Page 79 of The Hollywood Switch-up

ERIKA

The storm kept them for four days. Long enough for Erika to learn that Stefan was pathologically incapable of losing at anything—cards, Scrabble, a heated debate about whether Goya counted as a better artist than Velásquez that ended with him pulling up images on his dying phone battery to make his case. Long enough to fill every scrap of paper in the villa—old call sheets, hotel stationery, the backs of napkins—with drawings of his hands, his jaw, the way his shoulders looked in the doorway, unaware she was watching.

He’d kept his promise about the date. Not dinner—they’d been living on whatever the villa’s pantry offered, which meant creative interpretations of canned beans and an argument about whether ketchup counted as a sauce. The date was simpler. He’d cleared the debris from the covered cabana at the edge of the pool deck, strung up work lights powered by the generator, and sat across from her with a deck of cards and a bottle of wine that tasted like regret.

“Pretend we’re somewhere with tablecloths,” he said, dealing her in. “And that the wine doesn’t taste like industrial solvent.”

She laughed, and he looked at her. But as the wine went to her head and the wind kept battering the cabana's canvas sides, the lightheartedness frayed.

She knew where this night was heading. He’d made another promise in the pool—to be slow, to be deliberate, to watch her face.

Two days earlier, Lily had walked off the dock carrying two coffees, a garment bag, and a flat package wrapped in brown paper that she’d pressed into Erika’s hands without explanation. “From your costar,” she’d said, one eyebrow raised to her hairline. “Who apparently called me four times during a hurricane to ask where to overnight-ship art supplies to a Bahamian island with no functioning postal service.”

Inside was a sketchbook. Leather-bound, heavy stock, the kind she’d stared at in art supply stores and never let herself buy. No note. Just a pencil tucked into the spine.

She’d had to turn away so the crew wouldn’t see her face.

Two days of performing indifference across the set. Two days of Lily’s knowing looks, Martin’s suspicious attention, the constant exhausting work of being Anneliese Morgan when she wanted to be Erika—Stefan’s Erika, the one who existed only behind closed doors.

Lily's makeup brush swept across Erika's cheekbone, and she focused on the pull of bristles against skin. Lena hovered near the tent flap, clipboard in hand, half-listening to something crackling through her walkie.

Through the gap in the tent flap, Stefan crossed toward the equipment trucks, coffee cup in hand. He glanced sideways, just a flicker, and spotted her in the chair.

The bastard smirked, then pulled out his phone without breaking stride.

The vibration hummed against her inner thigh three seconds later. Then again. A third time. Lena's eyes flicked toward the movement—there and gone—before she turned back to her clipboard, giving Erika the moment she needed.

Stefan:

You’re doing that thing where you bite your cheek to keep from smiling. You’ve been doing it since I walked past.

Stefan:

It’s distracting. I almost walked into a lighting rig.

Eri:

You called Lily four times during a hurricane to find me a sketchbook. I don’t even know what to do with you.

Stefan:

Draw me. Preferably without clothes. I’ll hold very still.

Eri:

I already started. Last night while you were sleeping. Six pages.

Stefan:

You drew me naked while I was asleep? Should I be flattered or alarmed?

Eri:

Flattered. The light was doing something beautiful to your shoulders. I couldn’t help it.

Stefan:

And here I thought you only wanted me for my personality.