look like together as Arizona and Cal.”
“Okay.” Birdie nods, but her emotion is far less confident. Her gaze moves back down to the script, and she fidgets with the hem of her dress.
She’s anxious. That’s more than obvious. Left unchecked, she might fidget holes into the marble floor with those sexy cowgirl boots of hers.
I take it upon myself to get her out of her head and into the film—surely, with the beginning of this scene starting with a fight, she could use a little push in the anger department.
Leaning forward and grabbing the top of her script with strong fingers, I bring her eyes up to meet mine—and the flame back to the center of them. “Any day now would be great. Ole Willy Capo over there doesn’t exactly have all the time in the world, you know?” I say softly, just loud enough for her to hear.
Her whole body smolders, but she’s still not engaged. The script is an accessory to our argument right now, and it needs to be the center of it.
“Do you need more time, Birdie?” I ask loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear this time. “Or do you think you’re finally ready?”
Between one blink of her long lashes and the next, her face transforms—from sweet Birdie Harris right to Arizona Lee.
“Yep,” she responds, that one word rolling off her tongue like the crack of a whip. “I’m ready.” She punctuates that statement with a flip of her long, wavy blond locks over her shoulder and a narrowing of her beautiful, angry-as-fuck eyes.
Oh, yes please.
God, I don’t think I’ve been this excited to dive into an audition since I was a twenty-year-old nobody trying to break into the business.
I start the scene, tossing myself into Cal Loggins’s world and letting his character take over my mind and emotions. “Darlin’,” I say and shake my head. “I think you’re missing the point.”
“And what point is that, Cal?” she responds, her voice wavering ever so slightly with leftover nerves. She swallows against them, squashing them down to nothingness like a roller on pavement, glances at the script in her hands one last time, and continues, “Please…tell me what I’m missing here. That you’re an asshole? Is that what I’m missing? I know you know this business better than I do, but I’ll be damned if you’re going to tell me how to live my life. It’s none of your business who I see or talk to. You don’t get a say in that.”
I stare down at her, my eyes strong with confidence. “You knew I was an asshole when you met me, baby. I don’t know why you think that’s all of a sudden gonna change.”
“God!” she shouts at the top of her lungs. “I hate you!”
“Nah, you don’t hate me.” A soft chuckle from deep in my chest makes the air shake between us. “You’re angry with me, but you don’t hate me,” I say, and even though I’m Cal right now, I can’t stop myself from going off script…just a little bit…just for fun. Just to see what Birdie does. “You want me to fuck all that anger right out of you? Prove you don’t hate me? You and I both know you’ve been craving my cock since day one.”
Okay, so I’m going off script a lot. In the scene, Cal doesn’t say anything about fucking or his cock, but in my opinion, now that I have my potential costar standing in front of me, he should.
Birdie discreetly glances down at the script, but when she realizes I’ve veered, she lifts her gaze to mine and narrows her eyes. “You fucking wish,” she says, both improvising and passive-aggressively telling me, Andrew Watson, that I’m an asshole.
I grin. “I think we both know you’re picking this fight because you’re frustrated, and you want me and my big cock to solve it.”
“Screw you,” she spits. We’re both ignoring the script at this point, but my God, it feels right.
Damn, maybe Howie was right. Birdie Harris is a real-life Arizona Lee.
“You don’t know shit, Cal!” she shouts again, trying to bring us back to the script by combining the lines and her own words. I don’t miss the way her breasts rise and fall with each deep intake of air. And I certainly don’t miss the way her nipples harden beneath the thin material of her frilly dress. God, if I could just have a taste. “You know what?” she challenges. “I’m done. You and