Three Girls And A Leading Man (7 page)

“Bye!” Ginny said brightly.

“Bye,” I muttered.

After he walked away, I turned on
her. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“What? I thought you liked him?”

“I think he’s cute,” I corrected
her. “I never said I liked him.”

She sighed. “Well the only way to
find out if you like a cute guy is to spend some time with him.”

“Ginny,” I said, “he is so
obviously not my type. Flirting with him at the casino is one thing. Hanging
out with him all day is totally another.”

“Why don’t you think he’s your
type?” she asked, surprised. “He’s totally into you. And the way you sauntered
over to him last night—I think there’s chemistry there.”

I sighed.

“I know what you’re thinking,”
Ginny said. “You’re thinking he’s too together for you, right? You’re wishing
he would be just a little more emo?”

“I don’t like emo guys,” I said,
offended.

Ginny laughed. “Bullshit. Sensitive
artist is just another way to describe emo.”

I glared at her. “Gin, he’s
probably, like, an accountant or something. He lives in
Birmingham
.”

She shook her head. “You’re such a
snob.”

“Who’s a snob?” Jen asked, sitting
down next to me. I looked at her and groaned. While Ginny and I looked like
we’d been drinking all night, Jen looked as perfect and put-together as ever.
Typical.

“Annie made a love connection and
she’s in denial,” Ginny said.

“Oooh,” Jen said, digging into her
pancakes. “Who’s the guy?”

“It’s not a love connection,” I
said, feeling irritated with both of them. “I met a guy from Detroit at the
casino last night. I flirted with him a little bit. End of story.”

“Or not,” Ginny said, drinking her
juice. “He came over here this morning and you can totally tell he’s into her.
He says he’s going to try to find her at the pool.”

“Wow, Annie,” Jen said. “This
sounds pretty serious.”

“I have an idea,” I said, putting
down my fork. “How about you both drop it?”

“She says she doesn’t care,” Ginny
said to Jen, ignoring me, “but how much do you want to bet right now she’s
thinking about what bikini to wear?”

As they both laughed, I could only
glare at them.

I mean, she was totally right, but
it was still annoying.

Chapter Eight

“So where’s the hottie?” Matt
asked, settling down on a lounge chair near me. Jen snickered, and I glared at
them both.

“Thanks, Jen,” I told her.

“What?” she said. “It’s very
important to me that your future husband gets along well with my boyfriend. I
had to make sure that Matt was welcoming to him.”

“Future husband?” Kiki squealed as
she and Eric joined us in the area we had staked out by the pool. “Who is it,
Annie?”

I groaned. “You guys, seriously.
It’s no big deal. Please don’t embarrass me.”

“Because you have never, ever
embarrassed either of us around a guy,” Ginny said drily. I flipped her off.

“Hey, Nate!” Ginny said suddenly,
staring at the space behind my head. I jumped in surprise and I saw Jen snicker
out of the corner of my eye.

“Hey, guys,” Nate said.

“Annie, why don’t you introduce us
to your friend?” Ginny asked innocently.

I sighed. There was no sense in
being rude.

“Guys, this is Nate,” I said,
gesturing behind me. “He lives in Birmingham and I met him in the casino last night.
Nate, these are my friends.”

“Hello,” he said cheerfully.

To my dismay, Ginny jumped up from
her lounge chair.

“I’m gonna go sit with Kiki,” she
said. “Give you guys a chance to chat.”

Nate, who seemed amused by the
entire situation, came and sat down on the lounger next to me.

“So,” he said. “You’re pretty
annoyed by me, huh?”

“I am not!” I said, surprised.

“I’ll leave you alone, if you
want,” he said, holding up his hands. “But I thought it would be cool to get to
know you a little. No biggie, alright?”

“Okay,” I said, feeling kind of
childish for my behavior. “Look, I’m sorry if I’m coming across as rude. My
friends are being a little annoying. They think I need to be set up.”

“And you disagree?” Nate asked.

“Of course I disagree,” I snapped.
“I have absolutely no problem getting a guy myself.”

He appraised me for a minute. In
spite of myself, I felt a blush rise to my cheeks.

“You know what, Annie? I have no
problem believing that at all.”

