Page 118 of Shade
Her minty breath makes me laugh.
Again, she doesn’t like that either. “Give it to me, please.”
“Fuck, that’s hot,” I groan, leaning in so my sweaty chest presses against hers. “Beg again.”
This time she growls and acts like she’s going to kick me in the balls. Instinctively, I cover them and drop the phone.
Like a game between kids, she snatches it away and takes off running. “Ha. Now let’s go. People to see and shit to do today, star boy.”
Star boy?
Goddamn, there’s that smile again. For the longest time, well, seven months, I was beginning to wonder if I could smile. Can I find happiness in anything anymore?
Pretty sure if I’m going to, it’s with this girl and her crazy curls and attitude to match.
IT’S WEIRD TO think I enjoy the rain some days. Don’t get me wrong, I live in Southern California for the sun, but it’s nice to have rain. It keeps everything from getting too dry in the summer and fires starting. We seem to battle a few each year.
“It’s raining,” Scarlet notes, kicking the windshield wipers up a notch. “I didn’t think it rained here.” And then I hear a chorus of horns behind us as she cuts off the third person today.
“It does sometimes.” I glance over my shoulder, half expecting wrecked cars behind us. She can’t drive for shit. “You do realize you just cut like five cars off with your illegal lane change there?”
Scarlet waves her hand dismissively and reaches for her coffee. “They’ll be fine.”
I have a feeling she didn’t drive a whole lot in Seattle and never in California where we don’t really abide by speed limits. It’s more like a suggested limit that no one pays attention to.
I don’t know why I’m starting a conversation with her. Maybe to distract her in an attempt that she’ll calm down and drive like a normal person and not jerk the wheel so much while it’s raining. You don’t know how many times I’ve closed my eyes and accepted my death in this forty-minute drive so far. So I ask, “Do you miss Seattle?”
She looks over at me, knuckles tightening on the wheel, then back to the road as we once again come to a stop just before we’re coming into LA. “Yes. I love the rain and I miss my coffee.” She flicks her cup. “Your coffee is horrible here.”
I shrug. I don’t notice the difference in the coffee, but I’ve heard if you’re from the northwest, you know the difference. It’s like being from Columbia and expecting the coffee to taste the same in the states. It doesn’t.
“What about your friends? You miss them?” It seems weird to me that she’d up and leave her life in Seattle for this job. But let’s focus on me for a minute. Remember the tractor incident earlier when she denied me? Yes? Okay. I’m asking this question for a reason. I want to know if she has a boyfriend back home.
Do you hear the distaste in my voice? Scarlet doesn’t. What I’m really asking is who do you fuck? Cause it ain’t me, sadly.
I can’t see her eyes because I’m looking out the window. Thankfully the car we’re in has tinted windows because I don’t want anyone to see me riding in this car with such a bad driver.
“I miss Mila,” Scarlet finally says. “Tom. . . .” She pauses, and I think she knows she has my damn attention now. I whip my head around like she’s grown another head. “He’s something else. I do miss Izzy too. But she’s got a boyfriend, so does Mila. Everyone kind of has lives now, so it just sort of made sense for me to take this job and get some experience.”
I’m one-tracked. “Who’s Tom?”
“He worked at the hotel with me.”
“You fuck him?” You had to know I was going to ask that.
Scarlet tips her head at me and winks. “A good girl never tells.”
She did. Goddamn, I’m jealous of this Tom guy already.
Just when I think we might arrive in one piece to the studio, Scarlet cuts across four lanes of traffic without even looking. “Oh, there’s my exit!”
I have no idea how we didn’t die and while I was scared to death, I also kind of enjoyed it. I mean, she was plain crazier than hell, but I fucking like this chick. There is something endearing about her.
WATCH CAREFULLY AT the photo shoot. More importantly, the makeup artist’s attention to me. She’s ridiculously obvious, but it’s playing into my plan.
Now turn your head to the right. Check out Scarlet’s reaction to the woman fussing over me and touching my body.
Do you see the set scowl? The arms crossed? That’s someone acting jealous, isn’t it? Pretty sure I resembled that look on the plane the other day, didn’t I?
