asks, real concern in her voice.
I wave a dismissive hand. “Pfft. I’ll be fine.” I have no idea what I’ll do, but I’ll figure it out. “Besides, I have Mica.”
My faithful dog looks up at me, and I stroke his lovely head. “Right, boy?” I ask as we turn into the living room.
Then I stop cold.
Ramon is standing in the middle of the room, eyes on Sally. She freezes next to me.
One corner of his mouth lifts in a carnivorous smile. “I want you too.”
For a second, she just stands there, and I’m sure she’s about to melt into a mortified puddle, but then my best friend shocks me once again and launches herself at him, squealing.
Ramon catches her, and her legs lock around his waist like they’re in a movie, and before I know it, I’m watching my best friends kiss each other.
“Aaaaah!” I scream. Mica barks. And then I’m tearing from the room, Mica at my heels. “Save it for New Orleans!”
I slam my bedroom door on the sound of their laughter, reassuring myself that I’m not jealous of what they have.
Not jealous at all.
On Friday, there’s a knock on my trailer door during our abbreviated lunch break, and my heart sinks. Sally and Ramon just left to run home and walk Mica, so I know it’s not them. I look down at my barely touched cantaloupe and cottage cheese with real longing. We were on set at five a.m. for a daybreak scene featuring Raven Blackwell and a vampire vanquished by the dawn light.
So far, I’ve only had time for bulletproof coffee today. I’m. Starved.
The knocking becomes pounding. “Open up,” Moira shouts.
Hell, yes, I keep my trailer door locked. For exactly this reason. Who needs Moira barging in while I’m changing? Or using the bathroom?
Or eating?
“Coming,” I call before shoveling a heaping spoonful of cottage cheese in my mouth. I force it down just as I unlock the door.
Moira steps inside, spots the lunch on my tiny table, and waves her hand at it. “You haven’t had more than two servings of fruit today, have you?”
I shake my head. “I haven’t even had one.”
She gives me a narrow-eyed glare. “Iris, what do you call that?” She points at the cantaloupe.
“A serving I haven’t eaten yet,” I say, unable to stifle the snark, but even as I say the words, I think about the strawberries and grapes I ate last night at dance class—courtesy of Beau Landry. Moira would have flipped over the grapes. Too much sugar.
Maybe I should skip the melon today.
She shakes her head like this conversation is beneath her. “I didn’t come to talk about fruit.” She crosses the trailer and collapses on the couch like she’s exhausted.
“I think you’re missing an opportunity,” she announces.
I blink. “What do you mean?”
She tsks, looking at me like I’m slow. “With Jonathan, of course.”
I screw up my face. “The director?”
“Don’t make that face, Iris,” she hisses. “You’ll have lines between your brows before you’re thirty and you can forget about landing roles like this one.”
I make my face go blank. Thank God for acting classes. I can completely change my expression with almost no warning.
“And, of course, I mean Jonathan Reynolds.” She throws her hands out and looks from left to right. “What other Jonathan do you know?”
I ignore this jab. “What do you mean? Missing an opportunity?”
“You don’t pay attention to him,” she accuses.
My spine straightens and my stomach knots. I go over the last four weeks in my mind, thinking of every exchange, every cue, every instruction I’ve gotten from my director. As far as directors go, Jonathan isn’t bad. He’s patient. He gives clear expectations, and he’s open to artistic interpretation. Most of the time.
I might not agree with all of his calls, especially with the way he thinks Raven Blackwell should deliver some of her lines, but I’ve done everything he’s asked of me the way he’s asked. And the one time he shot down one of my suggestions, it was no big deal. I totally respected his call.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Moira. I think we have a good rapport—”
She puts up her hands to silence me, and I stop talking.
“Yes. Yes. That’s all fine. In fact, that’s what I’m trying to say. You get along great,” she says, her eyes widening. “I think you should make the most of that.”
I frown. “O...kay?”
She stares at me with a loaded look. Silence descends.
I stare back. My stomach growls.
Moira rolls her eyes at