“Oh, smooth.”
“You’d get that little pensive frown you get sometimes, and you’d say, ‘Huh. No one said anything about a mandatory orientation…’” He taps his finger against his chin and I laugh at his reference to my favorite habitual word.
“So then I’d say, ‘Oh, it’s only for special freshmen—you have to be invited by a senior.’ Now you’re completely convinced that I’m full of crap. ‘Sounds like a hazing charge waiting to happen,’ you’d say. ‘No, no—would I lie to you?’ I’d say, oozing seventeen-year-old boy charm.”
“Were you this cheesy when you were seventeen?” I ask.
He grins. “Emma. I’m trying to tell a story here. And I plead the fifth.”
“Sorry.”
“So then you’d floor me. You’d say, ‘I don’t know. Would you lie to me?’ And I would look into your eyes and see everything I could ever want. I’d say, ‘Let’s skip the party. I’ll take you to dinner. And then I’ll take you somewhere private and kiss you until you tell me to quit.’ What would your answer be, Emma?”
I could barely breathe. “Oh… I think, for the sake of the story, I’d probably be okay with that.”
“You think?” His mouth turns up on one side and I can tell he’s watching me on his screen as closely as I’m watching him.
“I don’t know. I need more information about the kissing.”
He chuckles softly. “Let’s say you tell me yes, and we go to dinner. We talk, and we’re both surprised at how comfortable we feel. And then we get into my car and drive to a secluded spot overlooking our sleepy little suburban town. Totally private, dark but for a sky full of stars… and tomorrow, I’ll tell you what happens next.”
The noise that comes from my throat is half-growl and half-whimper, and he hmms. “I need to study a bit more tonight—if I even can, now—and you have to get up before five a.m. and be animated and personable on camera.”
I couldn’t care less about being animated or personable. “Mmm. More tomorrow? You won’t forget?”
“Hell no, I won’t forget,” he says, grinning. “At this point, I’ll be lucky if it doesn’t work its way into my essay on the Lost Colony of Roanoke during my final for Early Settlements of Colonial America. I can see it now: No evidence of what happened to the 114 colonists was ever found… but in my dream last night I took Emma parking and got to third base.”
“Graham!” I laugh, hands over my mouth.
“I’m kidding. I wouldn’t go for third on the first date—maybe second?” He laughs softly when I cover my face completely. “It’s probably just as well you didn’t meet me when I was seventeen. I was kind of a horn dog. But I think I’d have known enough to be careful and slow with you. At least, I will in this story, to be continued tomorrow…”
I’ll never get to sleep now.
Chapter 18
Brooke
Rowena and I don’t make eye contact as she shuffles through first class on her way to coach, her bag of camera equipment weighing her skinny shoulder into a sharp downward slope. She looks like a lop-sided scarecrow. I can easily imagine her slipping into narrow, impossible spaces, getting shots the large, aggressive men of her kind—the ones who scare the crap out of celebs with their obnoxious belligerence—could never get. The only thing unnerving about Rowena is her eyes. They’re not empty like some psycho killer—they’re just flat-out ruthless.
Not that I can talk.
She generally doesn’t have to leave the LA area to make a living, but she understands the strategic part of doing personal favors for the right people, and I’m one of those people. Graham and I may not be A-listers, but we’re close enough to make news if the story is juicy, especially with the movie premiere a couple of weeks away. I’ve made it clear to Rowena that this favor is non-negotiable if she expects a continuance of tips like the Reid-n-Emma bonus that probably paid several months’ rent. I’m paying her airfare and hotel, plus she’ll be compensated for the photos themselves.
Now all I have to do is get Graham into the picture.
I hate long flights alone because there’s nothing to do. God knows I’m not going to chat up the middle-aged CEO or whatever he is sitting next to me. He reminds me of my dad—from the stereotypical Rolex and custom-made suit to the trainer-maintained body and bleached teeth.
Daddy dearest is on his fourth marriage to someone too young for him. As I get older, they’re getting closer and closer to my age. I just turned twenty—how can he be okay with the fact that his newest Mrs. Cameron is five or six years older than his youngest daughter? I think my oldest sister is actually her same age. You’d think he’d at least have the awareness to be embarrassed.
My mother was the idiot second wife—the younger woman who attracted a powerful married man away from his wife and two daughters and got knocked up with me, probably on purpose. By the time his divorce was settled and the pre-nup my unwitting mother agreed to was inked, I was a month old. Inexplicably, I was in their farcical wedding photos (which my mother filed through the shredder when my father left her for wife number three—hello, who didn’t see that coming?). Why didn’t either of them think I’d eventually grow old enough to look at those framed photos and figure out that I’m beyond illegitimate, or that my friends wouldn’t come to the same conclusion?