I grab his sweater, yanking him into the room and slamming the door behind him. “Fuck space.”
Chapter Thirteen
When I meet Liz in the dining room the following morning, she gives me a wicked grin. “Ready for this?”
I groan, pouring myself the largest cup of coffee I can manage. “You know I’m not. If I’m ever manipulated into acting in one of my own movies again, please remind me not to make my character do all the things I hate.”
She raises her eyebrows as she takes a long sip from her own mug. “Oh, is that so? I think you’re quite enjoying ‘doing’ one of those things you claim to hate.”
I spin away from her, busying myself with pouring heaps of milk and sugar into my black liquid gold, hiding my burning cheeks from her all-too-knowing gaze. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Emmy. How long have we been friends?”
“More years than I care to think about.” My cheeks feel like they have returned to a normal temperature, so I angle myself back in her direction, although I still avoid her gaze.
“And have you ever once successfully in those many, many years lied to me about anything?”
“Not that I know of.”
She leans across me, grabbing a cinnamon roll. “So why would you ever think you could keep a Grayson West–sized secret from me?”
I snatch the cinnamon roll from her hand, taking a huge bite and speaking around the gooey deliciousness. “How long have you known?”
“Since about five minutes after it happened.”
I swallow my bite and wash it down with half of my coffee. “Seriously? I thought we were pretty stealthy.”
“You thought I wouldn’t notice how both of you suddenly found the acting skills not to apparently hate each other every second of every frame?” There’s just a hint of smugness in her expression, enough to make me wonder if she planned this all along.
“It’s just sex.”
“I told you not to lie to me.” She takes an apple from the fruit bowl and swaps it for her cinnamon roll, pushing the fruit on me. “You’re going to need some real sustenance for today.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I crunch into the apple, holding it between my teeth while I refill my coffee, completely ignoring her implication that whatever this is between me and Grayson isn’t just sex. Because it definitely is.
“Shall we?” Liz holds out her arm, and I link mine through it.
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really, no.”
“You’re driving.”
We pull up to the town’s ice rink a few minutes later. Like everything else in Pine Springs, it’s idyllic andpicture-perfect, a frozen pond surrounded by trees with a gingerbread-cottage skate-rental booth that doubles as a hot chocolate stand. Even though we’re a hop, skip, and jump away from spring, the air outside is still bitingly cold.
A trailer is set up in the parking lot for hair and makeup, and as I make my way to it, I notice we aren’t the first to arrive on set.
My steps lead me in the opposite direction of the trailer, toward the ice, like there’s some kind of magnetic pull drawing me closer. Chances are, it’s not the ice I’m attracted to, but the man skating around on it.
Grayson is dressed in jeans and a hoodie, with a navy blue beanie pulled over his golden hair. His feet are strapped into heavy-looking black skates, the kind hockey players wear. He flies up and down the ice, skirting the edges of the oval pond, coming to sudden and complete stops before switching directions and skating backward. He moves like he doesn’t even have to think about it, like skating comes as naturally as breathing, his movements quick and sharp and oddly graceful.
I can’t take my eyes off him.
“Emmy! Let’s go!”
My eyes are only pulled away from Grayson when Sam hollers my name from the trailer. I’ve no doubt my little detour has already put everyone behind schedule, probably not for the last time on this cursed day.
Grayson looks up when he hears my name. I’m too far away to see his eyes, but he as soon as he realizes he’s not alone, he spins around and exits the mini rink, plopping down on one of the benches circling the pond.
