Her. Lip.
Between her teeth.
I couldn’t look away. Yes, she was gorgeous all over, with that innocent girl-next-door look, with those high, rounded cheeks, gently curved brows, and long, thick lashes. Throw in an adorable nose and eyes in a hypnotizing shade between blue and green, and you had a certified knockout. But when she caught that soft lower lip between her teeth... when she released it oh-so-slowly and left her pink lips parted in something that looked so much like a pant or a gasp or a bitten-off whimper—
Jack’s phone erupted into the chorus of Christina Aguilera’s “Genie in a Bottle,” startling me, Winnie, and Miss Crumpets, who popped to her feet in a surprisingly spry move, and started barking in tune with the song.
“Fucking shitwaffle,” Jack hissed, looking at his screen. “We’ll pick this up again when we’re in Vermont. I have to deal with my ex and the fact that he’s foisting a stepfather onto MissCrumpets before she’s emotionally ready. Class dismissed.”
He scooped up his tiny rat dog and marched out the door like Julia Roberts inErin Brockovich.
I turned to Winnie to say—I don’t know, whatever you say to the American sweetheart whom you dropped a Teen Choice Awards surfboard on, but she bolted from her chair, pushing her way out the door before I could even comprehend that she was gone. And suddenly I was sitting in a Hope Channel conference room with Jack’s fake-sex first aid kit.
Looking from the door to Winnie’s empty chair, I forced my brain to rewind to the last, pre–Christina Aguilera moment that caused Winnie to bolt.
Her big O—no. We made her feel silly.Fuck.
Imade her feel silly.
The hardest part of performing is when everyone else isn’t playing along with you, and Jack and I just stared at Winnie like a couple of goons.
Well, at least I did.
But I couldn’t help it. When I got the call that Winnie had signed on to play the lead opposite me, I was convinced I was going to walk out of my house and get hit by a bus—or that the engine was going to fall out of the ass of my plane to LAX. Mymom always told me and Tammy that people were most likely to have near-death experiences after really, really good news. It was the universe’s way of putting you back in your place. So since that call from Teddy, I’d been waiting for the other foot to drop... and maybe my misfortune to counterbalance the scales was that Winnie was bound to be miserable working with me.
I couldn’t let that happen, though. I had to nip this in the very cute bud before things got any worse.
Just as I stood, my phone vibrated.
Topher:All’s good here at Slice, Slice, Baby. Where do we keep the extra bank deposit bags at the flagship location? Does Winnie Baker smell as good as she looks?
I shoot off a quick reply.
Me:Bottom filing cabinet. Don’t be a fucking creep, kid.
And before thinking better, I typed,But yes. Better.
Down the hallway, I found the restrooms with one of those fancy water fountains for reusable bottles between the men’s room and the women’s room.
I didn’t know that Winnie was actually in there, but my Spidey little brother’s intuition was tingling, and after years of Tammy Cakes holing up in the Jack-and-Jill bathroom dividing our childhood bedrooms, I felt pretty confident. So I posted up against the wall with my arms crossed and waited.
Just when I was about to give up and see if she’d fled the country altogether, the door swung open.
Winnie nearly jumped out of her skin at the sight of me.
“Hey,” I said in the softest voice I could manage.
“Um, hi,” she said, the apples of her cheeks glowing and her eyes slightly puffy.
“You left kind of fast,” I said, my brows beginning to furrow just like Dad’s always did when he sat at the kitchen table every Monday night to balance his checkbook. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine,” she said a little too quickly.
I stepped forward. “Are you sure?”
Her lip trembled for a brief moment, before she shook her head like she was getting into character and doing her best to shed all evidence of Winnie Baker. She looked left, then right at the hallway lined with Hope Channel movie posters—many of them starring her.
She leaned toward me, slowly filling the gap between us.
