AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jem blinked at me. “For real?”
I clasped his forearm. “Jem. You are an incredible actor. Whether you have a degree in it or not, you’re clearly well-trained and experienced. I respect the hell out of your talent and dedication.” How could I convince him the words I spoke were the truth? “I can’t believe all this time you thought this about me.”
He let out a breath and closed his eyes. “Fuck,” he said softly, sounding defeated. “I thought you hated me. I was such an ass.”
“I don’t hate you.” I bit back the other words I wanted to say, words about liking him more than was professional and wanting him more than I could ever admit out loud.
He looked back up at me. “Now what? I feel like I need a do-over.”
I stood up and reached for his hand to pull him out of the chair. “Unnecessary. Let’s just continue as we mean to go on. As…?”
Jem smiled at me, and I thought maybe my stomach would tumble out of my gut and stay right here in a heap on the lobby floor. “Friends. I’d like that.” His cheeks turned pink. “Okay, maybe friends with benefits.”
My gut twisted with excitement until he added with a chuckle, “Stage kissing benefits, I mean.”
“Yeah,” I said, biting back my disappointment. “Stage kissing benefits.”
***
Jem hadn’t been exaggerating about his nerves. The interview got off to a rocky start when the DJ asked Jem to tell the listeners a little about the show and Jem blanked on the name of Not My Alfred.
“Forgive him. He plays a bit of an airhead in the show and has trouble breaking character offstage,” I teased, shooting Jem a wink over the tangle of microphone booms and cords between us.
Jem seemed to blink into awareness. “And you play a know-it-all.”
The DJ chuckled and asked us some fairly easy warm-up questions before finally getting to the big one. “Tell us about the kiss. How did it get started?”
Jem and I locked eyes across the table. I could see the residual nerves still in his body language, so I answered first. “Not My Alfred is a show about a mobster who’s trying to keep his crimes away from his devoted wife. When the character of Alfred’s wife comes into a scene, our characters—the mobsters—have to act casual. Each time it happens, we pick more and more outrageous ways of looking like we’re not conspiring to commit crimes.”
Jem cut in with a shit-eating grin. “And that’s when he kisses me.”
“And that’s when I kiss you,” I said, feeling the same squeeze in my chest that was happening more and more around him.
“Woo-hoo-hoo,” the DJ said, fanning himself with his hand. “The tension between these two is off the charts! Tell us more. What do your significant others at home think of you kissing someone else every night?”
His question was teasing and flirty, even though it was ultimately inappropriate. I glanced at Jem, whose eyes were still on mine.
“No significant other for me,” Jem said.
“Same,” I admitted.
Silence permeated the room for a heavy beat before the DJ sighed. “Ooookay then. Does anyone else see the obvious here? Just me? If you want to see these two and their incredible chemistry, find a way to source tickets to the sold-out production of Not My Alfred, playing at the Silverlight Theater. Thank you so much for coming to talk to us this morning.”
We left the studio with smiles of thanks and plenty of handshakes, but underneath it all was an unspoken question. What happened next if we were no longer at war with each other? How did we respond to the implication there was more between us than a professional relationship?
Was there more between us? Did the chemistry onstage mean anything offstage?
When we got back down to the lobby, Jem blew out a big breath and leaned over to prop his hands on his knees. “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath. “How do you make that look so easy?”
I was surprised by his relief. “You go out every night onstage and don’t have a problem. I know you said you were nervous about this, but you did great.”
He stood up and shook out his hands, doing a few deep inhales and exhales before flashing me a big smile. “You’re right. It was fine. Onward and upward. We got this.”
We walked out into the bustling city street and headed toward the television studio for the next interview, The Wendy Goodley Show. This one would be more challenging since we’d be on camera, but Jem was right. We had this.
And we would have.
If Wendy Goodley had stuck to the script.
5
JEM
I had a false sense of confidence going into the interview on Wendy Goodley’s morning show. All it took to crush it was the host’s pointed questions about our acting resumes.
