Chapter 10 That was meant to stay in my head.
That was meant to stay in my head.
Josie
“HI,” SEAN SAYS to the room. His gaze cuts sideways to where Yesenia is blanching in the doorway. “Hi,” he tells her. “Love those boxty tacos. Never stop.” Then he zeroes in on me. “Can we talk for a minute?”
“I’ll finish Chelsea up,” Li Jing offers since Howie’s transition is complete—he looks like a bona fide bald, blue-headed Zentharian in a slim-fit dress shirt.
Against my better judgment, I accept Li Jing’s offer and trail Sean out of the makeup room.
The set is busy with activity now as everyone gears up for taping.
It looks like the first scene will be filmed in front of the green screen, so the “ship” itself is quiet.
Sean leans against a doorway with the sprawling crescent-shaped bridge behind him, ever the fearless leader.
He could probably play Captain Amadeus Footwork in his sleep.
“So,” he says, “what do you like to do? What do you like to eat? Steak? Sushi?”
“No seafood,” I blurt. “And listen, this isn’t necessary. I’m giving my date away. Donating it.”
A pair of androids pass us stiffly, forcing me into the glorious inner radius of Sean’s expensive cologne. Just smelling him feels like foreplay.
“You’re donating our date? Why would you do that?” His eyes are so wide and questioning that I actually feel bad for this guy who has everything he could ever want.
“It’s for your own safety.” It’s not a lie. If I get discovered and canceled again, anyone close to me will be sucked in, too.
“How is going on a date with you dangerous?”
God, are we really doing this? Why can’t he just take no for an answer? “I have a terrible infectious disease,” I deadpan.
Sean mimes propping his chin on his hand in delighted curiosity. “Do tell.”
Dammit. “It’s too painful to talk about.”
“Is it leprosy?”
“Yes.” There’s no point in wasting brain cells on cleverness. “A rare, incurable form of leprosy. I’m going to die a horrible death.”
“I’ll wear a mask.”
There’s commotion over by the main entrance, a boisterous voice with an accent. I catch a glimpse of a large man in a patch-elbowed sport coat heralding the way for a skinny dude with a camera on his shoulder.
That’s odd. Why would someone bring a camera here? We have all the cameras we need. It’s a TV studio. Then I hear a jovial expletive in Spanish, and my brain shoots off a warning flare.
This isn’t just any guy with a cameraman! It’s Hugo Valencia, the host of Hollywood, De Repente, and there’s only one explanation for why he would be here—me!
With a whine of terror, I shove past Sean onto the bridge. That’s it. Game over, man. Hugo must know who I am, and he’s here to shake me down for puppet bones or at least an exclusive. I scan the set for a hiding place.
“What’s wrong?” Sean asks, trailing me through doorways to the ready room, the med lab, the dance deck because, yes, the Lost Star ship has a whole deck that’s solely used for dancing. “Is your incurable leprosy flaring up?”
There’s nowhere to hide on the Starlight Serenade. However, there is a janitorial closet that doubles as prop storage in the hall. I whip open the door and squeeze myself beside the Dyson vacuum. Sean stops the door before I can close it.
“Don’t you think this is a little over-the-top?” he asks. “And that’s coming from me.”
Over his shoulder, I spot Hugo heading our way. I fight with Sean over the door and win, yanking it shut. I stand in dark dustiness with the smell of vacuum cleaner and latex all around me. For a moment, here in the dark quiet, I can tell myself a lie that everything might turn out okay.
“You know I’m just going to stand out here and talk to you through the door,” Sean says.
Why does he have to be so persistent? I crack the door and hiss, “You need a flat iron, stat, or your pompadour’s not going to make it.”
“My pompadour’s had worse.”
Through the cracked door, I spot Hugo peeking into doorways, first the bridge, and then the makeup room where we just were.
Meanwhile, Sean is peering at me with interest. I feel like an unlucky sandwich that’s captured the attention of a handsome seagull.
Any minute now, Hugo will reach this part of the hallway.
He’ll probably ask Sean where I am, and he’ll have no reason to lie.
Dammit!
I shove the closet door all the way open, grab Sean by his shiny leather space jacket, and yank him inside.
The door thunks shut, and now it smells like vacuum cleaner, latex, and musk.
