28. Megan #2
Nikki glances around the diner-set at the other customers and pulls him into the narrow hallway between the eating area and the kitchen.
I follow their characters on the screens on the wall as if I’m at the cinema and am amazed at how real it is when there are no cameras in my peripheral vision.
I feel like a voyeur watching something I shouldn’t, a private moment between two people who believe that they are alone.
“I’m going to tell Evelyn about us, ” Arthur says.
Nikki’s shoulders slump and her expression crumples as if all the fight has been sucked out of her. “Joseph, I don’t think you should—”
“I can’t lie to her anymore. She deserves better than that.”
Nikki turns away from him, a mixture of emotions playing out behind her eyes, and I hold my breath, wondering what she’s going to say next.
When she looks at him again, there are tears in her eyes. “I don’t want you to leave her for me, JoJo.”
The shortened version of Joseph is so charming it makes my heart flutter.
“I already have. Up here.” Arthur taps his temple. “I found myself checking out the moment I laid eyes on you.”
This is the moment where Nikki’s character should smile and tell Arthur that she loves him, but instead, she says dully, “I’m sorry, JoJo, but I can’t do this. I don’t—”
Before she can finish, Arthur pulls Nikki into his arms and smothers her words with his lips.
My hand instinctively hovers in front of my mouth as I watch the kiss onscreen.
“Cut!” The director’s voice makes me jump.
A man with dark unruly curls jumps up from the chair with the word DIRECTOR printed across the back and enters the set. He speaks with the actors, but I can’t hear what he’s saying; someone must cut the sound between takes.
“What’s that man doing?” Amber asks.
I crouch next to her and keep my voice low so that it doesn’t carry anywhere. “He’s telling Auntie Nikki what he wants her to do next.” I hope.
The scene was perfect to me as it was, but what do I know?
The director returns to his seat and the clapperboard comes out again.
Take two.
The actors repeat their lines. It takes me a couple of beats to get back into the mood of the scene as I’ve already watched it once, but when it comes to the kiss, the director yells, “Cut!” again.
I don’t understand what they’re doing wrong, but it clearly isn’t meeting the director’s expectations.
Take three.
This time, I find myself leaning closer to the screen, lips parted in anticipation.
I want them to kiss, isn’t that what’s supposed to happen? The audience is supposed to be rooting for them. We’re supposed to believe that JoJo is in love with Jessie, and this kiss should be the knee-trembling, foot-jerking moment that cements their future. Together.
It’s working for me. My heart is still fluttering, and I feel cheated each time the director’s voice snaps everyone back to reality.
Not that I’m an experienced kisser. I mean, the last man I kissed was a customer at the bakery where I work.
A good-looking customer, to be fair, late-twenties, smoky-gray eyes, designer stubble and thick sandy hair that I could imagine running my hands through.
But even so, the guy was a stranger, and I don’t make a habit of kissing strangers.
It was Christmas Eve. I’d served the guy a couple of times, blondie-brownies, because yep, I’m the saddo who remembers our customers’ favorites.
I remembered him, of course, because the guy was cute, and because we don’t serve many hot guys in financial-district suits, so how could I possibly forget him?
But when he pulled a sprig of mistletoe from his pocket, held it above my head, and leaned over the counter, I pulled away.
My cheeks were on fire.
Then I heard my boss chuckling from behind the last few frosted mince pies in the glass cabinet. I knew exactly what she was going to say when I saw the mischievous glint in her eye. “You’re not going home until you kiss him, Meg.”
When I glanced back at the guy in the suit, he was smiling, like they were in cahoots over this. “It’s Christmas. What have you got to lose?”
I’m not sure if it was the reminder that it was, in fact, Christmas, or that I had nothing to lose that swayed me to stand on tiptoes, lean in, and kiss him.
When I close my eyes, I can still feel the imprint of his lips on mine now.
Was it a good kiss?
I don’t have much to compare it to unless I count the slippery-wet smacker with a boy called Liam Bennett behind the art department in high school. Or the kiss with a kid called Ronnie—I never learned his second name—that was part of a game of Truth or Dare at a friend’s birthday party.
