I try not to think of Graham upstairs. I’m convinced he left my room the other night because of Brooke. They’re probably already involved, possibly they have been for a while. Maybe they argued, maybe he just slipped—our kiss was a mistake and nothing more. He’s become a good friend. I like talking to him and running with him, the way he teases me, the way he seems to look out for me. Trying to turn it into anything further will ruin it.
That’s what I tell myself, locked in Reid’s arms, dancing within a crowd of people as though no one else exists. But Reid and I will never be invisible, as much as we might pretend it, and I never feel like everyone else disappears. I feel them staring, the whole time we’re on the floor, like they can see right through me.
***
“Let’s go to the café, get some coffee. I’m not ready to go up yet,” Reid says quietly to me as we enter the hotel hours later in groups of two and three. We’re last in.
“Do you want to ask anyone else—?”
“I’ve had enough of everyone else for one night.” Holding one finger to his lips, he pulls me towards the café, out of sight of the elevator.
He asks for a booth by the window and slides in beside me instead of across. We order coffee and share a slice of cheesecake, most of which he eats. I’m still trying to work off that cake I shared with Graham.
Don’t think of Graham
.
There are still people in the street, and we watch them parade by. “I like watching people making idiots of themselves, like that guy.” He points to someone performing a drunken dance for a few friends who are attempting, unsuccessfully, to stop him. “Or fall in love, like those two.” A couple standing under a streetlamp are kissing passionately enough to make me blush.
“Me too. I like getting to be the audience.”
“So,” he says then, his fingers on my chin, turning my face. He kisses me lightly, at first. And then his arms slip around me, one hand moving from my lower back to my hip to my thigh, his mouth more urgent. Finally he leans his forehead against mine like he did at the club, his eyes closed as our breathing slows.
“Come to my room with me?” He asks so softly that I’m almost unsure he said it. His meaning is clear. Crystal.
“I… I don’t know, Reid…” My mind is casting about for some response, not wanting to push him away, but not ready for what he’s asking.
“I just want to kiss you, nothing more.” He laughs softly. “Okay, that’s entirely untrue. What I mean is, there will
be
nothing more, if it’s too soon for you. Just please, let me kiss you in a room where there isn’t a waiter hovering or a camera rolling or a million people watching.”
I nod, and he slaps a fifty on the table for what is probably a twelve dollar ticket, takes my hand and tucks it under his arm as we walk across to the café exit and to the elevators.
When the doors open, he sticks his head out first, glancing one way and then the other, as though we’re spies. Or fugitives. The hallway is deserted. We dash to his room, giggling. His room key is in his hand and in a matter of seconds we’re in, and he’s letting the door swing shut behind us and locking it. I’m not giggling anymore, and neither is he.
“Do you want something to drink?”
I feel dry-mouthed and nervous. “Water?” For a moment I feel silly; it isn’t like I’ve never made out with anyone before. And then I remember that I’m alone in a hotel room with Reid Alexander.
“Coming right up. Make yourself at home.” His room is a suite with a king-sized bed dominating one wall, a sitting area with a sofa and two chairs, a bar, and French doors at the south-facing balcony. There are fresh cut flowers in the middle of the dresser, and dry-cleaning bags hanging on the closet door. I perch in the middle of the sofa.
He brings two bottled waters from the bar fridge, hands me one as he sits next to me, leaning into the corner of the sofa, leaving several inches of space between us. My anxiety is building rather than decreasing, but I’m not sure how to calm myself.
For no good reason I recall how comfortable I felt with Graham in my room.
Don’t think about Graham
.
“Emma.” Reid leans up to place his bottle on the coffee table, and fixes me with the smoldering stare I recognize from every magazine spread he’s done in the last two years. The difference is this look is real, in person, and directed at me. “Come here.”
I place my bottle next to his and move closer, until our knees are touching. He kisses me softly, one hand on my waist, the heel of his hand pressed to my ribcage. Some minutes later, he stands, pulls me up by both hands and puts my arms around his neck as he had on the dance floor. Kissing me again, he lifts me by the hips, settles my legs around his torso and sits back down, never breaking the contact of his mouth on mine. We kiss for five minutes, ten, fifteen, I have no idea. When I finally break away, as breathless as if I’d run a mile, his mouth moves to my neck, kissing an erratic pathway to my ear.
