13. Jenna
Chapter thirteen
Jenna
Day two has been as chaotic as day one, only there’s a little more structure than there was yesterday. Everyone knows their places, careful not to step on toes, while Tahnee and I watch from the sidelines in amazement and just do what we’re told.
We’re the only ones who’ve never been on a movie set before, aside from Cole and a couple of the younger extras who are local to Grangewood Creek.
You’d never be able to tell that this is his first movie, though. From what I’ve allowed myself to watch, he’s a natural. Whenever he’s relaying his lines, everyone’s eyes are glued to him. Not on Mara, or any of the side characters. He’s the focal point for everybody, me included.
Mara has also made her desire for him very obvious, while ignoring me in the process. But Tahnee said she overheard Mara talking about Cole and me, and how we wouldn’t last more than the week.
I’d told myself going into today that I was going to tell everyone the truth, but after she made that little comment, I knew I wanted to let it go on for a little while longer.
“I cannot believe you get to date Cole ,” one of the younger extras, Monroe, said, as she batted her eyelashes in his direction while sitting in my chair.
He and I haven’t had a chance to speak yet, so I haven’t been able to tell him that there isn’t a universe that exists in which I would be his girlfriend in real life.
Hell, I even ignored his text asking me to go on a date.
And now every time my phone pings, I panic, assuming it’s him.
The Herring Girls group chat has been blowing up constantly, each with questions directed at me that I’ve chosen specifically to ignore. I only answer the ones about our games night this weekend. My mom’s been texting and calling a lot, too, no doubt to either ask me for money, or invite me to meet her new boyfriend. But I don’t have the energy to deal with a slurred, one-sided conversation.
I vowed to myself that the next three months would be mom-drama free, and I meant it.
I’ll return her call later when I have the mental capacity to focus on something other than… him. I figure once I’m out of the building and he’s no longer in my line of sight, it’ll be easier to focus.
It worked for me last night.
I only thought about him while I lay in bed with my—“Did you hear what I said?” Tahnee asks, forcing me out of my trance, and I reluctantly pull my gaze from the hottest man I’ve ever seen, not realizing my fingertips were gliding along my lips.
Her black hair is down and straight, wispy curtain bangs parted evenly, showing off her stormy eyes. “No, sorry,” I admit, shaking my head. “What did you say?”
She smirks, shoving her hands into her dress pockets. “I said, whenever you’re not looking at him, he is looking at you, and Mara is always watching both of you, probably trying to catch you out. I’ve been paying close attention. It took Laurel clicking in his face to get his attention.” She laughs, and I feel my cheeks heat, heart pounding from my ears to my throat. I don’t know when I went from wanting to avoid him, to getting nervous when Tahnee tells me he looked my way.
“I’m here to do my job, Tahnee. Same as you, same as him. Same as everybody else in this room,” I remind her for what feels like the fifth time today. But it’s a reminder to myself more than anything. “I don’t mix business with pleasure.”
“Well, that pleasurable man that you told Margot and me all about, told everyone here confidently that you are his girlfriend. Oh, and he’s heading in our direction,” she says, and I whip around. He remains firmly in the spot he was when I last allowed myself to look, going over the script with Jude. I catch Mara in the corner of my eye on her way toward him. I feel like a goddamn fool for accidentally feeling excited to see him approaching me, and even worse when I see Mara’s hand run through his hair before she loops her arm around his waist.
“Knew it,” Tahnee quips from the extra distance I’ve put between us as my legs move closer to my fake boyfriend and his on-screen girlfriend.
“Hey, baby,” I say, loud enough for mostly everyone to hear.
What the fuck am I doing?
“Hey, Snow.” He tilts his head to the side, his tanned cheeks turning a soft shade of pink with a gentle smile.
Just go with it.
“I wanted to see what you wanted for dinner tonight?” I ask, tiptoeing to place a soft kiss on the corner of his lips, and it forces Mara to take a step back.
Good.
My insides do that thing where they attempt to somersault, but continue to screw up the landing.
He dips his head, whispering in my ear, “You know what I want to taste, Snow.” He pulls away, kissing my lips softly and I nod at him.
I fucking nod.
“Don’t be late.”
He kissed me.
For the first time since that night, he kissed me, and I feel it in every inch of my body. My nerve endings are on fire.