It’s a tight fit in here. Too tight. My chest is pressed against Sean’s chest. He isn’t as tall as some of the other Lost Star guys, and I’m five ten, so we’re literally face-to-face, my chin only a couple of inches below his.
He’s the perfect height for a cheek-to-cheek slow dance. But then I already knew that.
“What are we do—” he starts to say.
“Shh!”
“I’m just ask—” he starts again.
This time I shush him with a finger to his lips—those pouty, world-renowned lips.
I can’t believe I’m touching them. Again.
Too bad I can’t enjoy it because I’m wound up tight as a dollar store toy while I strain to hear Hugo Valencia’s chatter as he passes by the closet door.
I listen for my name—my old one or my new one—but the only name I hear is Jason.
Jason?
My gears whir. Oh! He’s talking about Jason Ramirez. He got matched with the slim, mustachioed dude named Javier—that makes sense. Calm down, Josie, it’s not all about you. Thankfully.
I take a breath, and the tightness unspools from my body.
My senses are awakening, like bioluminescence in moonlight.
One of my hands still grips Sean’s uniform while the other has a finger pressed to his lips.
He’s holding my elbows. Our torsos have not a centimeter of space between them due to the Dyson vacuum shoving at my back. Even our knees are brushing.
I take my finger away, and now his lips are right next to my lips. I can barely see them in the dim light, but I stare at them. I can’t stop.
This is absurd. There’s no need for this if Hugo isn’t looking for me. But when I start to shift, Sean’s grip tightens on my elbows.
“Why don’t you want to go on a date with me?” he asks.
“Why do you want to go on a date with me?” I counter.
“There’ll be cameras everywhere, in case you think I’m dangerous.”
“I don’t think you’re dangerous,” I say. The word dangerous comes out of me so breathy it makes that whole sentence contradict itself. We’re playing a game that I’m losing because that mouth is too close. He smells too good. He is dangerous. This is dangerous.
“So what is it then?” he replies in a matching whisper.
Oh God, this is bad. I’m not supposed to want Sean O’Sullivan.
I mean, of course I want him, but it was never supposed to be a real, actual possibility.
It was supposed to be a celebrity crush.
It was supposed to be safe. And as long as we both stayed in our designated lanes, it was.
But I’m being hunted by my past, and Sean is the bait.
“I don’t date celebrities,” I say. “I like my privacy.”
“I like my privacy, too.” He caresses my elbows so subtly it might be unintentional. That touch ratchets my DEFCON level up even further, though, and pieces inside me shift, clicking into places they’re not supposed to. Unauthorized places. The freaking missile is in the freaking launch bay.
“You weren’t supposed to pick me,” I blurt, because someone needs to step in and turn this heavy elbow petting session back into an argument. “Couldn’t you tell I was trying not to get picked?”
“I didn’t pick you. You guessed my number.”
He’s a liar. I know this because it takes one to know one. “Why are you chasing me?”
He blinks a few times. “I’m not chasing you. I don’t chase.”
Every word he says, every movement of that devastating mouth, carves a piece out of my resolve. But I have to remind myself what’s at stake. I can’t be found out. I can’t go through that again. The humiliation, the judgment, the shame.
You two are going to make the world a better place, Juan Ernesto had told Lupe and me the day he signed the licensing agreement for us to appear in schools across Mexico and the U.S.
You’re going to be a bridge between cultures, between languages, between people.
You two and this guy—he’d patted Chuy on his bulbous head—are going to make life better for immigrant kids everywhere.
Our eyes met at that moment, like he knew I knew what he meant, which I did.
Juan Ernesto wasn’t the warmest, fuzziest guy on the block, but we were both kids raised outside of our birth culture—Juan Ernesto in New York and me in Mexico City.
We both knew what it was like to never really be able to fit in.
To have your accent made fun of. To be on the outside. To struggle to belong.
Maybe that’s why Juan Ernesto worked so hard to get me into showbiz. He wanted to give me something, knowing what I was losing. He wanted to give the world something, too—something good.
I was all-in. I wanted to be that bridge he always talked about.
To do something that mattered. To help people.
It worked, too. The show was a hit, the educational materials were a hit, and everything we touched turned to gold.
Juan Ernesto looked so proud in the promo photos with an arm around each of us, daughter and stepdaughter, Chuy perched on Lupe’s knee.