I blushed harder and looked down.
What the hell was my problem? I was so not the type of girl that got all
red-faced over a guy. It was ridiculous.

“So is it okay with you if I hang
out over here for a little while?” he asked. “My friends are right over there,
and I’ll go back and join them whenever you want, I promise. No pressure.”

“Of course you can stay,” I
muttered. “I’m pretty boring, though. I have no plans to do anything but lay
here in the sun for the foreseeable future.”

“Sounds good to me,” he said,
settling back in the chair. “God, just think: in a few short months it’s going
to be snowing in Detroit.”

I groaned. “Oh, hell, don’t even
say that.”

“So, you live in Ferndale?” he
asked, squinting over at me.

“Yup,” I said. “I rent a house
there with my friend Jen.” I pointed her out. “And Ginny lives a few streets
away. Kiki and Eric over there are married and they live in Birmingham too.”

“Have you always lived around
there?” he asked.

“Yeah. We grew up there,” I
explained. “What about you? You said you’re from Birmingham, right?”

“Yeah, and don’t think I didn’t see
you roll your eyes last night,” he said, laughing. “What, you assume I’m a snob
or something because I live in a nice town?”

I shifted, uncomfortable. To tell
the truth, that was pretty much exactly what I thought. “Sorry,” I told him. “I
just went to college with a couple of people who live out that way. They were
kind of stuck-up. I guess I’m a little prejudiced.”

“No problem,” he said. “I’m
actually pretty new to Birmingham. I moved there from Maryland, for work.”

“What do you do?” I asked.

“I’m an engineer,” he said. “For
Ford.”

“Wow,” I said. “That’s pretty
impressive.”

“It’s pretty nerdy,” he laughed. I
was surprised to find that I liked the sound. Usually the guys I went for
weren’t so quick to laugh. “I’ve always been into computers and math. It’s fun
for me to see the stuff I do on the computer actually get created, you know?”

“I can see that,” I said. Hmm, he
had surprised me again.

“So what do you do?” he asked.

“I’m an actress,” I told him.

“I knew it!” he said, sitting up
straight and pointing at me.

“The hell?” I asked, confused

“I knew I had seen you somewhere.
You were in
Proof
last year, weren’t
you? At the Y?”

“Uh, yeah, I was,” I said.

“I saw you!” he exclaimed, still
pointing at me. “I saw that show! You were really, really good!”

I stared at him in shock.
Proof
was an awesome show, and it was
the biggest role I’d had since college, but it had been a tiny little
production at the YMCA. If I recalled correctly, I had been paid in vouchers
from the restaurant down the street. “You saw that?” I asked Nate. And more to
the point, he
remembered
me?

“Yeah! It was good. I enjoyed it.”
The expression on my face must have registered. “What?”

“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head.
“I’m just surprised. You don’t strike me as the theater-going type.”

“See, you shouldn’t judge me until
you get to know me,” he said, pointing at me again.

Over his head, I caught Ginny
staring at us, a huge grin on her face.

“So do you regularly go to local
theater?” I asked, still feeling off-balance.

“Sometimes,” he said. “I have a
friend who loves that kind of stuff. I go with him once in a while. I like it.
We’ve seen some great stuff.”

“Wow,” I said. “That’s pretty
cool.”

“So what else have you done?” he
asked, lying on his side so he was completely facing me now.

“Uh, nothing too big, to be honest.
Not since college. I’ve had a few small roles here and there and I’ve done a
bunch of backstage stuff, but nothing too exciting. It’s been tough breaking
into the scene, ya know?”

“I bet.” He nodded. “But you were
seriously really good. I mean, I still remembered you after a whole year.
That’s got to count for something. I bet it’s only a matter of time.”

I smiled at him. “Thanks.
Actually,” I paused, unsure if I should tell him. But he had seemed so
genuinely interested in my acting. “Actually, I had a really big audition last
week. Do you know Jenner Collins?”

“Pretty boy in the action movies?”
he asked.

I wrinkled my nose at him. “I
wouldn’t quite describe him that way. He’s from the area, did you know that?
And he puts on a lot of really good shows with local talent.”

“Well, I still think he’s a pretty
boy. But that’s cool. So what’s the deal with audition?”

