Chapter 12
Then
“We’ve just got one last thing before we wrap for the day,” Nate announced, all business as he came out from behind the camera, and I sighed with relief. I was desperate to exchange these heels for some fuzzy slippers.
I heard my name being called, and when I turned I saw my assistant Lainey heading my way, her hands clutching a cake blazing with lit candles.
It took a second for the dots to connect, but when they did, my cheeks flamed red.
They found out. All the cast and crew gathered around me with big grins, and I blushed as they broke into a boisterous rendition of “Happy Birthday.”
After I’d blown out the candles and thanked everyone, Ryder and Jason cornered me. “Why didn’t you tell us it was your birthday?” Ryder demanded, talking around the massive bite of cake he’d just forked into his mouth.
“Should I have sent a memo demanding everyone celebrate me?” I joked, digging into my own slice.
“Yes!”
I chuckled. “Not really my style.” I’d never loved the forced fanfare around birthdays.
I hated a fuss being made over me, and besides, I was already self-conscious about being younger than just about everyone on this set.
I felt insecure enough without calling attention to the fact that I was underage.
“How old?”
I bit my lip. “Twenty-one.”
Their jaws dropped in unison, and I had to laugh. It was like a perfectly timed comedy skit.
“She’s a baby,” Jason whispered in awe, and I punched his arm.
“I’m sorry—today is your twenty-first birthday, and you weren’t going to tell anyone?” Ryder was aghast.
“It’s unacceptable,” Jason concurred, shaking his head.
“Guys, it’s really okay,” I told them, wiping some rogue frosting off Ryder’s upper lip. “Saving some for later?” I teased, and Jason clocked our interaction with a smirk.
Ryder swung an arm around my shoulders, licking at the corner of his mouth, and I ignored the coil tightening in my stomach. “It is not okay. Tonight, I’ll be buying you your first legal drink.”
“No need,” I objected, holding up my hands. “Really, I’m all good.”
“This is not a skippable birthday,” he countered. “Besides, it’s Friday night. What are you going to do, stay home?”
“After this week? Uh, yeah. My dogs are barking, and Italian takeout and elastic-waistband pants are calling my name.”
Ryder looked appalled. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to save you from yourself. Jason agrees with me.”
Jason shrugged. “He’s got a point. It’s basically against the law not to go out on your twenty-first birthday.”
“What’s your drink of choice?” Ryder asked as the three of us walked to the waiting van that would take us back to base camp.
“Honestly? I don’t really know,” I confessed.
“I was kind of a goody two-shoes in high school, and since I didn’t go to college, I never really got that ‘binge drinking’ exposure.
I’ve had wine?” I offered lamely. Pathetic.
Meanwhile, the guys were gaping at me like I’d just confessed to still believing in Santa Claus.
Ryder turned to Jason. “Okay, so we have tonight’s mission: Find Scarlett’s signature drink.”
“This sounds dangerous,” I protested, but they were already off to the races, and there was no reining them in.
“With the wrong company maybe, but you’re with us,” Jason blustered, like the two of them were exemplars of good judgment, like I hadn’t just witnessed them daring each other to jump from the barn’s hay loft. “We are highly trustworthy individuals.”
I raised a skeptical brow. “Not sure I can trust two men who’ve never been through an awkward stage.”
It was determined that we’d go to the Tiki Hut, a local dive bar decorated with flowered leis and sticky astroturf that served umbrella drinks in souvenir tumblers shaped like totem poles.
It was chosen mainly for its proximity to Riverview—“easier to stumble home,” as Ryder had put it—and if that criteria should have concerned me, welp, it was too late now.
The night was balmy, so I donned a flirty sundress and some wedge sandals, figuring it was only right to dress up for my birthday—and knowing that showing some thigh was guaranteed to turn Ryder’s head.
For his part, Ryder was clad in his usual uniform of a graphic T-shirt and jeans, while Jason looked every inch the off-duty actor in sunglasses and a baseball hat.
“Now here’s what we’re going to do,” Ryder instructed as we muscled our way up to the bar, shouting over The Beach Boys, who were singing about Aruba and Jamaica over the bar’s speakers.
“We’ll start by ordering three drinks representing different varietals of liquor, and you’ll have a sip of each.
If you don’t find one you love, we’ll keep going until you do. ”
“Very scientific,” I said mock-seriously. “And what happens to the drinks I don’t like?”
He gave me a look like I was very silly indeed. “Jason and I will drink them, duh.”