I’m still lost in my kissing repertoire reverie when a guy comes over, takes my hand in his, and says, “Come with me.”
I’m caught off-guard, so it takes me a beat to mumble, “What? Where are we going?”
We’re heading straight for the set.
“Wait, I’m not—”
“We’re going to show them how it’s done.”
When he turns his face and smiles at me, I realize that he’s the demi-god from earlier.
Minus the suit jacket, which he has obviously ditched somewhere along the way.
My heart knocks on my ribcage and yells at me to stop arguing and just go with it.
But I’ve left Amber behind, and when I glance over my shoulder, I see that the wiry woman with the glasses is standing with my little sister, her hands on Amber’s shoulders to prevent her from following me.
Panic sets in. I have no clue what the hell is going on here, but I’m not playing along.
“Hey, let me go.”
I try to wrench my arm free, but his grip is like iron. My eyes choose this moment to notice the biceps bulging beneath the blue sweater that clings to every muscle the guy has. And boy, does he have some.
His ears might need some work though because he isn’t listening.
Or maybe demi-gods simply aren’t used to taking no for an answer.
Either way, we’re already on the set, and walking through the diner towards Nikki and Arthur. Well, he’s walking. I probably resemble a jellyfish on speed trying to wriggle free and finding myself dragged along beside him despite my best efforts.
“What are you doing?” I squeak. It’s one way to make a lasting impression, I guess. “I need to get back to my—”
He halts abruptly and our chests collide.
My nipples react by standing to attention and forcing their way through my bra and my halter-neck dress to scrape his solid muscles.
I can see in his eyes that he felt it, and I groan inwardly.
I sense Nikki’s confusion as she watches her best friend—her non-acting best friend—join her on set with a literal walking sex-bomb.
“That’s better.” He grips my upper arms like he knows I’m going to bolt the instant he releases me.
Wrong! I’m going to melt into a puddle of embarrassment at his feet when he lets me go. I’ll end up slithering back to Amber and she’ll carry me back to our motel room in a bucket, sloshing tiny droplets of me over the side as we go.
The amusement in his deep brown eyes is evident when he says calmly, “I’m going to let you go now, okay?” I can see the amber flecks in those eyes and force myself to close my mouth. “All you have to do is kiss me back.”
All I have to do?
“Wait. No. There’s been some mistake.”
I have to stop him before he realizes that he’s got the wrong person and accuses me of sexual harassment or something equally desperate.
And illegal.
“No mistake.” His lips move closer to mine.
The guy is either insane, or he can get away with this kind of thing because, quite frankly, I bet he’s never been refused a kiss in his life.
“I can’t kiss you,” I blurt out. “I’m not—”
Too late.
He lowers his arms and our lips meet. He entwines the fingers of his left hand with my hair, tilting my head backwards. He grips my chin with the thumb and index finger of his right hand and pushes his tongue between my lips.
And I don’t stop him.
I don’t stop him because I can’t feel my body.
All that exists in the moment is his tongue dancing with mine. The pressure of his lips, the feel of his hand in my hair, the amber flecks of those oh-so-beautiful eyes winking at me like he knew all along what effect he would have on me once I stopped resisting.
For one brief blissful moment, I forget where I am.
I forget that this is a film studio. I forget that I traveled to LA to watch my best friend in her first movie role. I forget that somewhere nearby, Amber is watching me kiss a complete stranger.
The image of Amber being restrained by the woman in the white shirt jerks me back to my senses.
But before I can twist my mouth aside and push the demi-god off me, his hands are gone, and he’s watching me with an expression that I can’t read.
Anger flares inside me. Not only did he kiss me without my permission, but he chose when to end the kiss too, denying me the satisfaction of telling him to get his fucking hands off me.
“What was that?” I narrow my eyes.
My pulse is racing. I can still taste him. I can smell his uber-expensive cologne, and feel his hand in my hair, and I want to yell at him in front of all these people, that it’s fucking wrong to humiliate women this way.