13. Maya
13
MAYA
When I woke, it took me a moment to remember where I was. I lifted my head from the pillow and glanced around the room, my eyes bleary. Wait, this wasn’t my bed…
I heard a slight grunt from beside me, and it all came flooding back. My eyes widened. Holy shit, I’m still at Lee’s place! When he had invited me over for dinner, I’d decided it was the perfect chance to forget about everything going on with Devon, and just relax and have some fun. And while we’d had a whole lot of fun, my phone was currently blaring on the bedside table, and I got the feeling that I was in some kind of trouble.
I snatched it up before it could shout at me any longer, and answered the call without looking.
“Hello?”
“Maya, where are you?” Paula demanded. “You were supposed to be on set twenty minutes ago!”
I glanced down at the time on my phone. Shit, she was right. I was well and truly running late. I cursed under my breath and sprang to my feet, trying to remember where I’d left my dress the night before.
“I’m sorry, I’ll be right there!” I promised her.
“Half an hour, or you’re out on your ass,” she warned me, and then hung up. Fuck! I was in serious trouble…
I scurried through the house, completely undressed, trying to figure out where I had left my stuff—my dress was on the balcony, along with my panties, and the moment I spotted them there my head was filled with memories of what we’d gotten up to last night. God, it had been so hot—being with Lee like that, letting him see me and take me, the look on his face when I was on top of him… I knew that would be burned into my brain for a hell of a long time. It had done the job, in terms of getting Devon and whatever was happening with us out of my head, but I knew it wouldn’t stay that way for long if I wound up losing my job over this.
I threw on the dress and rushed to the bathroom to clean myself up—but the moment I saw myself in the mirror, I knew I wouldn’t pass for someone who had just overslept. I was clearly on a walk of shame in this dress, there was no way it could be anything other than that. I tugged on it nervously, trying to pull it down a little further to cover my body, but there was no way I could pull this off. I needed to put together an outfit that seemed a little more appropriate for work, but the only other item of clothing I had was a pair of heels I’d slipped off under the table when we were eating dinner.
I raced to Lee’s room, where he was still sprawled on the covers, asleep—damn, nothing woke this guy up. I guessed it was for the best, because I got the feeling he would pull me back into bed to pick up where we’d left off, and I didn’t know if I had it in me to resist him, not really.
Throwing open his wardrobe, I scanned the clothes before me—Lee was quite a bit taller than me, so I’d have to accept that I would look a hot mess for the rest of the day, but I could handle that. I grabbed a pair of blue jeans that were crumpled in the corner of the closet and quickly slipped them on, tucking the dress into them and hoping I could pass it off as a cami. I still only had my heels, but they would have to do. Grabbing them, I texted a taxi company to pick me up and rushed outside to wait, practically able to hear the ticking of the clock in the back of my head the whole time.
I would talk to Lee when I saw him again, explain what had happened—I couldn’t help but smirk slightly as I wondered how many girls he’d done this to, how many girls he had raced out on before they had a chance to wake up. I guessed this was a little payback for each and every one of them, though I knew there was no way I wasn’t going to see him again, not after that.
Finally, the car pulled up and I dived inside, ignoring the hard look the driver gave me. I panted out the address of the set, and he seemed to catch on to the fact that this was pretty damn urgent, putting his foot down and taking off into the cool morning light.
I stumbled onto set just a few minutes before my cutoff, and found Paula outside the makeup trailer, tapping her foot impatiently with her arms crossed over her chest. She looked me up and down, and her eyebrows shot up—but she seemed to think better of actually commenting on my less-than-traditional outfit.
“Well, you’re here, that’s what matters,” she sighed, and she jerked her head inside. “Taylor’s waiting.”
“Thanks,” I blurted out to her, grateful that she hadn’t fired my ass on the spot, and I rushed in before she could say another word to me. I’d gotten away with it, it seemed, and I would take that.
Sure enough, Taylor was sitting at the makeup counter, the mirror pushed to the side as it had been before, and a couple of the other makeup artists were milling around, probably getting ready for the day. All eyes turned to me as soon as I stepped in, and I felt a heat rise to my cheeks as they stared at my outfit.
“That’s pretty…original,” Darren, one of the artists, remarked to me diplomatically.
“Yeah, I’ve never seen you in an outfit like that before,” Natalia added, taking a step toward me and looking me up and down. “And those jeans, they look…”
She paced around me. I felt like I was some kind of zoo exhibit, ready for inspection. I wished I could just tell them all to piss off and let me get to work, but I knew it wasn’t going to go that easy, not after I’d kept them all waiting.
“They look like the ones Lee wears.”
My heart dropped. How the fuck did she know that? I burbled out an answer as soon as I could. “Oh, uh, I guess we must buy from the same brand then?—”
“No, Denim Central made him his own collection, when he was modeling for them. They had this…” She jabbed at a leather label that hung over the edge of my jeans—I crammed it back inside, hiding it as best I could.
“Maybe he dumped them in a thrift store or something,” I offered weakly, praying it would be enough to throw them off the scent. But I knew better than to really believe that. When people here caught wind of any gossip, that was it—they would hang on to it for dear life, and everyone would hear about the fact that I was wearing Lee’s jeans when I turned up late for work this morning. Shit—I couldn’t have made it more obvious…
Taylor cleared his throat, mercifully, and I turned my attention to him, glad for the distraction.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Taylor,” I told him, and he offered me a slight smile in return.
“No problem.”
The rest of the artists scattered to let me get to work, and I set about putting on Taylor’s face for the day. Honestly, I was glad for the distraction from the mess of thoughts in my mind—I was sure everyone would have a million questions for me about Lee as soon as they got the chance to ask them, and the thought of having to deflect them and avoid scrutiny about my love life was already exhausting me.
I tried to keep focused on my work, but Taylor was staring at me as I applied the product. I could tell he wanted to come out and ask me if what he’d heard was true, but he seemed to sense that I wasn’t ready to talk about it. Thank God. I didn’t know what I would tell him, if he came out and asked to know the truth. I felt like he would judge me if he knew that I’d hooked up with Lee, even though I would be far from the first person to do so—and shit, maybe he thought I had some kind of fetish for the leading men in these movies and would worry that he’d be at the other end of my attraction next.
My mind flicked back to what Lana had said to me, teasing me about getting the whole set. Taylor honestly seemed like too much of a gentleman to do anything like that, especially given that he had his daughter to think about.
“Sorry, just let me…” I murmured, leaning past him to grab a sponge from the other side of the table. As I did so, the leather label popped loose from where I’d tried to hide it, and I dropped everything as I scrabbled to cram it back inside.
I could see Taylor smirking out of the corner of my eye, and I glanced around at him, my cheeks burning. “You’re not going to ask about?—”
“Hey, what you get up to on your own time is none of my business,” he replied, flashing me a grin. “But you might want to do a better job covering your ass next time. Literally and figuratively.”
I rolled my eyes at him, but I couldn’t help but laugh. Thank God. He didn’t seem to be judging me for what had happened, and God only knew how much I needed that right now. People would follow the lead of the stars of the movie, and if he treated it as a nothing-burger, then hopefully everyone else would too.
I got back to work on him, double-checking that the label was well and truly tucked inside my jeans. I’d have to return them to Lee soon enough—and hopefully when I did, he’d have as much fun taking them off as we’d had with my dress last night.