Wow. Talk about out of nowhere, eh?

/ /

She plays it cool. She doesn't lose her head.

She plays it like the finely honed actress she has become.

She pushes Aiden's warnings to the background and she reins in her sudden joy.

She steps into those shoes – the high-heeled wonders of a tailor's closet – and walks onto the studio like she owns it. She smiles at boys who sign her checks and she gossips with the right women as they apply powder to her nose.

She flutters her eyelashes and she laughs on cue and she swoons in some man's arms – at least until some director yells out 'cut' and the charade can once more end.

She is by turns sweet and sour; she is by turns aloof and approachable.

And then, when there is not a trace of the sun left in the sky, Ashley Davies runs to Spencer Carlin.

Ashley runs to the only person who does not expect her to be anyone or anything other than herself.

/ /

Spencer's golden hair seems to dance in the breeze and Ashley has to force her eyes to stay on the highway. But their hands are locked, Ashley's right in Spencer's left, and that will do – for now, Ashley tells herself.

"So… where are we going?" Spencer asks for the third time and Ashley feels a grin tugging at her lips in response.
"Now, Spencer, if I told you that would ruin the surprise."
"And how is that a problem? What if we get to wherever we are going and I don't like it?"

Ashley tears her gaze from the dark road before them and shows off what the magazines like to call her 'doe-eyed & wounded' look. It has been on many a promotional poster and has graced many a silver screen. It has made her the object of hundreds of letters – from sympathetic girls who think they understand her pain to men who want to sock some fellow in the eye for making her look so sad.

This is the look that keeps money in Ashley's bank account.

And, right now, it is working its magic on one Spencer Carlin.

"I… I just wanted to do something nice, just something for you and me… but if you don't really want to, I mean, we can just turn around and go back…"

Ashley does it just right, too; from wide stare to the biting of her bottom lip, from the words tumbling out in a stutter instead of a confident stream. Spencer's voice dries up in return and a look of pure shock is written over her features.

And Ashley can see the apologies about to flood outward in a rush, so she drops the act as quickly as she picked it up.

"Oh, Ms. Carlin, you are too easy." Ashley says in sing-song tone and that apologetic expression that Spencer was sporting turns into indignation.
"Ashley Davies, you are a devil! I cannot believe you would trick me like that…"

Ashley cannot help it, though, and she laughs more than she has in a very long time. And Spencer keeps chastising her, but Ashley knows that no real damage has been done…

…because Spencer's hand is still firmly ensconced within Ashley's own, warm and lovely and perfect.

And they are still driving far away from Hollywood, far away from films and Aiden and Glen Carlin, far away from worries and cares, far away from all the lies.

With each other, tonight, they are actually heading somewhere – at least, for a little while… at least, for now…

/ /

You've been here so many times before.

At the door and then over the threshold; by the bar and in the shadows – just another starlet with secrets, just another abnormality that the world wants to cover up.

And you've been here before, bathed in half-light and with smoke hiding your own scent – just in case someone were looking for you, just in case someone wanted to catch you in the act of being horrible.

But, tonight, you don't feel so despicable or so terrible.

Tonight, you don't feel that wicked sting of shame and desire upon your cheeks. Tonight, the role you inhabit is one of pride and affection; tonight, you are the star of the greatest movie of your whole damn life.

Tonight, you are just Ashley and Spencer Carlin is in your arms. Tonight, you are a woman falling fast and falling hard, with nary a thought about what could be lost once you hit the ground.

Tonight, in this tiny space carved out for the likes of you, Spencer lets you lead this slow dance and her hands toy with the hair at the nape of your neck and you tilt your head so that you can kiss the soft slope of her neck.

"…You truly are a devil, Ashley…"

But Spencer says this in a whisper, all hot and delicious by Ashley's ear, and so Ashley decides that a pitchfork would go nicely with all of her expensive outfits anyway.

/ /

But she plays it cool. But she doesn't lose her head.

She turns around, like a revolving door, and comes out the other side as someone else.

Not a girl with dreams, not a woman in love – but Ashley Davies, a diva on this concrete lot and a name in a town that eats people up, that's who she becomes once more.

She toasts at the right parties and she keeps her arm intertwined with Aiden's. She holds her tongue if it'll benefit her in the long-run, but she allows some arrows to fly – if only to uphold the image of a girl you just cannot fully control.

She faces the cameras as they zoom in. She grins at the newspaper men and the fashion designers. She keeps her eyes wide open as the photographers flash around her, nothing but starry explosions as she walks down another red carpet.

/ /

But then Ashley runs like a modern-day Cinderella, runs until those glass slippers fall from her feet, and stripped bare like a babe, she shows up at Spencer Carlin's doorstep.

And the woman pulls Ashley in like a shipwreck from the sea.

/ /

"I love you, you know? More than anyone I've ever known or met…"

Spencer, pale and lovely and stretched out like the surface of the moon, simply gazes back into Ashley's awestruck eyes.

"I know, Ashley… I know."

And so the woman pulls Ashley down, down, down.

/ /

To Be Continued…