For our first round, we decided on a Painkiller in the rum category, a Tequila Sunrise, and for vodka, a Sex on the Beach.
“An homage to Tom Cruise,” Ryder explained with a twinkle in his eye, and I tilted my head in incomprehension. “You know, from Cocktail? ‘Sex on the Beach, the schnapps made from peach, the Velvet Hammer, the Alabama Slammer’…No?”
“I think you have a thing for Tom Cruise,” I teased, stepping closer so I wouldn’t have to shout over the music.
“Can you blame me? The man’s a legend!”
A laugh spilled out of me, and his mouth tugged up in a crooked smile.
“My mom loves him, so his movies were always on in my house, especially the older ones like Risky Business, Days of Thunder, Far and Away, Rain Man. I used to memorize his monologues for acting practice.” He leaned in, his lips grazing my ear, and goose bumps rippled across my skin.
“Plus, nothing works on high school girls quite like reciting the ‘You complete me’ speech from Jerry Maguire.”
Something told me that trick’s success wasn’t limited to teenage girls. “I’ll bet.” He winked, and the coil in my stomach twisted tighter.
From this close, I couldn’t help but notice the dusting of new freckles sprinkled across the bridge of his nose that had sprung up since we’d started filming.
Even with the makeup team slathering us in sunscreen at every opportunity, no one was safe from the intense South Carolina sun.
And a sun-kissed Ryder was a thing of beauty.
“And just what are you lookin’ at, little lady?” he drawled in a lazy cowboy twang, and I flushed. Caught.
Just admiring your incredibly handsome face. “You’re getting too tan,” I said instead, skimming my index finger along his cheekbone, ignoring the tingling in my fingertip. “Francesca’s gonna yell at you.”
He cuffed my neck with his hand and squeezed once in an affectionate way, and the contact sizzled down my spine like a bolt of electricity. “Franny would never yell at me! She loves me too much.”
He was right, she did. “One day you’re going to meet a woman who’s immune to your charms,” I grumbled, rolling my shoulders. “And I want to be there to see it.”
“I guess that means you’re not immune to my charms?
” he said with a rakish grin, and the coil threatened to snap.
This dance we were doing, the constant game of push and pull, was getting harder and harder for me to endure.
It was torturous to spend all day pretending to be in love with him, then have to spend all night pretending I wasn’t.
While I couldn’t decide if our teasing flirtation was all in good fun for him—a natural byproduct of our forced proximity—or if more could be read into it, the fact remained that Ryder had me tied into knots.
“Melody could never be immune to Holden’s charms,” I answered cheekily, expertly evading his question.
Spin, twirl, shuffle, dip. I’d gotten good at the dance, too.
As much as I wanted to point the finger at Ryder for tormenting me with mind games, it took two to tango.
I was as much to blame for our confusing dynamic as he was.
He stared down at me, his eyes studying my face. When he looked at me this way, I felt certain he could read my mind, could see the internal war I was waging, like my feelings were as transparent as cling wrap.
“A toast to Scarlett,” Jason broke in, mercifully interrupting our strange little interlude.
He distributed the three drinks he was juggling, and we all raised our glasses in tandem.
“Today, you become a woman,” he started, and Ryder groaned while I pretended to stab him with the pointy end of my drink’s paper umbrella.
Ryder took over. “To a memorable birthday for a memorable woman,” he said, his pupils dark and dilated as he looked at me over the rim of his glass, and his sinful smirk was all it took for my pulse to kick up. Knock it off, heart.
Not to be outdone, I proposed a toast of my own. “To the Three Musketeers: Thanks for not letting me rot in my room tonight.”
“Hear, hear!” the guys chorused as we clinked glasses. I took my first swig, then made a face. “Too sweet.”
“Okay, Sex on the Beach is out. Try the Painkiller.” Ryder and I traded drinks, and he watched me take a sip.
“Ooh, it’s really good. I love the coconut. And what is this on top, nutmeg?” I took another hearty swallow. Yum.
I liked the Tequila Sunrise as well, and it didn’t take long before the drinks had all been consumed and the boys had ordered a second round, and then a third.
The place had gotten progressively more crowded, the music cranked louder, and fortunately for us, we blended in like the locals we sort of were.
And perhaps unfortunately, it wasn’t long before I’d sailed right past tipsy into full-blown drunk.
“Didn’t I already try this one?” I slurred as I took a sip of something fruity—although I’m not sure who I was kidding, they all tasted the same at this point—and shimmied to “Love Shack.”