Kneading my lower back with one hand while the other cups the base of my skull, he runs his fingertips from my shoulders to my hands, back and forth, finally circling my wrists with his hands, pulling my hands to lay on his chest. I feel his heartbeat under my palm, and his hands move to my thighs.
“Are you very sure,” his lips blaze a path from my chin to the base of my throat and my hands grip his biceps as though I’m suspended over a sheer drop, “that you don’t want to stay?”
I have to get out of here before I surrender to something I’m not ready for. I can’t think straight, and with what he’s doing, stopping him, let alone myself, isn’t going to get any easier.
“I can’t, Reid.” My God, I couldn’t sound less convincing.
“Mmm, I think you can,” he says, his hands moving over the bare skin of my shoulders, pushing the straps aside. As he presses me gently back on the sofa, looking down at me with a subtle, perceptive smile, I know he can read my longing to give in. And then he’s kissing me again and it’s a full five minutes before we come up for air.
“Reid, please. Not… yet.”
“I understand,” he says, taking a deep breath, eyes closed. He opens them and smiles wryly. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.” He kisses me one more time, quick and sweet, hands surrounding my face. “You know where I am if you change your mind, Emma.”
I leave his room, my legs shaking as though I’ve been at sea for a month, and I feel a weird mixture of regret and relief. It takes me four tries to get the key card to unlock my door.
I lie back on my bed and push my mental replay button… until my phone beeps, startling me. It’s Meredith, probably wondering what happened when Reid and I disappeared.
Meredith: You okay? Not that I’m checking up on you or anything. ;)
Me: Yep. Reid and I decided to stop by the cafe downstairs for a few minutes.
Meredith: Wanna get lunch and go shopping tomorrow?
Me: Sounds good. Noon?
Meredith: Sure. I’ll come to your room, cya then
Chapter 26
REID
Time for a re-eval.
First up, I’m certain Emma’s a virgin. The way she’s holding back isn’t just wariness of me—though that’s part and parcel. She’s new to the whole rodeo. Though there’s nothing about her that says
I’m saving myself for marriage
or any such crap, most girls want to save themselves for something—usually love, in which, as I’ve already established, I don’t believe.
Given the above, her kissing skill is incredible. I know it’s subjective, and not everyone likes the same things, the same way. Honestly, if I’m going to get laid, I tolerate just about anything. But Emma requires no toleration, and with a
lot
of past history to use for comparison, I know better than to take that for granted. She’s responsive, following every move I make like she did on the dance floor, tentative and sweet while managing to drive me crazy with wanting her, no matter how much control I seem to have over myself and the situation in the beginning.
It’s been a while since I’ve been this infatuated with someone. Jesus, what a rush. I can’t screw this up, and the best way to insure success in that is to cut off any other action for the duration. After the hour or so the two of us spent in my room last night, I’ve lost all interest in everyone else anyway. I want her. Period.
So then, Graham Douglas.
I don’t know him. He’s a puzzle. He’s done nothing but indie films, with some student films mixed in. No acting jobs before he was seventeen, and it looks like he started college before that. No idea if he continued or gave it up or what. He’s two years older than me, a year older than Brooke. I assume the two of them met on some previous project. They seem too chummy to have just met.
I can’t find that he crossed paths with Emma before
School Pride
, but anything is possible. Maybe they hooked up at some point, but not all the way. All the same, he doesn’t seem like the sort to dispute boundaries—if he thinks she’s mine, I think he’ll retreat. After I kissed Emma in front of him yesterday, he backed off without a word. Caveman tactics aren’t in my repertoire, generally, but neither is losing a girl I want this badly.
*** *** ***
Emma
Over lunch, Meredith grills me. “Emma,
what
is going on between you and Reid?”
I shrug one shoulder. “Honestly, I’m not sure.”
“Hmm. I thought I might not to get an answer to my text until this morning....”
