She glares at me.
Even with the fire in her eyes, it’s stupidly adorable.
I shake my head and avert my gaze. “Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Being—”Beautiful. Funny. Soft where I’m all edges. “You.”
She blinks, mouth open. “Is that an insult?”
“Depends on the day.”
“Oh, really?” She moves around the kitchen to stand in front of me, hands on her hips in defiance. “Then what day is today?”
“Today?” I lean in until our faces are only a breath apart, keeping my voice low enough for only her to hear. “Today, you’re driving me insane.”
In every sense of the word.
She’s the kind of insane that gets into your bloodstream and rewires your heartbeat. The kind that makes you forget how careful you’ve kept your world small.
One smile, and suddenly everything feels too bright.
She doesn’t even realize she’s doing it.
She has no idea she’s dragging light into places I boarded shut years ago. And I have no idea what the hell I’m supposed to do if she keeps going.
But the look on her face—eyes wide, tells me that I’ve said too much and not enough at the same time.
The cameraman clears his throat, reminding us he’s still standing there, forcing us to both take a step away from each other.
“Cut,” Andrea calls, and we both snap our heads to her in confusion. She walks over to where we stand, gaze bouncing between the two of us. “This is great. All of it. But I think with all this insane electricity my crew and I are feeling from watching you two, now might be a good time to do some of the fake dating filming before we move on.”
Scottie tilts her head in confusion. “Huh?”
“You know, some of the relationship stuff.”
Scottie groans. “You say it like we’re about to perform a circus trick for the cameras.”
“Maybe we are,” I say.
She elbows me right in the ribs. “Just act normal.”
“Thisismy normal.”
She rolls her eyes. “That explains so much.”
“Eek!” Andrea squeals. “This is so good. You two aresooogood. I’d like to get a few shots of you two really selling it.”
Since the moment I met Andrea, something about her has felt off. I can’t figure out why but watching her stop us just to get a few shots for the fake dating bit, makes irritation crawl up my spine. We already lost nearly a full week to rain delays. A week we easily could’ve worked through. My crew is trained for worse than what we had.
And now that we have a clear window, she’s more focused on capturing the chemistry than getting the renovation back on schedule.
The cameraman moves his tripod closer to us. We step into the frame, and Scottie leans into me—closer than necessary.
“Now face each other,” Andrea says.
And we do. Scottie looks up at me, and it knocks the wind right out of my lungs.
