Bee pulled her lower lip between her teeth for a moment—long enough for me to greedily trace how the white points of her incisors dug into her plump flesh—and then did a quick, preparatory inhale. “I guess I’ve always loved acting too,” she said quickly. “I’ve been doing, um, freelance modeling stuff in L.A., but my real love has always been for theater and film. I’ve been trying to break into acting for a while, but—”
A shrug, which sent more glossy hair sliding every which way.
“It’s hard for a fat actress. Either no one wants to cast you atall, or the roles they do cast you for aren’t exactly awesome. It’s like being in high school theater all over again.”
I tried not to cringe when she called herself fat. Bee was the sexiest goddamn woman in the world to me, so it was hard to wrap my head around a word that felt like a schoolyard insult. The way she said the wordfat, though, was so matter-of-fact, like it was just a neutral truth.
It made me see that Bee wasn’t the problem. Fat wasn’t the problem. But the way the world, and especially the entertainment industry, treated people like Bee...thatwas the problem.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it. I’d seen some of the headlines directed Kallum’s way for his dad bod, and they were pretty crappy. I imagined it was a thousand times worse for a woman in the industry.
She lifted an eyebrow at my response. “Well, fatphobia is everywhere.” There was a pointedness to her voice that I couldn’t quite identify, and before I could even try, she flipped open her script. “Should we get started?”
“Um. Sure.”
I paged through the script until I found tomorrow’s scenes. Because the fake Frostmere Manor also hosted weddings and assorted other events, along with the occasional filming of a movie, we had it booked for weird chunks of time. Tomorrow at the manor we were shooting both Felicity’s first Victorian dinner with the duke and the mutual declaration of love that came before the final kiss.
The memory of the kiss flooded through me, sending heat straight to my groin.
I cleared my throat. “Which scene would you like to do first?”
“Can we do the last one in our pages?” Bee asked. “The scene right before the kiss?”
“Yep,” I said, trying not to think too much about the kiss. But it was difficult when she was running her finger along the edge of the page, because her nails were painted a shade of pink that made me think of the pink places of her body. Like her lips. Among other things.
Pure as the driven snow, Nolan. Celibate as a nun.
I shifted in my seat, and imagined nuns and snow. And nuns making angels in the snow while wearing wimples and big wooden rosaries and stuff.
“Your Grace,” Bee started reading, keeping Felicity’s contemporary American accent, “I finally understand what the witch wanted me to learn. I finally understand why she sent me here. To you.”
“Don’t say ‘Your Grace’ as if we were strangers, dear Felicity,” I replied, my eyes on her, since I already had most of my lines memorized. “Or as if you were beneath me. You aren’t. You are my everything. You make up my entire world.”
Bee glanced up. The sunlight winked off her septum ring. “I forgot to tell you yesterday. You have anamazingBritish accent.”
Despite everything, I couldn’t help the smug grin that was spreading across my face. “I know.”
“How?” she asked. “That’s not something they taught you on thatBootcampshow, is it?”
I shook my head.Boy Band Bootcampwas the reality showwhere I got my start; boys from all over the country came to learn to dance, sing, and wallow in pettiness. Zero accent lessons. Although, weirdly, lots of etiquette lessons.
“It’s a pre-INK skill,” I said. “You’re not the only high school theater geek here, you know. You’re looking at the youngest ever Wadsworth to grace the stage of Olathe North High School.”
“You were the butler inClue?”
“Sophomore year,” I said proudly. “And I was Prince Eric inThe Little Mermaid.”
There was a subtle dimple in her cheek, like she was fighting off a smile. “I’m imagining you as a Disney prince now. It’s very hard.”
I pressed a hand to my chest in mock hurt. “I’m wounded. You don’t see how all this hair makes me the perfect prince?” I tugged off my beanie and ran my hands through my hair so that it swept off my face all prince-like.
The dimple was getting deeper now. “Maybe I can see the prince thing... if you were Beast fromBeauty and the Beast.”
I sighed dramatically. “The one that got away. Kallum got that role. I had to be Gaston instead.”
“Kallum?” Bee asked, her face lighting up. “Like Kallum Lieberman? He was Beast?”
I fought off a little sulk. I didn’t expect people to fawn over me because I’d once been a teen pop sensation or whatever, but I’d assumed that Bee had a blanket apathy for all former boy band members.Notthat she’d be interested in Kallum with a K instead of me.
