I let out an indignant squeak. “Excuse me? You are the one who has been phoning it in for our scenes.” I strike a robot pose and affect a monotone voice. “Hello, my name is Grayson West. I do not know feelings. Must simply stand here and look pretty.”
His smirk doesn’t let up. In fact, it only grows when he homes in on the last two words of my stupid robot sentence. “You think I’m pretty?”
“Ugh. As if.” I roll my eyes and make sure there’s no drool on my chin.
“Okay then.” Grayson shrugs out of the flannel shirt, leaving him bare-chested, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans. Jeans that look super soft, like they are begging to be touched. “So did you have something you wanted to talk to me about?” He reaches a hand behind his neck, likehe desperately needs to smooth down his hair and striking this beefcake calendar pose is the only way to do it.
And I am not at all transfixed on the way the motion makes the muscles in his arm bulge and the ripples of his abs tighten. “Huh?”
He outright laughs at me before reaching for a blue Henley and tugging it over his head. As if that’s going to help. “Did you have something you wanted to talk to me about? I can see you are at a loss for words, so let me help. Did you want to tell me how stellar my performance was today?”
“Yes.”
He’s as surprised by my admission as I am, his eyebrows shooting up.
“I mean, yes, your performance today was better than the bullshit you’ve been giving me.” I pull myself up to my full height, trying to recall the anger that had been buzzing through me when I walked into the room. “So what gives? Why are you performing well in your scenes with Brian and not with me?”
He runs a hand over his beard like he actually has to think about it. “Well, let’s see here. There’s the fact that the first words out of Brian’s mouth when he met me weren’t ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ ”
I scoff, crossing my arms over my chest protectively. “I was surprised to see you. And if you’ll recall, I apologized for that.”
Grayson takes a step closer to me. “And there’s the fact that Brian treats me with respect, like I’m a professional, and not some no-talent amateur.”
“Respect has to be earned, and reciprocated.”
Another step. “How about the fact that Brian doesn’t look at me with nothing but disdain in his eyes?”
I take my own step forward, not wanting to give up any of my power. “I don’t do that.”
Grayson moves even closer, leaving just a foot of space between us. His charcoal and pine scent surrounds me, and a flush spreads over me. I find myself closing the gap even further, my body moving without my permission.
Grayson dips his head, his mouth landing just an inch from the shell of my ear. “Brian doesn’t come to set smelling like vanilla and oranges.”
My breath catches in my chest.
We’re not touching, but I can feel him everywhere, his presence surrounding me, overwhelming me, and we’re frozen in this bubble. A bubble I don’t want to pop.
“Grayson...” His name rumbles out of me, hoarse and laden with something tense and charged.
And he steps away from me. The bubble collapses, breaking the spell.
He runs a hand through his hair, and I can’t read the emotion in his eyes, but it’s thick. “Brian—and the rest of this cast for that matter—doesn’t treat me like I have no right to be here.”
And with that, he pushes past me, letting the door slam behind him.
The sound is a jolt to my system, and I finally start breathing again.
What the fuck just happened?
My body is covered with goosebumps, yet I’m flushedand a little bit sweaty under my hoodie. My breathing is ragged, like I just attempted more than five minutes of spin class.
And there’s an emotion tugging at my core. An emotion I don’t like, certainly not when it’s due to Grayson fucking West.
But the guilt is easy to identify. Because he’s not wrong.
I can’t go so far as to admit he’s right. But he’s definitely not entirely wrong.
—
