“We’re adults. We can handle a kiss or two, right?” She tapped the edge of the box on the living room table, taking a small peek inside. “You really did not know this was our place?”
“Nope.” Jesse surrendered his hands as if to declare his innocence.
“You must really trust him.” She peeked in another box. Jesse didn’t mind. He had nothing to hide. At least nothing he could carry in a box.
“I used to until he lied to me about the place on the beach. But he assured me he found the perfect place.”
Chloe peered over her shoulder at him. “Did he? Find you the perfect place?”
A twist of yearning tightened his chest. “Don’t know. We shall see.”
She looked in one last box, then with a sheepish wince, started for the door. “I better let you unpack.”
Jesse reached for her arm. “Don’t go.”
“Why not?” But she didn’t move. Didn’t try to pull away. “I-I have dinner with my sister tonight.”
“Is it important?” Didn’t sound important. Sounded made up.
“N-not really.”
“Then how about dinner with me?” She moved him. Made him feel things he’d not felt in a long time, if ever. “Smitty gave me a stack of restaurant flyers.” He scooped them from the island and perched on the edge of a bar stool. “What’s your pleasure, Miss Daschle?”
When he looked up, she glanced away.
“I-I don’t know.”
He shuffled through the flyers calling out pizza places, Chinese, Italian, Indian, sandwiches, and wings. Then set the pamphlets aside.
“I still think of our kiss on the deck.”
“We should both forget. We’re going to be in rehearsals soon. Then on set, filming. Jesse, I really need this film to go well for me.I want to give it my all. Not just for Jeremiah but for my future. I feel like this film could change everything for me.”
“Agreed. I need this film to go well for me too. Its success could bring all kinds of opportunity—”
“Could? No, Jesse, itwillbring new opportunities. With directors and producers, studio heads.”
“—and I don’t want to cause Jeremiah any headaches. I’m going to follow him around when I’m not in a scene.”
“You’ll learn so much from him.”
“So we have to ignore this... thisthingbetween us.” He read her expression, waiting for her to light up in agreement. “For Jeremiah, for the film. Besides, neither of us wants to start anything.”
“For Jeremiah, yes. But thisthing? What thing?” She queried him with a glance. “I only meant to say how good it will be to have a friend on set.”
“Friends? Yes, exactly.” So the spark of something real was one-sided? “Being friends is athing, right?”
Never mind the way she curved into him the night they danced, how she fit together against him when they kissed, like pieces of a puzzle. The glow in her eyes afterward. The fire in his heart.
Move on, man. Jesse held up the flyers. “You choose. I’m the new kid on the block.”
She hesitated, then snatched the pamphlets. “Loved those boys. New Kids on the Block. They used to stay here when they came to LA.”
“No kidding? I did a scene with Donnie Wahlberg once. It was a Boston thing.”
“Look there, something we have in common. New Kids on the Block.” Chloe picked a pizza place. “800 Degrees.”
Jesse hopped off the stool. “Let’s go. My treat.”
