“You seen the movie?” Jett asks, still behaving like he didn’t just casually drop the bomb that is the ‘L’ word into our conversation on the terrace. Well, sort of.
“The movie?”
I blink, confused. Unlike him, Idon’tnormally go around telling people how easy it would be to fall in love with them, so you can confuse me for being a little discombobulated, as Bella McGowan from back home would say.
“Rebel Without a Cause?” prompts Jett, his brow creasing in a way that shouldn’t be attractive, but which absolutelyis. “James Dean? Natalie Wood? They filmed a lot of it here?”
“Oh. Yeah. I know. But no, I haven’t seen it,” I admit, still struggling to get my brain to focus on the conversation I’m currently having, rather than the one Jett’s probably already forgotten. “It’s a bit before my time.”
“It’s before mine too,” he chuckles, “But I’ve still seen it at least a dozen times. It’s one of the reasons I got into acting, in fact.”
“Really? I would’ve thought you’d have gotten into acting because of your dad?”
He frowns, and the temperature seems to drop a couple of degrees.
“No,” he says shortly. “Quite the opposite, actually. Seeing my dad’s career — what it did to his family — convinced me I never wanted that for myself. But then I started watching some of the old black and white movies he had stashed away at home, and that was it. I fell in love.Rebelwas one of them.”
I flinch as his last words hit me right in the stomach. It’s the second time he’s mentioned falling in love in less than ten minutes. Maybe it doesn’t mean the same thing to him it means to everyone else? Maybe I’m reading too much into this?
“I can’t believe you’ve never seen it,” he’s saying now, still circling the statue. “It’s an absolute classic.”
“So I’ve heard.” I can’t help but smile at his enthusiasm. It’s like he’s fully alive for the first time since I met him. “I’ll make sure I try to see it sometime.”
“Uh-uh,” he says, shaking his head as he finally stops circling. “Notsometime, Lexie. That’s not good enough. You have to see itnow.”
“Now?” I look around, half-expecting a cinema screen to have popped up since we arrived. “I don’t think it’ll be showing anywhere, for some reason. The theaters around here tend to show more current movies.”
Like the ones with you in them, for instance.
“Well,” he says, smiling over at me. “It’s a good job I’ve got the movie at home, then, isn’t it?”
* * *
The cinema room back at Jett’s place is exactly as I remember it from my search for the bathroom earlier this week, and I have to pretend I’ve never seen it before when he shows me in and starts fiddling with the huge screen at the front.
I’m confused.
We’re supposed to be going to places people will see us. People where the “tame paps” Grace has alerted will take our photos, then send them to the media, so we can be talked about as the loved-up couple we absolutely are not.
But this is just a room in Jett’s house. A huge, implausibly luxurious room, granted, but still a private room.
And that’s why I’m confused.
We did our bit for the photographers. We went out in public and we allowed ourselves to be photographed. Asher will be thrilled, I’m sure. Or as thrilled as someone without normal human emotions can be, at least.
But now he’s brought me back to his house, rather than telling his driver to take me back to the hotel. Now he’s dimming the lights, and settling back in one of the velvet seats, while motioning for me to join him. And it’sjusthim. And me, of course. And no photographers anywhere.
You can see why I’m confused, right?
I peer curiously around, wondering if there’s maybe a pap hiding under one of the seats or something.
“You okay, Lady M?” Jett says from the front of the room. “It’s just about to start. You want some popcorn?”
I shake my head wordlessly as I force my legs to take me to the seat next to him, which I sink into gratefully.
When I told him about my perfect date earlier, I didn’t mention a black and white movie in a private cinema. I’m starting to think I should have, though. Because, if this was arealdate — which I have to keep reminding myself that it definitely isnot— I’m pretty sure I’d be really enjoying it.
And what’s even more confusing is that I thinkhewould be, too.