“It was for one of Jenner’s shows,”
I explained. “It goes up in a month and a half. And I got a callback.”

“That’s amazing!” Nate said. “Good
for you. When’s the callback?”

“It was last week,” I admitted. “I
think it went really well, but you never know.”

“When will you find out?” he asked.

“It could be any day. The timing of
this trip was really good for me, actually. Otherwise I’d be sitting at home
obsessing.”

“Yeah, it’s good to have
distractions when you’re waiting for that kind of thing.”

I looked over at his tanned,
muscular body and smiled. “Yeah. Distractions can be really good.”

Chapter Nine

“Annie, seriously, I need to get in
there!” Ginny shouted from outside the bathroom door.

“One second!” I shouted back.
“Stupid, fucking humidity...”

I attacked my hair with the
straightener one last time before I gave up. It was a losing battle.

I exited the bathroom and found
Ginny waiting for me. “If you say one word about my hair, I’ll kill you,
McKensie,” I told her.

She rolled her eyes. “Your hair is
fine,” she said. “You always get so worked up over it. Most girls would kill to
have curls like that.”

“Frizz,” I corrected. “I have
frizz. Red frizz. And the heat around here isn’t helping at all.”

“Well, why are you bothering
straightening it then?” she asked. “Why don’t you just braid it? It will get it
up off your face and it looks so pretty like that.”

“We’re in Vegas,” I whined. “I want
to look sexy and chic, not like a freaking librarian.”

“Sexy and chic, huh?” she said, her
face lighting up. “Who might we want to impress tonight, huh?”

“Oh, shut up,” I said, scowling.

“Seriously, are you going to see
him?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Who knows? I have
plans with you guys.”

Kiki’s dad had included tickets to
Cirque de Soleil in our package. I was really excited; it was supposed to be
incredible.

“Yeah, but we’re in Vegas,” Ginny
said impatiently. “It’s not like you’re gonna go up to bed as soon as the show
is over.”

“We might meet up at the fountain,”
I admitted. “But only if I feel like it. It wasn’t set in stone or anything.”

Ginny smirked. “Well, I hope that
works out then,” she said before she headed into the bathroom to do her own
hair.

I decided to take Ginny’s advice
and just braid my hair. There was no point in fighting it. I sat down at the
desk in front of a mirror and went to work on my hair. As I looked at myself in
the mirror, I smiled a little goofily. It had been a great day so far. The
truth was, I was really excited about the prospect of seeing Nate again. I’d
had more fun with him by the pool then I cared to admit. When we had to leave
to go the stratosphere tower, I actually felt disappointed. When he offered to
meet up at the Bellagio fountains later that night, I was quick to agree.

And while the thrill rides at the
top of the tower were crazy fun and terrifying, I’d had had a hard time keeping
my mind off my date all day.

Get
a hold of yourself
, I instructed myself firmly.
He’s not your boyfriend. It’s a little fun to have on vacation, nothing
more. Enjoy it, then move on.

That had been my motto with boys
for years, and it had always served me well. Unlike Ginny and Jen, I had spent
little of our teens years pining for boys who didn’t like me back. In our
twenties, I’d had few moments of heartbreak. I just worked better that way.

A few minutes later, Ginny was
ready. “See, babe,” she said, looking me over. “You look great. Totally hot.
Nate will love it…if, you know, you happen to see him.”

I knew she was teasing me, but I
ignored it. “Ready?” I asked her.

“Yup,” she replied. “Let’s go find
the others.”

***

Three hours later I was heading
across the busy street toward the Bellagio casino. Even from this distance I
could see people gathering for the dancing fountain’s next performance. Ginny
and I had seen the show from our room a few times, and I had to admit it was
pretty cool. I wondered for a moment if Nate would be there. What if he was having
too much fun with his friends? What if they had decided to get strippers after
all?

Stop
obsessing
, I told myself.
It isn’t
you
.

As I hurried across the courtyard
toward the fountain, I heard a voice.

“Annie!”

I turned, and there he was, walking
toward me. He was dressed in a suit, but had removed his tie and unbuttoned the
top few buttons of his shirt. I couldn’t help the smile that broke out across
my face. He looked great.