Page 107 of How To Plot a Payback

I plan to hate her but somehow fall in love with her.

I plan to help her and respectfully keep my distance but end up kissing her surrounded by twenty surrogate grandparents.

If I even think about leaving LA, we’ll probably elope.

I chuckle as the thought raises its head, while feeling an uncanny zing at the thought.

No.

Just stop thinking.

Thinking is simply not allowed tonight.

The beauty of what’s just happened is that I kissed her under duress. I was challenged to play a role, and I played the role. My abilities were questioned, and she could just consider me the most competitive person around, unable to let that lie.

If I were worth my salt as an actor, I could string together a dozen sentences to tie up that lie nicely. I could make her believe the whole evening really was just a silly little game beneath the stars. It had nothing to do with how I really feel about her and everything to do with proving I am the actor she doubted me to be.

Which is exactly the plan I am weighing before Lavender picks up a stack of paper plates and meets my eyes.

Just as Mrs. Teaberry stops to pat Lavender on the back. “Thank you for the loveliest evening, young lady.”

Lavender smiles. It’s a warm smile. Something in her eyes flashes even brighter at the words young lady, making her seem even softer. As though she accepts and appreciates being called something so casual, so familiar, instead of Lavender Rhodes as all the world knows her.

“You know,” Mrs. Teaberry continues, clutching an empty pizza box between her arms, “I’ve seen you do a lot of kissing on that television screen the past ten years. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe this was your best one yet.”

Chapter 21

Lavender

I saw the list.

Saturday, at Finn’s place, I saw it.

After the showing of Neighbors, everyone was packing up.

We had our hands full returning tables and chairs and projectors to their proper spots, and as we gathered up everything, Finn and I took on separate duties. I saw to the boxes of leftover pizza in Mrs. Teaberry’s feathery arms and insisted I walk with her to her kitchen. She assented, saying something about still recovering from a hip surgery of some months ago. I walked slowly beside her as she struck up a detailed analysis of the men I’d kissed on-screen over the course of the past decade, along with rigorous snogging tips. After all, she was a self-declared guru with “sixty-two years of experience with one very lucky man.”

By the time I was cleaning dish soap off my hands and the casserole dish that had earlier gone flying out of her arms was drying on the kitchen counter, I was simultaneously turning down “sketch support”; smiling as she informed me, “If I had a rating system, I’d say you were a solid 8, but needing a little practice”; and nodding heartily as she advised, “Now if I were you, I’d practice more with Finn. Because he clearly knows what he’s doing, and when he placed his hands on the back of your neck, I gotta say, I felt chills . . .”

Believe me, we both did.

Just as she was suggesting coming on set herself as support crew, my eyes fell on the manuscript rolled up and sticking out of my linen pants pocket, and I whipped it out faster than a canary could sing. “I’d better get this back to Finn while it’s on my mind. NDAs and the threat of losing our jobs if leaked and all that. Good night, Mrs. Teaberry.”

“Pop this in his fridge when you go,” she said, handing me what remained of a chocolate pie. I reached for the aluminum to cover it as she added, “It’ll make a good midnight working snack. Heaven knows he could use some fattening up.”

And that’s how I left Mrs. Teaberry, who watched me with an expression that said, There’s his open door and the pie is melting, and entered Finn’s flat. For the first time. Without Finn.

I had paused in the open doorway but took Miles’s greeting to mean, Look, I live here as well. Come on in.

Keeping the door respectfully open wide, I walked tentatively through the open living room, casting my eyes about quickly but with interest. There is something nice about getting to see inside someone else’s home without them watching you.

You don’t have to hold your face in a smile while looking at some terrifyingly dark piece of art. You don’t have to nod encouragingly at the massive sketch of a skull over a fireplace and say things like, “Yes, I do see why you purchased that for your life inspiration. And what a perfect spot for it too.”

And of course, the more interested one is in a person, the more interested one is in his home.

Because flats tell secrets.

Intentionally or not, I had stumbled into Finn’s flat before he could ensure I see only what he would want me to see.