I chortled. Thatwaspretty embarrassing, actually. I could work with that. “So you’re a student of the rubber ball school of acting,” I said with mock seriousness. “Got it.”
“Laugh all you want, but it works. No limp noodle arms for me,” he said, curling his arm in a tight flex—and since it was clearly an invitation, I hooked a hand around his bicep and squeezed, and he was right: Noodles definitely weren’t among the descriptors I’d use to describe the hard muscle filling my palm. Chunks of carved granite, yes. A Roman statue, sure. Overcooked pasta, not a chance in hell.
“So all it takes to become a Marvel superhero is a rubberball,” I joked, trying to distract from the fact that I was still running my hand over all that smooth muscle. I was stroking his bicep like a genie’s lamp. “Who knew?” He flexed again under my palm, and I whimpered, my internal temperature rising by a thousand degrees.
He knew what I was up to. “Quit stalling, it’s your turn.”
I pried my fingers off him with effort and gave my system a hard reboot.Get it together, Scarlett. You’re a professional actress headlining a major motion picture, not a teenage girl with a crush on the lead in the school play.
“Mine is way worse.” His face sparked with interest, and I took a measured breath, like I was confessing a crime. “I have toe thumbs.”
His eyebrows shot sky-high. “Toethumbs? What the hell are toe thumbs?”
I gave him a double thumbs up, presenting the evidence, and he grabbed one for a closer look. “Stumpy thumbs that look like toes.”
His eyes bounced from my pint-sized thumb to my face and back to my thumb again, scrutinizing it from all angles like a rare and peculiar artifact. I’d be offended, but I was used to it.
“It’s a real condition, it’s called brachydactyly type D,” I explained to his apparent disbelief. “It has a bunch of funny nicknames too, like clubbed thumb, hammer thumb, even murderer’s thumb. My friends used to call them Quasimodo thumbs.” He’d been valiantly keeping a straight face up to this point, but at that last one, he started to crack. “I know, they’re hideous. It’s my cross to bear. I even had to talk to Nate about it before we started shooting.”
He was really losing it now, laughter erupting out of him. “What?Why?”
“I had to! I can’t let them film a close-up of me touching your face, these freakish things would be so distracting!” He was wheezing now, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter. “He agreed we’d camouflage it somehow, shoot around it or get some sort of hand double stand-in if necessary. This isn’t a joke!” I said, slapping at his chest.
He seized my hand and held it up to his, husky laughter still shaking out of him, and placed my palm flat against his own, comparing the sizes. My runty little thumb only reached to his knuckle. His eyes met mine in amazement.
“I know. Trust me, I’ve heard every joke,” I sighed, trying not to focus on how sexy I foundhishands. They were strong and masculine and tanned, perfectly veined, his fingers long and graceful. His hands were a microcosm of him, really: powerful and muscled but not overly so—just right.Can hands look healthy?His did.
“They’re really cute, actually,” he teased playfully, and I scoffed. He held my thumb up, twisting and turning it like a jeweler showcasing a diamond, its facets catching the light.
“Cute like a car crash.”
His eyes turned mischievous. I was starting to recognize this impish glint—it always preceded shenanigans. “You know, they’resocute that I really think they should make an appearance in the movie.”
I ripped my hand from his grasp. “Over my dead body.”
I could see the gears turning in his mind, a cheeky grin curving his mouth. “Sorry, it’s my personal mission now. I won’t rest until I’ve given them the close-up they deserve.”
I gave him my stoniest, most menacing glare. “You’re breaking the blood oath you’vejustagreed to.”
He donned the expression of a man in love, then reached for both my hands and placed them on the sides of his face, trapping them there so they cradled his jaw, my thumbs front and center in the hollows beneath his cheekbones. “Nowthisis the money shot.”
“I hate you.”
When we went to tell Nate we’d kissed and made up, I purposely lagged behind him a couple of steps. And for the record,thiswas the money shot…and I had a sudden craving for peaches.
No reason.
9
Now
“This question isfor both Scarlett and Ryder,” says our moderator, a dean at the college’s School for the Performing Arts named Winston Currituck who apparently goes by “Dr. Wynn.” A super-tanned man in his sixties with a shock of white hair, he reminds me a bit of George Hamilton, only with more facelifts. Drama is clearly the right lane for him—he’s been directing the panel discussion with all the gravity and earnestness of a presidential debate. “How does it feel to be back in Seafolly?”
I look to Ryder, but he motions for me to go ahead. “It’s fantastic to be back. We were welcomed with open arms ten years ago, and the reception we’ve received this week has been just as warm. I’ve loved being an adopted daughter of Seafolly. Filming this movie was a really special time in my life, and I look back on the whole experience with such fond memories.” I keep my eyes trained forward, making sure to not so much as glance Ryder’s direction. “And having theopportunity to spend a week with this group of people who mean so much to me, while helping Seafolly in the process, is an honor.”
“I couldn’t say it any better,” Ryder chimes in charmingly. Ladies titter and swoon in the audience. Somewhere, a woman faints.
“Scarlett, what’s your favorite memory from shooting the movie?”