As for me, I felt like I was the biggest winner of all.
I’d gotten a dad out of it. A real, honest-to-goodness family.
At least I’d had that for a minute.
The truth is that Sean O’Sullivan isn’t dangerous. I’m the dangerous one. I can’t be trusted. I’ve already torpedoed one person’s life’s work, already lost one family. If I hurt my found family, too, if I lost Emmy and Peyton, I couldn’t take it. I’d shatter.
“What if I let you catch me right now?” I breathe. “Would you leave me alone then?”
I tilt my chin sideways, lining up my lips with the work of art that is Sean O’Sullivan’s mouth.
In the dimness of the closet, his green eyes are the color of the ocean depths.
They flutter closed for just a second, as if he’s imagining what I mean by that.
And what do I mean by that? Are we going to go at it right here in the janitorial closet fifteen minutes before he’s supposed to be on set? That pompadour wouldn’t stand a chance.
His lips part, just barely. An invitation. Does that mouth live up to the hype? I think I’m about to find out. I close my eyes and lean in.
He squeezes my elbows, but this time it’s different. Quick, as if in warning. He draws back as much as the cramped closet space will allow.
“Look, Josie.” His tone is a curtain coming down. “I don’t want to pressure you. That’s not what I’m about. If you really don’t want to go on a date with me, just say so, and I promise I’ll never say another word about it. I won’t even look at you again.”
A war breaks out inside me. If this is a game, he has just delivered a devastating blow.
He’s giving me what I want, what I asked for.
But the idea of Sean O’Sullivan never looking at me again the way he is right now has another part of me screaming at myself, No, no, no what are you doing, you idiota?
“I’m giving you an out,” Sean reiterates since I haven’t replied.
A section of his pompadour is mussed. I reach up and let my fingers caress a soft, perfectly conditioned, dyed-yellow lock of movie star hair that will soon be styled into something that has its own Instagram account.
I’ve never been a fangirl like Emmy. I was a celebrity myself for a time, and I know that good lighting, a great line, and a merciless personal trainer are all just that.
That ninety percent of what we see is a persona, nothing more.
But that doesn’t mean I’m totally immune.
Sean O’Sullivan is my celebrity crush, has been for a long time.
It’s tempting. So tempting.
I press my palms into the firm muscles of his chest, noting how he flexes them under my touch.
Not fair, but I asked for it. I should get that on a T-shirt.
His hands shift from my elbows to my waist—a test. I don’t pull away and am rewarded when his thumbs find the strip of skin under the hem of my shirt and trace along my waistline, a shivery, light touch.
An offer rather than a demand. I lean in, pressing even closer against him.
Why? Maybe because I’m stupid and reckless even when I’m doing the right thing.
I should get that on a T-shirt, too.
“I’m taking your out,” I murmur into his mouth. God, this man’s mouth is surely a portal to sexy Narnia. “But before I do, there’s something I want to know.”
“Ask aw—”
I press my lips to his. Our mouths fit together like two soft, pliant puzzle pieces, and with a zing of rapture, the rest of my body concedes that if it gets hit by a bus tomorrow, there won’t be any hard feelings.
My fingers walk themselves to his face and linger in the fine, trimmed hairs of his sideburns as we draw the kiss out, soft and restrained, like pulled taffy or a long, languid yoga stretch.
I try not to taste his tongue, I really do—it’s overkill for my purposes, which is to have this one nice thing just this once.
But I can’t help myself, and he responds with hungry enthusiasm, igniting a vortex of desire in my belly where the soundtrack is an endless loop of how that pouty, soft, sinful mouth is destroying me right now with a kiss and what the hell else it might be capable of.
I brace myself against the door and the wall and throw my head back as Sean’s O’Sullivan’s impossible mouth makes its way down my neck. It’s exquisite. Matchless. I’m ruined forever, and I don’t effing care.
“Tu boca me tortura,” I murmur. That was meant to stay in my head, but whatever.
His tongue flicks the hollow at my throat, and I gasp, my hip striking the inside latch and jostling it just enough that my braced hand shoves the door open, exposing a surprised Hugo Valencia and his equally surprised cameraman heading back to the main entrance after their interview.
“Well, well, well.” Hugo’s face breaks into a crocodile grin. “What have we here?”