“dishes” even harder. “My mother left me this house, and I’ll do what I please in it! You might be my husband, but it’s my name on the title!”
He stilled my throwing hand with his right and wrapped his left hand around my hip. It flooded with heat.
“I pay the mortgage,” he whispered.
What was he doing? We’d established the who/what/where. But I remembered how angry he’d gotten when I broke the scene at rehearsal the other day. I’d already made him angry twice today. What would happen if I did it again? Would I be off the team?
I stayed in the scene.
I glared at him. “Sure, you pay the mortgage. With your trust fund.”
Now he lowered my dish-throwing hand and placed my palm on his chest. “You love my trust fund. Almost as much as you love me.”
He took my face into his hands. His eyes darted back and forth between my eyes like they weren’t sure where to land.
No. He wasn’t going to—
And then he was kissing me. A real, live boy was kissing me. Kissing ME. I hardly knew what was happening. He wrapped an arm around my back and pulled me closer.
This muscly California boy was—wait. Was this real? Or was it just for the scene? Did people actually kiss in improv scenes?
That was his tongue! What was I supposed to do with that?
And then it was over.
“Good job,” he said, all business. “Good scene.”
I looked into his face. Was I a bad kisser? Did he stop because it was a scene and the scene was over, or would he have kept kissing me if I was a better kisser?
Not finding a quick answer, I turned away and covered my burning cheeks with my hands.
“Look. You could get into trouble with the Pauls for missing rehearsal, so because you came to this one, I’ll just . . . forget to tell them. Okay?”
I nodded, confused.
“And hey.” He gently turned me around. “About the high ropes course.” He shook his head and touched my cheek. “You scared me up there. The rain and the lightning—I’m sorry I yelled.”
I nodded again.
“We good?”
Apparently, all I could do now was nod.
He took a step closer to me. I closed my eyes.
“Good,” he whispered.
When I opened my eyes, he was gone.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
When I slunk back to the cabin, the Gildas weren’t there. I pretended to be asleep when they returned—I just wasn’t ready to talk about what had happened with Ben at that rehearsal.
But by the next morning, I’d almost forgotten about it because everyone on my team was sitting around a table in the Main Lodge, laughing.
At my cold open sketch.
“Did you write that, Ben?” Brandon asked, leaning back in his chair and flipping through the pages. “It’s genius.”
My heart glowed. We were all seated around one of the lunch tables piled with multiple copies of our various attempts at cold-open sketch writing. The sun was streaming in through the large Main Lodge windows. I tried to suppress a smile.
“Remember—these are blind reads. We won’t identify writers until the end,” Ben said.
“Man—that sketch was awesome.” Trey shook his head.
I chewed on my lower lip to keep from smiling my face off. I felt vindicated. Valued. I tried to catch Ben’s eye. “How many are left?” I asked.
Ben flipped open a folder. “Just one more.” He passed out copies without making eye contact. “There are two parts,” he said. “Brandon, will you read Mr. Phillips, and Ellie, will you read Marcy?”
Ha! I thought. I guess there are perks to being the only woman on the team.
Ben handed me my copy of the script. I tried to smile, but he still wasn’t looking at me.
Brandon cleared his throat. “Uh, Ben, you gonna read stage directions?”
“That’s okay . . . Xander?”
Xander shrugged and picked up the script. He cleared his throat. “We’re in an office. Mr. Phillips is working late. Marcy knocks and enters.”
“Where have you been?” Brandon as Mr. Phillips demanded.
“I left,” I said as Marcy. “The meeting got canceled, so I got a manicure.”
“You got a manicure?” Brandon thundered.
“You didn’t say not to,” I said.
“I didn’t say you could! We were all here!”
“Well, I had things to do!”
“So did we!”
Something felt funny about this. Besides the stereotypical male boss/female secretary thing . . .
“I’m sorry, Mr. Phillips, it’ll never happen again,” I said, internally rolling my eyes.
“Damn straight it won’t. Because you’re fired!”
“What?”
“You heard me!”
“Oh, Mr. Phillips, please. Please don’t fire me. I’ll do anything!” My eyes flicked above the script to