Emma stared at her. “He said what?”
Daisy cut in. “He just mentioned that you two talked.”
“And that he wanted to keep the conversation going,” Hazel added. Then she winced. Daisy had just dug an elbow into her side. “Ow! What? He did say that! And he seems really nice. I don’t see why the boss is so against it.”
“He’s notnice,” Emma said flatly. “He’s a self-centered jackass who only cares about his next close-up and having someone around to buff his claws. Don’t let him trick you just because his mane is shiny.”
“Itisvery shiny,” Hazel said. “And soft.”
Emma felt a ridiculous stab of jealousy at the implication, followed by an even bigger stab of frustration. Why should she care if Arthur was letting impressionable young extras touch his mane?
Arthur’s carefully trimmed ears twitched. He turned away from Rusty to look at Emma, face splitting into an infuriatingly smug grin.
Emma very maturely resisted the urge to flip him off.
“I’m going to do some office work,” she said darkly. “Don’t let them touch anything important.”
“On it,” Daisy said.
Emma paused and turned to Hazel. “And don’t fall for the mane trick again. It’s Chimera Flirting 101. He isnotworth it.”
Hazel’s eyes widened. “Oh! Oh…kay?”
She looked genuinely shocked. Like she hadn’t picked up on being flirted with at all.
Emma swallowed a sour taste in her mouth. “You know what? Do whatever you want. Touch his mane all over. Touch his wings while you’re at it. He likes that.”
“Um,” Hazel said.
Emma didn’t stick around to hear her reply. She stalked into the back rooms, away from the extras shooting her awkward looks and Daisy trying to find something to say and a strange pressure she was sure was Arthur’s gaze on the back of her head.
But when she turned to glance through the door that led to the back rooms, Arthur was looking at Rusty again. Nodding and laughing, his eyes creasing so beautifully it made Emma’s breath catch.
The door swung closed.
Emma squeezed her eyes shut, forcing the warm coil in her stomach to go away. She just hadn’t gotten any in a while. That was the problem. If she’d beensatisfiedrecently, she wouldn’t have any reaction to his stupid, sexy face at all, ex-boyfriend or otherwise.
* * *
It was better this way, Emma told herself as she pored over the paperwork. She’d been meaning to sort out this tax stuff for months. Now she finally had a chance. She could lock herself in the office, and nobody would be knocking on the door asking where they kept the receipt rolls or how to void a sale without restarting their glitchy POS systems.
A knock on the door jolted her out of her annoyed paperwork haze.
She sighed, scooting her wheelie chair over and grabbing the door. “What?”
Rusty blinked down at her. He had on a backward cap with a pen shoved behind his ear, his glasses magnifying his eyes to double the size.
“Hey,” he said distractedly. “Want to be an extra?”
Emma glared. “I can’t think of something I’d rather do less.”
She started to close the door.
Rusty shoved his foot in the way. “We need someone who can carry four plates at once.”
“So get Daisy.”
“She burned her hand.”
