Her head was now on Samara’s shoulder, and they were swaying again. Dana’s arms moved around Samara’s middle, but not for long before she placed her hands on top of Samara’s and brought her arms around her own neck, bringing them even closer together, just as the script had told Dana to do.
“Your hips seem to move just fine to me,” she whispered into Samara’s ear, and she meant it, too.
It was her line, but it was also true: Samara’s hips moved perfectly with hers as they continued to sway.
“I thinkyou’re doing most of the moving,” Samara, as Stella, replied.
“No, you’re definitely moving with me.” She moved her hands back to Samara’s hips, encouraging them to continue to move with hers. “Trust me; I can feel them.”
“Fuck me,” Samara whispered.
The line was supposed to just be, ‘Fuck,’ but Samara had, apparently, taken some liberties.
“I know,” Dana said, trying not to let that little ad-lib slip them up.
Samara’s hand moved up and into Dana’s hair, which wasn’t short, like Bray’s in the script or Bryce’s in real life was. Dana wondered if she’d have to cut it for the role, but that only lasted for a second, because Samara fucking Barber had her hand in her hair, and she was actually massaging the back of Dana’s head. Dana knew she was only acting because the script called for Stella to try to get Bray as close as possible.
“Stella, you…”
Dana’s hand slipped up a little higher and moved across Samara’s stomach. The script called for her to touch Samara under her T-shirt, but Dana was worried she’d take it too far. In the next part of the scene, the song ended, and she was supposed to kiss Stella’s neck, but Samara pulled away, probably pretending like the song had ended to avoid the kiss.
“Now what?” Samara asked with a smile after they both sat back down in their chairs.
“I guess now that we’ve danced, I need to buy you another drink.”
“I’m not done with this one yet, though,” Samara said, holding up a pretend beer.
“But if I buy you another one, will you stay longer?”
Dana bored her eyes into Samara’s.
“You don’t have to buy me a drink to get me to stay,” Samara replied softly.
“No?” Dana asked as she moved her arm back around the chair, and her fingers landed in Samara’s hair. “Grapefruit.”
“What?” Samara asked.
“Your shampoo has grapefruit in it.”
“Oh. Yeah, I guess,” Samara replied.
“I could smell it.” Dana ran her finger through Samara’s strands. “I like it.”
“Okay. I think we’re good,” Faye interjected and cleared her throat.
“Yeah, I think we’ve got enough. Did it just get hot in here?” Reed asked.
CHAPTER 9
“What did you think?” Bryce asked.
“She’s good,” Faye said. “Best we’ve seen by far. Samara?”
“Uh… Yeah.” Samara cleared her throat and reached for her sparkling water. “She’s good.”
She took a long pull from the bottle, needing a minute to get herself together because that audition had been a little more than she’d planned on.
For starters, she hadn’t expected Dana to turn from a nervous mess into confident yet vulnerable Bray within two minutes. She had believed Dana would need to warm up first. She had thought they would give the scene another couple of tries before Dana would get into the groove, butDanahadn’t needed the warm-up.Samarahad. Putting the two chairs in place had been a good idea, but she hadn’t thought about how Dana would put her arm over it, around her. From that moment on, though, Danahad beenBray; no script needed. She had memorized every line with very little prep time.
