I’m honestly fine with either.”
I could have imagined it, but I think her cheeks colored at that, which was strange. I'd always imagined Emma was a hellcat in bed, the sort who handcuffed you to her headboard before taking control. The idea of a meeker, less experienced Emma pulled at me in an unsettling way.
She turned away and the moment, if there had been one, ended. She reached for her phone, and I wondered what acting chops she had. She settled into the stool at the bar and swiped through the device.
I took another bite of my sandwich. Honestly, I hadn’t made it. A blonde crew member with pigtails and a Packers hat had given it to me, then added extra mayonnaise after she’d analyzed my first bite.
“What do you think of the show so far?” Emma set down her phone and tilted her head at me.
“Uh… what?” I glanced at the living room, where Dana raised her hands in exasperation.
"It's weird, right? I mean, I'm used to being on camera, but it's still odd. I was peeing this morning, and I could hear the guy on the other side of the door, waiting for me. I swear, there's a sound clip somewhere of my urine." She laughed.
Laughed. Emma Blanton, evil witch of the west, laughed. And it sounded genuine, which only moved my confusion higher. What was happening right now? Was this a genuine conversation? Because we were supposed to be talking about her phone.
She was looking at me. Waiting. What had she asked me?
I took another bite of my sandwich, and I didn't know what the hell I was going to do with my hands once I finished it.
She waited for another beat, then sighed and picked her phone back up. She hunched over the screen, then looked back up at me. "This says that I just got a call."
Finally. I nodded and worked to swallow the bite. "Yeah." I coughed. "I called out to you, but you were in the pool."
"So… you answered it?" She stood up, and she looked seriously pissed. So much so that I couldn't tell if she was pretending because she looked furious.
“Uh, yeah. I took a message for you. It’s…” I looked for the piece of paper where Dana had written down a name and number. “It’s here somewhere.” I pointed to the drawer beside the fridge. “There. Open that drawer.”
She stood, and a bead of water ran from the end of her hair down in between her cleavage. Pulling open the drawer, she picked up the paper. I watched her face, waited for it to calm, but it only darkened. "Chet Morris. Vision Placements."
“Yeah.”
“I suppose you were going to tell me about this?”
I shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I?”
She looked at me, and if she was acting, she was damn good at it. “I told Marissa yesterday that I was waiting for this call. You were right there.”
“And you got the call.” I set down the sandwich and stood up. “So?”
"So," she said patiently, in the way an executioner would take a deep breath before whacking off your skull, "you answered my phone and wrote down this number and then stuck it in this drawer full of whisks where I would never see it."
“You think I intentionally hid the call from you?” I opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water. “Be serious.”
"You're with Vision Placements. We all know about your seven-figure deal—god, your publicist wouldn't shut up about it. Which is so great, because we all know you needed the extra million.”
I narrowed my eyes at her and dared her to continue.
She stepped closer and jabbed her finger into my chest. “Just admit it, Cash,” she hissed. “You didn’t want the competition.”
I had to laugh at that. Talk about truly funny. I stretched out the laughter a little longer than was necessary, but it was worth it, her face darkening with each additional guffaw. I gasped for breath and then gave it another throaty chuckle.
And that was when she went off script and slammed her fist toward my face. I turned to avoid the blow, but it caught my jaw. Honestly, I thought her manager had been a giant baby about the whole thing when she’d done it to him, but damn—that girl could pack a punch. I’ve had grown men deliver less of a blow.
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#whathadhappenedwas
EMMA
My cheeks felt like they were under a heat lamp when Dana made that comment about jacking him off. He looked at me when she said