Show Time (Juniper Ridge Romantic Comedies #1) - Tawna Fenske Page 0,5
I want more. If we’ll be working as closely as he says, I want to understand what makes Dean Judson tick.
“Tell me something about yourself.” I grip my mug a little tighter and focus on holding eye contact. “It doesn’t have to be a big secret or anything, but something that’s not on every website.”
Dean studies me a moment while I try not to look at his hands. They’re splayed on the table like he might take a pen and trace around them, making one of those turkey drawings kids do in kindergarten.
It would be a huge fucking turkey.
“What’s so funny?” he asks.
I drag my eyes off his hands to see him eyeing me with curiosity. He doesn’t look mad, but I force myself to stop smiling. “Nothing. Just thinking of absurd things to share when first meeting someone. Details that give more information than your usual interview questions.”
Dean quirks an eyebrow. “Such as?”
His expression tugs my attention to the edge of his left eyebrow, which sports a crescent-shaped scar the size of a nickel. “Your scar.” I point to his forehead unnecessarily. “How did you get it?”
He hesitates, watching my face like he’s looking for clues that I’m worthy of hearing the story. “Bike accident.”
Something in his expression tells me there’s more to the story, but I don’t want to push. “Bike accidents can be brutal,” I say. “I had a bad one on a cycling trip through the San Juan Islands.”
I was riding with an old boyfriend who insisted he knew where we were going and led us down a treacherous gravel-spiked hill. I wound up with sixteen stitches in my left calf and a growing awareness of my unfortunate taste for controlling yet clueless assholes.
Dean’s eyes sweep mine. “How old were you?”
“It was right after college, so twenty-two or twenty-three,” I tell him. “How old were you when you had your bike accident?”
“It wasn’t me in the bike accident.” Again with the hesitation. “My sister, Lana—she’s the baby of the family. Our nanny fell asleep, and we went outside to play.”
I digest this information, the details he’s shared without meaning to. He was raised with a nanny. He grew up playing with his siblings, even though he’s at least twelve years older than the youngest.
“Anyway,” he continues, “Lana was always trying to copy everything Lauren did, so when Lauren went off a jump on her bike, Lana tried it on her tricycle.”
“Ouch.” I don’t know details, but jumping a trike sounds plenty dangerous. “What happened?”
Dean eases back in his chair a bit, relaxing into the story. “Lana’s lying there screaming and bleeding, while Lauren and Mari try to calm her down.”
“Were your brothers there?”
“Yeah.” He smiles a little at that. “Gabe and Coop were standing guard in case our parents came home or the nanny woke up. They had this whole cover story concocted so we wouldn’t get in trouble.”
He’s given me a snapshot of his whole family in two simple lines, and I’m not sure he realizes it. I’m utterly charmed and irksomely turned on, the latter of which I have no business being in a job interview.
“Was your sister okay?” I ask.
“Yeah.” Again, he smiles. “She’s got a head like a battering ram. But then our mom showed up.”
I’ve read about Shirleen Judson. Not much, just headlines, but enough to get the full picture. Sex siren of ‘70s cinema, she graced the cover of hundreds of fashion magazines and won two Oscars before pausing her acting career to get married and make babies.
“Was she angry?” I realize I’m on the edge of my seat and scoot back to avoid looking too eager.
If Dean notices, he says nothing. “Not at us, but she was pissed at the nanny. And she was freaking out about Lana maybe having permanent scars. ‘What if you want to model someday?’ she kept asking. ‘Or star in films?’”
“Jesus.” And I thought my mom cornered the market on shallowness.
“She’s not that bad,” Dean says, reading my mind. “Just wanted us to have all the options. Anyway, Lana starts crying harder saying, ‘No scar! No scar!’ even though she’s four and has no idea what a scar is. So I pick up this bottlecap lying on the ground beside her bike. And real quick, I jam it into my forehead. The same spot where Lana had a cut above her eyebrow.”
“Holy—” I stop myself from saying ‘shit,’ but just barely. “That’s some serious sibling sympathy right there.”