There’s an end-of-summer breeze in the night air, refreshing and just sobering enough to steady my gait. Lucas throws his jacket on my shoulders, and I smile up at him in appreciation before hugging Avery goodbye. Lucas waves away his car service but probably regrets it when a handful of paparazzi start snapping pictures of me leaning heavily on his arm. The flashes are blinding.
“Who the hell called them?” Lucas mutters.
“Who is she, Lucas?” one photographer calls out.
“Did you give her that hickey?” another shouts. My face is lava red.
Lucas waves the questions away. “Gonna have to dig your dirt up elsewhere, fellas. Nothing to see, but if you want to take the walk with us, be my guest. Just give us some space, okay?”
That seems to deflate the paps, and two of the three disperse. One trails us at a distance for a bit, though I lose sight of him as we approach my building. We probably bored him into submission, our conversation pleasantly superficial.
We climb the steps to my apartment, and instead of feeling the tension of Jack’s eyes on my ass, I mainly just want to get to my place and take off these shoes. For a few seconds, there’s just silence punctuated by squeaking stair treads. And then Lucas says, “Margie mentioned she left the script here because you’re her go-to for running lines.”
“Yeah, I do them in stupid voices to see if she can remain in character with an over-actor.”
Lucas chuckles. “I’ve got to hear that.”
We reach my landing, and I let us into my place. “No way.”
There’s a noise beyond the sheets hanging across the wall: Jack. I wonder if Yelena is there, too. The image of her hanging onto Jack’s shoulder floats past my mind’s eye like Casper the Busty Ghost.
“Come on. You can’t tell me something like that and then not do it,” Lucas insists.
“Fine. You want a drink?” I make sure to ask that question nice and loud. Though a part of me worries Lucas may get the wrong idea, a bigger part of me hopes Jack gets the wrong idea. To make him jealous, like he did to me with Yelena.
“Wine would be great,” he says.
I twist the cap on the wine, stashing the top in a drawer and smiling as I think of Margie. Lucas joins me in the kitchen, and I hand him his script and a glass.
“You pick the scene,” he says, casually sipping.
I fill my own glass and set the script down, flipping over to a tabbed page. My eyebrows shoot up: the sex scene is a hot one. Filthy. Restraints and blindfolds and—
“Yeah, not this one,” I say.
Lucas’s expression doesn’t change from the completely innocent one he’s sporting. But then again, he’s an actor. “Oh? What’s wrong with it?”
“Nice try,” I say. He laughs and gives me aplayful “caught me” look.
I flip purposefully through the pages and chuckle when I land on the scene I want. The violence between the two hitman brothers on the page makesTheGodfatherlook likeMary Poppins. And there’s definitely no kissing or ravishing happening here. I arch a questioning brow.
“You were plotting a murder the first time I met you, so it makes sense you’d find the most bloodthirsty scene now,” Lucas says with a laugh.
I wander into the living room, reading aloud. “Please! Please! Just let me…”
Lucas leans over my shoulder and peers at the script. “Get over here.” He playfully grabs my arm, and I press my wrist across my forehead like a damsel in distress. “Get on your knees. Now!”
I sip my wine. “You don’t have to do this. I’m sorry!” The scene calls for a whimper as Lucas’s character brandishes a gun.
He nods, his lips scrunched in surprised approval.
I mouth, “Pluck Cluck Chicken.”
He growls, “I don’t want to hear your fucking sorrys. You had time for sorrys. Open your mouth and suck on this.”
The script calls for a gun to be placed in the kneeling brother’s mouth.
Lucas grins, and suddenly the sheet on my wall bursts forward, a ghostly figure waving its arms and launching itself at him.
