Reel (Hollywood Renaissance #1) - Kennedy Ryan Page 0,58

fifteen-year-old on her first date. “Have you been to this restaurant before?”

This is not a date. Canon Holt is not your Thanksgiving date. You will not lust after him . . . anymore.

“No.” He studies his menu, his brows furrowed in some serious concentration. “Jill suggested this place and reserved my table.”

“She reserved mine, too. So sweet of her.”

The look he flicks at me over the edge of his menu says he doesn’t agree. “She needs to mind her damn business. Meddling.”

“Meddling? I don’t understand. She . . .”

She reserved us tables together at the city’s self-proclaimed most romantic restaurant.

“Oh.” Shit. “You don’t think she . . . that she thought we—”

“Uh, yeah. I do think she thought we.”

My face catches fire, mortification filling every inch of my empty stomach.

“Canon, I’m . . . I had nothing to do with this. I promise I was clueless.”

“I know that. For an actor, you’re not very good at faking.”

“Should I be insulted by that?” I ask, smiling in spite of the awkward situation.

“No. Some actors don’t know when to stop pretending. You do. You’re as clear as glass and don’t dissemble well.”

“You mean everyone can read my emotions easily?”

“I don’t know about everyone.” He holds my eyes over the menu. “I can.”

That makes me highly uncomfortable because my emotions are in constant turmoil around this man, and right now, on a scale of deep respect to raging hormones, I’m at a twelve. To think I’m transparent to him, that he might see . . .

“I should go.” I stand, tossing the linen napkin onto the table.

“Sit down.” The gravel-rough command in his voice sends a shiver clamoring up my spine.

“I don’t think so. I really should—”

“And where will you go? What will you eat for Thanksgiving dinner?”

“Um, In-N-Out Burger?”

His low-timbred chuckle, accompanied by that rarest of phenomena, a full-fledged Canon Holt smile, catches me where I stand, trapped between coming and going.

“Neevah, sit. It’s one meal. We’ll survive it.”

I check his expression to see if he means it, but unlike me, Canon is opaque glass frosted by his iron control. So I’ll take him at his word.

I sit and pick up my menu.

“So, what looks good?” I ask.

Besides you because dayummmmmm.

Neevah, this is why we can’t have nice things. If you’re gonna stay, you have to stop this inner drool dialogue.

“Do you realize you move your lips when you talk to yourself?” he asks.

I lower the menu, my eyes wide. “Can you hear me?”

“Can I hear what you’re thinking? No, even I’m not that good. I’m not Dr. Dolittle.”

“I know . . . Can you make out what I’m saying when my lips move?”

“No, you just say it literally to yourself. I first noticed it on set. You’d drop a line or get a step wrong, and then walk off with your lips moving. Talking to yourself.”

I groan and lift the menu high enough to cover my face. With one finger, he slowly pushes it down until I’m forced to face him again.

“Don’t be self-conscious,” he says, a half-smile playing around his lips. “It works for you. Whatever you got wrong, you always got right after you talked to yourself.”

“You’re like the eye in the sky back there in video village with all your screens and control center. Do you always direct from there? Or do you ever come out?”

“It depends. With a movie like this, especially ones with huge dance numbers, I need to see what we’re getting from every angle. I like the various camera shots, and I like to see how it’s coming out since that’s the way the audience will see it. I’ll be out there when we shoot outdoors. I’m too particular about light not to be.”

“A photographer’s son, huh?”

“Definitely. I never took a photography class, but my entire childhood was a clinic. All the best things I know about light and detail and composition, my mom taught me. The woman was obsessed with her camera.” He glances up with an ironic grin. “I mean, she named her son after one.”

I smile, too, recalling Remy Holt from his first and most personal documentary, railing at the sun, making art and daring her body to stop her.

“She was very wise and very pretty,” I tell him.

“She never lost either of those things.” Canon’s smile dies on his lips. “It was hard for her, losing so much control of her body. They’ve made a lot of strides with MS now. I wish she’d lived long enough to take advantage