Jahleel (27 page)

“One would think you’d be in a better disposition after that dream-come-true sleepover, yeah?” She went on, digging. “What? Was he a disappointment? Was he awful in bed?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I mumbled.

“W-what?” Amanda stopped working and shot me an incredulous stare in the mirror. “You wouldn’t know?”

“Right.”

“So, you’re telling me you spent two nights in that debaucher’s bed and there was no sticking it in the poi-yoi?”

As always, whenever she referred to sex as ‘sticking it in the poi-yoi’—which made no sense whatsoever—I snickered.

“You know how a man would refer to a woman as ‘cock-tease’?” I asked.

Amanda laughed in answer.

“Well, JK’s a cunt-tease.”

“God blind me,” she exclaimed, shaking her head, disbelieving. “That whore?
Tease
? Really?”

“Really.”

Resuming her work, she measured, “And here I was thinking he was bonking you in fifty-five different positions over there.”

After Jahleel’s ‘playing’ that day, I tried making things as innocent and platonic as possible for the remainder of the evening. Whenever we sat down to eat, watch television or sleep, I made sure there was descent enough space between us.

No fool, he realized what I was doing, and instead of giving me a hard time, he went along with it. But whenever I caught him watching me, he had this small, impish smile on his face, as he kept some private joke to himself.

I ignored it, ignored him, and consequently got through the night without combusting from sexual frustration.

The following morning I woke up before him at 6am, whipped up some breakfast and stuck it in the microwave for him. I wrote a note, left it on the kitchen counter and fled.

Being in that house with him, receiving his touches, kisses and nothing more, was more than I could handle. And even though I could’ve altered my schedule to stay there with him until he was better, I didn’t.

Because staying with Jahleel in that house amounted to self-torture.

I wanted him too much, and the whole platonic thing was bullocks. Without hesitation, I’d have traded places with Tiara any day to have casual sex with Jahleel, taking the unfaithful A-hole that came with it.

The more time I spent around him, short and clipped as they were, the deeper and harder I fell.

“Ready for you, Saskia,” Derek’s voice broke through my reverie.

Pushing all thoughts of Jahleel Kingston aside, I got up and went to be the superstar I was.

Suspended upside down from the ceiling, the twisting belts created the illusion I was a pro at this acrobatic thing. I flexibly splayed my legs in positions I knew would look helluva sexy in the leather Catwoman outfit as I made fierce expressions for the camera.

Somehow, in the midst of the camera flashes, the rapid-fire directions from Derek, and the flurry of movements beyond that, I managed to see
him:
Plain black tee, black jeans, red ball-cap and Timberlands. Standing with his legs apart, arms crossed, he watched me.

This sod. How the hell did he…?

Ferbie
. It had to be.

Shifting my gaze from the
fucking perfect
sight that was Jahleel Kingston and ignoring the immediate change in the pace of my heartbeat, I professionally—amping up the provocativeness—posed for the rest of the frames, disregarding Derek’s directions altogether and doing my own thing.

No doubt, those last frames would be my best frames, as the presence of the man in the red ball-cap standing behind the director spurred me on.

When the photographer was finished, and I was lowered from the ceiling for the belts to be removed, Derek rushed over and hugged me, kissing both my cheeks. “You, my dear, are awesome.”

“Thanks,” I answered absently, peeping over his shoulder at Jahleel whose attention, by then, was directed at Derek’s petite assistant. He had one side of his lower lip caught between his teeth as the girl flicked a pen between her fingers over and over, flirtatiously talking in quiet tones to him about God knows what.

It wasn’t the assistant’s flirting with him that ticked me off, it was that the doucheholecocknozzle seemed to be genuinely interested in her words.

“Who’s that?” I asked Derek, nodding over his shoulder, pretending not to know who the steam-emanating, Timberland-wearing hot stuff in the red cap was.

Derek turned halfway and glanced in the direction of Jahleel and his assistant. “Oh, JK? He rents the studio across the hall. He comes over sometimes when…” Trailing off, he turned back to me to examine my expression. “You don’t mind him being on the set, do you?”

I didn’t mind in the least.

His presence, in fact, made me perform better, knowing those gold eyes were watching me. But I had to pretend I did mind. I was trained well.

“Of course I do,” I snapped. “Anyone can easily snap a pic and leak the photos.”

Understanding, he nodded, and gestured to the side indicating the representative of Nixx Magazine. She and the photographers were engaged in animated conversation as they clicked through the photos on the monitor, fawning over what was usable and what wasn’t. “Gracie doesn’t mind. If anyone should worry about photos leaking before the magazine is out, it’s her. Besides, JK’s cool.”

One eyebrow winged up at his choice of adjective. Other than Ferbie, he was the only person I’ve ever heard refer to Jahleel as ‘cool’ instead of ‘asshole’.

As the crew disconnected the last belt from around me, I muttered, “So unprofessional,” and walked off.

Out of the Catwoman outfit and back into my distressed jeans shorts and Batman T-shirt, I plopped down in the chair at the makeshift makeup station and let Amanda clean the makeup from my face, while I thought of all the things I could eat in my starved state, keeping my mind off Red Ball-Cap who was somewhere in the room chatting up a dumb tramp.

Amanda gave me no hell about Jahleel’s presence on the set. She knew it wouldn’t help mentioning his name while I was: one, tired. Two, hungry. Three, sex-starved. And four, pointlessly, ridiculously, helplessly and hopelessly in love with him.

I was only partially free of makeup when Amanda stopped cleaning and shoved the alcohol-scented cotton into my hand, ordering me in her ever dominant voice, “Clean.”

As I started to tell her I was the one who paid her to work, not the other way around, she tilted her head to indicate Jahleel who, undetected by me, was now with us.