Scurrying away, I head back toward Tahnee, feeling the weight of every set of eyes on me, knowing I just revealed a part of myself that I thought never even existed until now.
Jealousy.
And I’m kicking myself that I let it take over.
It’s quiet for a long moment. The only people deep in conversation are Jude and Cole, going over the script with Jude instructing him on how he wants it to play out.
“Places, people!” Laurel shouts, and everyone suddenly remembers that they’re on the set of a movie with a job to do.
Bodies rush past us to get to their places when Jude finally calls out “ action.”
Tahnee and I stand side-by-side, watching as the scene plays out. Mara and Cole are going back and forth with their lines before she nudges her shoulder into mine. “What?” I hiss quietly.
“Just admit that you find him attractive, and I’ll drop it.” She shrugs.
“Is it a crime to find a man attractive, Tahnee? Because if it is,” I say, my eyes scanning the room. My voice is still consciously low, checking out every single man I can. “I would be in prison. That guy over there behind that camera, I think his name is Callum, he’s cute. The guy next to him isn’t bad, either. Even Jude is alright for an older dude.”
“But would you fuck them, Jenna? Would you let them do to you what you happily and willingly let Cole do to you three weeks ago?” she retorts, and my body shudders at the thought of anyone doing any of that to me. Because if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t think there’s anyone on the face of the planet I would let do those things to me.
He made me feel comfortable in a way that no other person had, and that’s just a fact.
While he didn’t force me to keep the lights on, he compromised with a dimmed lamp. I didn’t tell him that I was self conscious, but I think it was pretty obvious.
He practically begged me to sit on his face, not caring if my weight would be too much. I could’ve suffocated him or broken his neck. He claimed it would be the best way to go out.
“A man could only be so lucky ,” he’d said.
He openly told a room of over a hundred people that I belonged to him. And no matter how frustrated it made me, no one has ever wanted me publicly before.
Even if it was all for show.
Not even my own mother.
“No,” I confess. “I wouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean I would let him do it again,” I say, attempting to cover my tracks, right as my phone rings, saving the day. “I have to take this.” I hurry out of earshot to anyone without looking at the screen before I answer it, regretting my decision to do so immediately.
“Hi, Jennifer,” my mom’s raspy voice radiates through the speaker of my phone, and into my ear. I’m immediately on high alert. My body can usually sense how the conversation is going to go before we even have it, and right now, it’s telling me to hang up and call her back in a week’s time. Maybe she’ll just…forget.
“Mom, hey,” I reply, frantically hurrying around the grounds of Wingrove Estates in search of a place of solitude, deciding on Harley’s empty office.
Cassandra wasn’t kidding.
The only piece of personality here is an orchid, and the photo of her framed on his desk.
“Please, don’t call me that. You know I’m too young to be a mother,” she warns, as if she’s about to ground me if I don’t do as she asks.
She likes to remind me subtly that if she could go back in time, the choices she would make in life would be very different, and I wouldn’t be here.
“You’re fifty, Becky. Don’t act like you’re a teen mom who gets judged for stepping foot out of her house.” I roll my eyes and wait for the inevitable ear bashing that’s about to come my way.
“Keep it down, would you? God knows who’s around you listening to our conversation? They don’t need to know private things about me.” Did I mention that my birth giver is paranoid, too?
“What do you need, Becky?”
A part of me deep down desperately wants her to remember that my birthday is coming up, but I know it’s not possible.
She hasn’t celebrated the day I was born and the day she became a mother since before my dad died.
The only way I knew it was my birthday, was when my teachers in school would arrange a cake for me every year.
In the fourth grade, I took down the date, and burned it into my brain so I could always remember to celebrate me, even if she never did.
“I just need some money.”
Figures.
“How much?” I sigh, blinking back the same tears that have threatened to fall every year around the same time.
“We’ll, you see, I’m short on a few things and the man I’m seeing doesn’t know that I’m broke and I don’t want to ask him for—”
“How much?” I repeat, trying to keep my voice steady. She can’t know I’m on the verge of tears, or she’ll call me weak.
“A few hundred.” I sigh again, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I’ll pay you back,” she says quickly. It’s an empty promise. They always are.
But I stopped expecting things from my mother years ago.
You see, my mom doesn’t have a problem, per se.
She has priorities and preferences. Right now, everything is shifting. And because there’s a new man in her life, he’s taking precedence over anything else.
For how long, though?
Only time will tell.