my knees. I was glad I was already sitting down. He so rarely smiled at these kinds of events or on red carpets that it felt like I’d just been given the rarest of gifts. It lit up his whole face. And he had a completely adorable dimple in his right cheek.
Swoon.
“Are you negging me?” he asked, sounding almost delighted.
“What does that mean?”
“Some guys will make negative comments in an attempt to try and manipulate a woman in hopes she’ll pay attention to them. It’s called negging.”
“Is that how you get women?” I asked.
“What? No!” His smile faded and he looked really insulted. Had that somehow been intentional on my part? Maybe I was subconsciously negging him and hadn’t even realized it.
“Then how do you know about it?”
“I got this script where . . . never mind.” He folded his arms across his very broad and appealing chest, and I forced myself to look away. His tone was dismissive, and I took it to mean that our bizarre interaction had come to an end.
Which I should have felt relieved about, but instead I found myself saying, “I bet women just fall at your feet, right?”
“That’s usually how that happens, yes.” He sounded sarcastic and I couldn’t figure out his meaning. Was he just acknowledging the reality of his love life? Or was he indicating that I had no idea what I was talking about?
I didn’t understand what he meant and it irritated me so much that I was back to being completely annoyed. Which made me remember how hungry I was. I couldn’t recall any rules about not eating. Although maybe that fell into the don’t-do-anything-embarrassing-on-camera category? Regardless, I was going to have some chocolate and calm myself down.
The zipper on my clutch was stuck. I tugged at it once, twice, three times. Nothing. I pushed at the fabric near the zipper, wondering if it was caught. Things were about to get really bad in this auditorium if I wasn’t allowed to have something sweet to soothe my savage beast. Maybe I should use my teeth.
While I was thinking over the best way to get this thing open, Noah Douglas had reached over and taken the clutch out of my hands. He quickly and efficiently unzipped it and handed it back to me. I was so surprised by his actions that my fingers turned into Jell-O and my purse fell to the floor near my feet.
Of course.
I reached for it and heard him say, “Nice shoes, Cinderella.”
I was wearing my pink Converse high tops. I loved these shoes; they were probably my favorite things in my entire wardrobe. They didn’t really scream “Hollywood awards show,” but I’d been told (rightfully so) that Shelby and I would be on our feet for most of the night and that nobody was going to see our shoes, so I’d dressed for comfort.
Straightening back up with my clutch, I said, “Like you have room to talk.” I pointed down at his shiny black shoes. “What did you do, raid a funeral parlor?”
“I was told that these are worth several thousand dollars. I didn’t get them off a mortician.” That rare smile was back. As if I was amusing him. Which irritated me more.
“Huh. So in addition to being rude, you have bad taste and you’re easily taken advantage of. Though on the plus side, when those legions of women fall at your feet, at least they’ll be landing on some expensive shoes.”
He made a sound that suspiciously resembled a laugh, but I was too angry to try to make sense of him. So instead I ripped open the wrapper to my candy bar and realized that at some point in the day it had gotten smushed. It was in bits and pieces.
Again, of course.
I carefully lifted up a chunk, trying to get the flaking-off chocolate to land in my clutch and not on me. The rental place would charge me extra if I brought this dress back with stains on it.
“Are you eating?” That indescribable tone was back in his voice, as if he was amused but hadn’t experienced that kind of emotion recently so was rusty at expressing it.
“Yes. Did you want some?” I thought that was awfully big of me.
“No.”
“Your loss.” I got another bite of my squished and now slightly melting candy bar into my mouth. I blamed Noah Douglas for the melty part. Because him sitting there was having the same effect on my insides.