“Well, I answered last night—from my room.” She arches a brow. “Where I was
alone
.”
“Okay, enough interrogation, I get it.” She takes a sip of her iced tea. “I’m still depressed over breaking up with Robby, even if it was for the best.”
“What happened?”
Her mouth twists. “When we’re together, everything is fine. When I’m away on location or whatever, it goes to hell. He loses all trust in me. If he can’t get me on my cell, he leaves angry messages. He accuses me of doing things I’d never do. Then he says he loves me and he’s just scared. The night we broke up, I told him I can’t be with him if he can’t trust me. And he said, ‘Then I guess you can’t be with me,’ and that was that.”
“Wow. That sucks.”
“Seriously.”
My phone beeps and I dig it out of my bag.
Reid: Dinner tonight? Alone? Be at your room at 7?
Me: Sure
“Reid?” Meredith asks.
“He wants us to go to dinner alone.”
“Yet you’re ‘not sure’ what’s going on.” She smirks. “Look, he obviously likes you, you like him… unless there’s someone else?”
I think of Graham, and my teeth clench.
Why
can’t I stop thinking of him that way? Because of
one
kiss that he obviously thinks was a mistake? I stack my fork and knife on the plate, not looking at her. “No. I just need to get over it.”
“I hear that. Robby and I have broken up three times in the last two years, and I
really
just need to get over it.” Her eyes well up with tears. I wish I could find this Robby guy and dead-leg him, like I’d done to a kid who broke Emily’s heart in second grade, when retribution was easy.
“So. What are we wearing tonight? Casual hot, or dressy hot?” Meredith asks, smiling, blinking her tears away. “We’re about to shop this town’s rocks off. We need to know what we’re hunting for.”
Me: Casual or dressy?
Reid: Preference?
Me: No?
Reid: K, lol. Casual it is. See you at 7.
***
While I’m dressing for my date with Reid (dark jeans, purple silk tank), I think about my run with Graham this morning. He didn’t ask what happened to me last night, thank God. He asked about my upcoming classes. Those of us who haven’t graduated and are under eighteen are required by law to attend class on set during the school year. Next week, Jenna, Meredith and I begin timed blocks of instruction with tutors. I’ll have enough credits to graduate by November.
“So then what?” We single-filed around a slower couple, for the third time in ten minutes. “College?” The paths are busy on Sunday mornings, which makes carrying on a conversation a disconnected and sporadic event.
“I’ve never planned to go.”
He smiled down at a toddler in a stroller as we passed, and she smiled back. “Why not?”
I shrugged. “I’ve never considered it a requirement. Or an option.” I felt myself getting defensive. “I’m not that bright. I do okay in my coursework, but nothing spectacular.”
“You’re underestimating yourself, Emma. And most people in college are
not
geniuses.”
“So you’ve taken some sort of poll? Or perhaps did some research?”
He laughed, falling in behind me as we passed a group jogging the opposite direction. “If research can be defined as being aware that you could run brainy little circles around most of the people I’ve gone to class with,” he said, “then yes.”
The warm sensation that flowed through me was both similar to yet nothing like some guy telling me I’m hot. Some guy like Reid, for instance.
“MiShaun says you completed a degree in New York?”
“Not quite. My final semester is this spring, after
School Pride
wraps.”
“How’d you get so far ahead?”
He bit his lip. “With academic parents and older sisters, I was precocious. I skipped kindergarten, moved from second grade to third mid-year. I liked being younger than anyone else in class, even though I got beat up occasionally for being pretentious.”
“
Were
you pretentious?”
“Yeah.” He laughed. “I was completely full of myself, pretty much all the time.”
“So you finished high school when?”
“Sixteen.” He smirked at me. “Clever diversion, getting me to talk about myself so I’ll quit asking you about your future plans, which you haven’t made.”
“I wasn’t trying to divert. I was curious.”
“Uh-huh.” I guessed he was wearing the same expression that got him creamed on the playground.
“Besides, if you’re trying to convince me that people who go to college aren’t brilliant, you totally suck at the persuasive part of your argument.”