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“On a first date, it might be a little forward,” he said, “but this first date isn’t a typical first date.”
“Because we’ve already slept together,” I blurted then mentally cursed myself. I had been right not to trust myself to speak.
He said nothing at first, and I snuck a glance at him. His expression was contemplative. “I was thinking because we’ve spent so much time together over the past six weeks, but that too.” He paused for a moment. “Do you regret it?”
I guessed we were finally having the conversation, thanks to my inability to control my mouth. His question wasn’t easy to answer. I hadn’t regretted it in the moment or even the morning after, despite my panicked response and sneaking away without saying goodbye. But when I opened that door at the studio and found out he was my partner… I would have been lying if I said I hadn’t regretted it at that point. And I had to wonder what our partnership would have been like if we hadn’t started off on that strange note. Overall, though, everything seemed to have worked out okay. After all, I was still in the competition, and double bonus, we were out on a date. Maybe my mother had done me a favor by canceling Thanksgiving.
Trenton laughed. “You’re taking a long time to answer. That’s never a good sign.”
“I don’t regret it.” As I said it out loud, the absurdity of the conversation hit me—Trenton Mazer, rock star, was concerned that I, Alison Prescott, wannabe pop star, regretted hooking up with him. Honestly, it would have been kind of messed up if I did, because I had been the one to come on to him.
“Oh, wow,” I said for the second time that day as we arrived at the front of the theater. Trenton had been correct. It was way cooler than the Walk of Fame because every concrete block—they couldn’t even be called squares because they were different shapes—was unique.
The section we’d come upon first seemed to be all men. Even so, I dropped to my knees and planted my hands in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s handprints. I wasn’t surprised when my hands took up only a fraction of the space. Trenton leaned back and took a picture on his phone. He grinned. “For your scrapbook.”
“I haven’t had a scrapbook since I was twelve,” I said as I moved on to Bruce Willis’s prints.
I was surprised by how many names I didn’t recognize. I wished I would have thought to do some research before coming.Oh well.With any luck, it wouldn’t be my only opportunity to visit.
A thrill filled me at the sight of Marilyn Monroe’s handprints, shoeprints, and handwriting. I traced my fingertip in her signature as if I was signing it, and Trenton took another picture as I placed my hands in the smooth grooves of her handprints.
“This is the most popular one,” he said. “That’s why the handprints are darker—because so many people have touched them.”
I wondered what it would be like to be relevant decades after death, to have kept people so fascinated for all that time. It was a stupid thing to wonder, though, because Marilyn was dead—she had no idea she was still revered.
I looked up to find Trenton watching me and wondered what I looked like through his eyes. Blushing, I stood and stepped aside so the next person could have their moment with Marilyn. He smiled at me. “Cool, right?”
What was cool was being there with him and the fact that he’d wanted to give me the experience. I didn’t know how to put that into words without sounding cheesy, so I merely nodded. “Very.”
“This has always been one of my favorite things in LA. I’ve been meaning to make it to a handprint ceremony, but it hasn’t worked out yet.”
“You don’t need an invitation?”
He shook his head. “They’re open to the public. The media gets the front-row seats, though, so it’s difficult to see, or so I hear. But I figured that might not be as much of a problem for me.”
“Tall guy problems.”
“The struggle is real. Try knocking your head on a doorframe a few times, and you’ll understand.” He grinned. “We could put you on the stilts we had planned for our Sonny and Cher performance. Then you’ll know what it’s like to be me.”
I gave him the stink eye. “There were no such plans.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself. All I’m saying is that if we had come out of the gate with that, they would have canceled the entire competition and declared you the winner right then.”
“Us,” I corrected. “Declared us the winners.”
“I’m not a contestant, so I can’t win.”
He was correct, technically speaking, but I didn’t want to get into it. I was making a valiant effort not to focus on how much of our votes were most likely because of Trenton alone.
The movie he chose wasn’t very good—Paradise Islandprobably would have been better—but I couldn’t complain about sitting shoulder to shoulder with him in a darkened theater, especially when he rested his hand on my knee. Afterward, at dinner, we talked about everything butSing Battle.Since the show had been dominating my life, it was a nice change of pace.
Trenton took me back to my hotel, parked, and walked me in. My mind—and body—raced. Yes, we’d already slept together, but that been a once-in-a-lifetime thing, or so I’d thought. I didn’t expect to be on a date with him and wondering what came next.
When the elevator arrived, he didn’t step in with me, only leaving me a split second to decide.Fuck it.Holding the door open, I looked up at him. “Do you want to come up?”
He ran a hand through his hair then took my hand and pulled me out of the elevator—the opposite of coming up with me. “I really shouldn’t.”
“Oh.” My cheeks flushed. I’d had a great time, and I’d thought he had, too, but perhaps he’d just been humoring me. He was a nice guy, and he’d known I was alone this week.
Before I could wallow in embarrassment, he pulled me against him as the elevator doors closed behind me. “But I want to.” His gaze searched my face, and he must have liked what he saw, because he kissed me. It was gentle at first, exploratory. It quickly became more intense, and my back pressed against the elevator button. The doors reopened with a ding. Trenton broke the kiss and stepped back, leaving me wanting more.
He gently nudged me onto the elevator. “See you on Thanksgiving.” The doors closed, leaving me with swollen lips and an equally swollen heart.