Amanda moved off and Jahleel settled in the chair next to me, dangling his forearms over the flimsy chair arms.

Leaning closer to the mirror, I resumed the task of removing layers of makeup from my face. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re stalking me.”

In the mirror, I watched as his eyebrows shot up. Of course, that was a low blow, even for me. If anyone was doing any form of stalking here, it was me.

“I rent the studio across—”

“I know,” I clipped, choleric—the PMS kind of choleric.

Even though I pretended to focus on removing my makeup, I was aware of his every move, blink, breath. My peripheral vision was sharp. As of recent, everything became sharper, keener, when it came to Jahleel.

So, under his ball-cap visor, I didn’t miss his eyes as they swept swiftly over me, fast enough so a less acute person would miss it. Those eyes came back to me in the mirror, but he would never catch me watching him. Nuh uh.

“Your eyes are blue,” he stated the obvious.

“Contacts. Clearly.”

“You were Catwoman.” He shifted unnecessarily in his seat. A ploy to garner my attention, but I continued to focus on my reflection. See? I was getting used to his games. “Grey or hazel would’ve portrayed it better. Your eyes are already grey. Cat grey.”

“The director wanted a blue-eyed a Catwoman. Not my call.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Don’t buy the magazine.”

Seriously? He was a dance choreographer. What the hell did he know about expressionistic portrayals of fucking cats?

Jahleel kept quiet for a while, but I felt him drilling holes into me. Until the comment, “I see we have Bitchy Sassy today.”

The last of my makeup removed, I threw down the messy cotton pads on the vanity and turned to face him. “What do you want, JK?”

He drew a breath as if to speak, but his eyes shifted to the cottons on the vanity. Blinking, he brought his gaze back to me, tried to speak again, but his attention moved back to the cotton pads. Helplessly, he shook his head and leaned forward, scooping up the messy cottons off the vanity and disposed them into a small waste-bin.

Wow. OCD much?

Sitting back, he sighed and looked at me full-on, no longer distracted by the heap of dirty makeup-stained cottons. “A note on the counter?”

“Nine days later?”

He brushed the back of his fingers against the shadowed scruff on his face. “I’ve been busy.”

“Like you are now?” I questioned. “You don’t live in L.A, so you must be here for work. Yet, you’re on
my
set.”

Eyes on mine, light-gold to artificial blue, he informed me, “I have no business in L.A.”

Was he saying he came here to see me and not because he was working in his studio across the hall? He was here because of me?

“You had a craving?”

Pleading the fifth, he stood up and came over to me. I watched him, wondering what he was about. Cupping my face, he slightly tipped my head backwards and ordered, “Stay still.”

Next, he used his index finger to gently stretch up my eyelid while using his other index finger to slide the contact off my eyeball. Resting the fragile thing on the back of his wrist, he switched over the other eye and did the same.

Stepping back and turning to the vanity, he located the contacts case and set each one in its rightful place, poured solution inside and closed it.

When he was done, he sat back down in his chair and looked at me with a satisfied smile. “There now. There’s my grey.”

I didn’t even bother asking how he knew to remove contacts.

“You’re crashed,” he pointed out.

“Very.” I pensively looked down and studied my black desert
Clarks
for a moment then looked back at him. “You never called.”

“Sorry,” he answered, unrepentant, “I was offended.”

“Offended?”

“‘Breakfast in the microwave. Raisins stocked. Never skip Vitamins. Rest for another twenty-four hours, at least. Get well soon. Sorry I couldn’t stay longer.’”
He quoted the note I left on the counter.

Now hearing it repeated verbally, I had to admit it did sounded a bit cold and distant. But, well, what else did he want me to say?

“I don’t see how I offended you, JK.”

“‘Sorry I couldn’t stay longer.’”

“I couldn’t.”

“You
could
.”

Backed in a corner with no plausible lie, I shifted my gaze to my desert Clarks again. “You wanted me to stay?”

No answer came from him, but I knew it was because the question was a stupid one. Of course he wanted me to stay with him! Or else he wouldn’t have taken offense to my abrupt leave.

“I’ve missed you,” I confessed to my Clarks.

A finger nestled under my chin and elevated it so I was looking at him. “What exactly have you missed, Sassy?”

His expression was one of curiosity, test and confrontation, as though wondering what was there to miss about him when we were nothing to each other and spent little time together creating memories, or moments to miss.

There was nothing to answer with, because I, in truth, didn’t know
what
I missed. Except that I missed
him
. All of him. Him being a walking contradiction. His playing, his teasing, his eyes on me…as they were at that moment.

Those unique gold irises studied me. Sandy-brown waves of his silky hair suppressed by his cap, the visor created a light shadow over his face, lending him a brooding bad boy look. I itched to take off his cap and ruffle his hair until it bounced back into free, unsuppressed impeccability.

When he realized I was speech-impeded, unable to answer him, he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and asked, “You did
Twelfth Night
in school, Sassy?”

“
‘If music be the food of love, play on’,
” I quoted.

Nodding, he asked, “What’s your take on Orsino and Olivia?”

Huh?
“Um, I dunno…Orsino was obsessed and madly in love with Olivia. He…spent his time lying around daydreaming and fantasizing, listening to music and spewing poems about love, pining for Olivia. Often he would send Cesario to deliver his proclamations of his love for her…I…I don’t know…”

“And Cesario always failed to get through to Olivia, right?”

“Right.”

“And what did Orsino do about this so-called love and obsession
himself
?”

Was I in high school or something?
“Nothing. Lay around and pine because he was obsessed with love, all things of and about love, and the concept of desire and need.”

“As a highly respected nobleman with a title, ‘Duke’ Orsino, what
could
he have done?”

“Gone to her himself and demanded her?”