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Acting on pure instinct, I held my hand up to ward Lily off. She hesitated, her cornflower blue eyes widening. The sunlight was gilding her again, refracting off the small diamond studs in her earlobes. Her pink lips were curved in a smile, and her cheeks were rosy from the brisk pace I’d set on the walk here. She looked blindingly beautiful, and achingly young. For a second, I wished I hadn’t stopped her. I wanted to feel her slim arms slip around me, but not just for a platonic hug. I wanted her to tilt her head back and press the full length of her body against mine, to taste her lips to see if they were as soft as they looked.
It made me irrationally angry, and my voice came out harsher than I intended. “Lily, this isn’t a sorority. In the real world, you shake hands with someone to say goodbye instead of rubbing up against them.”
Her smile dissolved instantly as her flower petal lips parted in surprise. The roses in her cheeks darkened to crimson and spread across her face. The sparkle in her eyes dimmed.
I tried to soften my voice, but I could still hear the bite in it. “I’m telling you this for your own good. You don’t want to give people the wrong idea in this industry.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice so tight it was like her vocal chords were strangling the syllables.
“Don’t be sorry,” I barked, inexplicably annoyed by her apology. “Just be smarter.”
I hadn’t said it to piss her off, but when her lips clamped together and her eyes narrowed, I realized I’d done just that. Good. I preferred her anger to her hurt. A second ago it felt like I’d just kicked Bambi, but now the light of battle was in her eyes. I’d seen it there when she was defending sorority life, too, and I liked it. It made me want to—
No.I cut my thoughts off at the knees and turned away from her. It was a shitty way to say goodbye, but the more distance I got from her, the better I felt. My head cleared. I could breathe again.
Maybe it had been cruel, but it had been necessary. At least, that’s what I told myself.
***Cruel but necessary became the theme of my day. Preston called and tried to pressure me into strongarming Julian into forcing the producer to cast him. I didn’t even try to couch my disdain, telling him in no uncertain terms what I’d do if he bothered me one more fucking time about this role that he wasn’t fucking good enough for, that he’d never be good enough for. And when he threatened to find a new agent, I laughed.
“Go ahead,” I said. “Enjoy being the B-list version of Matthew McConaughey.”
Then, fired up from that interaction, I called the agent of the actor who wanted top billing over my guy. I knew some sordid shit about his that wouldn’t play well in the media.
“If you leak to the media, you’ll sink the entire production,” the agent snapped, but I heard the quaver beneath his words.
“So?” I countered. “I’ll get my guy the lead in the next Michael Bay movie while yours gets knocked back to playing murder victim number two on CSI.”
A furious silence burned up the line, and I knew I’d won.
You’d think I’d have been in a good mood by the time I met up with my friends for happy hour, but for some reason, discontent still seethed in my veins. I tipped back my drink faster than usual and tried to relax while Garrett bitched about the latest predicament one of his most troublesome clients had gotten into. I laughed with the others when he told us how he tried to bribe the LAPD and nearly gotten arrested himself, but it felt forced.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Lily. The few seconds that her lips trembled before forming a thin, hard line that still looked strangely alluring. I liked it when she got angry enough to show some of the fire I sensed simmering beneath her sweet, good girl surface. I’d never liked a passive woman. Kim, problematic as she was, was proof of that. She’d burned bright as a torch when we first met as teenagers. She was burnt out now, and the years of living high on the child support she didn’t use to support our child were coming to an end. I was afraid she was determined to go out with a bang.
“Hey, earth to Con.” Julian snapped his fingers in front of my face.
I smacked his hand away. I could always tell what movie Julian was focused on by the lingo he used. Right now it must be the sequel to the sci fi blockbuster that came out last summer.
“Sorry, I’m distracted.” I sketched out an explanation about Kim and the shit I was dealing with at work. And then, almost as an afterthought, I added, “And I’ve got Halley’s sorority sister to deal with on top of it.”
“Deal with?” Garrett repeated.
“Yeah,” I said, then when they continued to stare blankly at me, I elaborated. “Halley made me pick her up from the airport the other day, and today I had to take her to lunch.”
There was a beat, then Dominic said, seemingly for all of them, “That’s rough, pal.”
Julian snickered first, then the rest joined in. My irritation notched up. “I’m not a fucking babysitter.”
“And she’s not a baby,” Landon said. Then he looked closer at me, spotting something the others had missed. Damn his intuition. It made him great at security and fucking obnoxious as a friend. “Or is that the problem?” he asked astutely.
The snickers became raised eyebrows.
“There’s no problem,” I said shortly, finishing my beer. “I’m just too busy to play tour guide right now.”
“Has anyone seen this tourist?” Landon asked the group. “What does she look like?”
They shrugged. Garrett said, “I’ll find her.”
