patch of her pubic hair grinding against him. The room filled with the sounds of it: skin slapping skin, their ragged breaths, the creaking bed. The red neon light wavered over their joined bodies, a hellish strobe.
Her pace became punishing, desperate. She was chasing something, a finish line only she could see. One of his hands left her hip and slid between them, his thumb finding her clit. She jerked against him, a violent spasm, and a filthy, broken moan ripped from her throat.
“Right there, god, right fucking there,” she chanted, her voice climbing. Her movements lost all coordination, becoming a frantic, bouncing assault. He thrust up to meet her, driving deeper. The pressure coiled at the base of his spine, a ticking bomb.
She came with a raw, guttural cry, her body seizing around him in waves of intense, clenching heat. The convulsion of her orgasm tipped him over the edge. He held her hips hard against him, pumping his cum deep inside her with a groan that was half her name, half a surrender.
For a long moment, they were still, a single heaving organism in the red-dark room. The car horn sounded again, two long blasts this time.
Slowly, she lifted off him, a slow, wet separation. She didn’t look at him as she pulled her jeans up. She walked to the bathroom on unsteady legs. He heard the tap run. He sat on the ravaged bed, listening to the water, listening to the silence that followed.
She emerged, her face washed, hair hastily rearranged. The mask was back, but it was fragile, a crack running right through the center. She picked up her bag.
No kiss goodbye. No final words. She just looked at him from the doorway, her blue eyes holding all the words they didn’t have time for.
Then she was gone. The door clicked shut.
The apartment settled into a silence that felt heavier than before. The smell of sex and sweat hung in the air. The neon sign bled its endless red. Marc looked at the empty space where she had stood, at the indentation on the bed, at his own spent body.
Down on the street, a car door closed. An engine purred to life and faded into the city’s hum.
Thirty minutes had been too long. And it had been nothing at all.
The silence after she left had a texture. It was thick, granular, like dust motes suspended in the neon-tinged air. Marc sat on the edge of the ruined bed, the impression of her body already cooling beside him. Down on the street, a garbage truck groaned and beeped, its rhythms mundane and brutal.
He moved through the following days in a mechanical blur. Wrench turned bolts. Coffee was poured and forgotten. Gus watched him with a silent, knowing scrutiny, but said nothing. The Bronco, now fully cured, sat covered in the corner bay like a tethered ghost. He found himself avoiding it.
A week bled into two. Her texts became sporadic, islands of connection in a widening sea of time zones and studio nights. A photo of a sunrise from a trailer window. A voice memo of her singing along badly to a radio song. They were beams of light under a door, showing only slivers of the room beyond.
The physical ache of her absence metabolized into a constant, low-grade hum in his nervous system. He’d catch the scent of her shampoo on his pillowcase, though he’d washed the sheets twice. He’d see a blonde head in a crowd and his chest would constrict, a false alarm that left him feeling foolish and hollow.
One Tuesday afternoon, the city was baking under a hazy sun. Marc was elbow-deep in a particularly stubborn oil pan gasket on a Subaru, the knuckles of both hands scraped raw. Sweat dripped off his nose and sizzled on the hot engine block.
“Mail’s here,” Gus grunted, shuffling in from the office and dropping a small stack of envelopes and flyers onto the workbench. Bills. A parts catalog. A circular for a pizzeria that had closed six months ago.
Marc grunted, not looking up. He wrestled with a corroded bolt, his world narrowed to shear force and stubborn metal.
Gus lingered, thumbing through the junk. “Got something here that doesn’t look like a threat from the power company.” His tone was casually observational.
Marc finally wiped his hands on a rag, leaving dark streaks across the gray cloth. He walked over. On top of the pile lay a standard Express Mail envelope. It was stark white and crisp, conspicuously clean amidst the garage’s grime. His name and address were written in a looping, elegant script he didn’t recognize. There was no return address.
The postmark was Los Angeles.
His greasy fingers left faint smudges on the pristine paper as he picked it up. It felt heavy, but not with pages. Something rigid was inside. He tore the top off, a sharp sound that made Gus look over.
Inside was a single, first-class plane ticket. Los Angeles (LAX) to New York (JFK). Friday. Tomorrow’s date. His name was printed perfectly in the passenger field.
Beneath the ticket, on a heavy, cream-colored card, was a note. The same looping script.
Marc,
PLEASE COME I MISS YOU AND I NEED YOU.
XXX SYDNEY
He stared at the words. The letters seemed to pulse on the card. I NEED YOU. Not ‘want.’ Need. A word that bypassed polish and descended straight to the bone. The three X’s at the bottom were dark, the pen pressed deep into the paper.
Gus peered at the ticket, then at Marc’s frozen face. “Problem?”
“No,” Marc said, his voice strangely quiet. “It’s from her.”
“The actress.” Gus didn’t make it a question. He wiped his own hands on his apron. “Tomorrow, huh? Short notice.”
Marc couldn’t formulate a thought. The noise of the garage—the radio, the traffic, the hum of the fluorescent lights—receded into a dull buzz. All he could see was the desperation in those pen strokes, the uncharacteristic lack of punctuation, the naked plea. This wasn’t the woman who gave a polished interview or carefully crafted a text. This was the woman from the overlook, from his kitchen floor, from the red-lit bedroom. This was the woman who was coming undone.
“You gonna go?” Gus asked, his voice cutting through the static.
Marc looked at his uncle, then down at his own hands. They were stained with grease, the cuts from the Subaru weeping tiny beads of blood. They were hands that fixed broken things. They were sturdy. Blue collar. Real.
She needed them. She needed him.
He looked back at the ticket, at the frantic, beautiful handwriting. He thought of her straddling him in the dawn light, her declaration a lie they both chose to believe. He thought of her folded denim shirt in a suitcase three thousand miles away.
“Yeah,” Marc said, the word leaving his lungs in a rush. “I think I have to.”