by Alexis Daria
She demonstrated a few moves right there on the treadmill, rotating 360 degrees as she bounced her feet from the belt to the side rails and back.
Ashton gave a little clap. “I bet you were un petardito jumping rope. A little firecracker.”
“Absolutely. All the other girls made me teach them how to do it too.” She sent him a sidelong glance. “You like running, huh?”
“Clears my mind.” The treadmill’s incline setting changed and he dug in, relishing the burn. “I prefer running outside, but my producers in the past insisted I stay out of the sun.”
When she gave him a curious look, he tapped the skin on his arm. “Can’t be too dark in telenovelas, and I’m already pushing it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Riiiight. Nice to see colorism is still alive and well in the Latinx community.”
“It’s gotten better now, but when I started acting, it was really bad. If I tanned even a little bit, they’d get all bent out of shape.” He shook his head, remembering the not-so-tactful comments he’d gotten before his career had taken off. “You know how hard it is to avoid the sun in Miami?”
“I get you.” Jasmine upped the speed on her machine, her stride confident and energetic. “When I worked in commercials, I auditioned for all the ‘racially ambiguous’ roles. But even if there were a lot of people being hired, there was this whole Highlander ‘there can be only one’ mentality. They’d use me to check off the ‘brown girl’ box on their list and fill the rest of the commercial with white people.”
He made a sound of disgust. “Lazy casting directors.”
“Lazy agent too. This was before I signed with Riley, my current agent. She’s biracial Chinese, so she understands me, but my first one would send me to casting calls for all kinds of ethnicities. In some cases, I’d show up at the audition and be totally mortified, especially since I was still using Rodriguez in my name. I finally put my foot down and refused to go to ‘ethnic’ casting calls unless they specifically listed South East Asian or Latina.”
“What kind of commercials did you do?”
“Oh, lots.” She squinted at the ceiling while she thought about it. “Shampoo, baby diapers, face wash, canned soup. Nothing super embarrassing.”
“My first real role was playing a ranch hand,” Ashton said. “I was twenty-three, living in Mexico, and I told them I could ride horses.”
“Could you?”
He shrugged, feet pounding the treadmill belt in a steady, metronomic rhythm he found so calming. “I’d sat in a saddle a few times, but I was not, by any means, a cowboy. Saying I could ride was a total exaggeration, and let me tell you, that horse knew it.”
She laughed. “But you’ve played other roles that involved horses, right?”
“Well, yeah. After that, I figured I’d better learn to ride for real.”
She gave him a sly look. “My cousin Michelle liked the show where you were a sheriff.”
“Las leyes del corazón y la insignia.” He inclined his head. “That one is a fan favorite.”
She tapped her chin. “I don’t think I’ve worked with any horses. But my storyline on The Glamour Squad involved a poodle, and I had a recurring role on The Young and the Restless that required me to hold a hamster.”
Ashton shook his head. “I can’t imagine playing the same character for decades,” he said, thinking about the English soap operas that ran for generations. He wanted to challenge himself, to improve his skills—but more than that, he wanted the recognition that went with it.
Jasmine shrugged. “It’s good, steady work. Viewers get to watch the characters grow and develop over time. They become familiar.” She shot him an exasperated glance. “Are you really going to keep running while we rehearse?”
“Ah, no.” But he didn’t stop. Running was the only thing keeping him from embarrassing them both. He’d managed not to sprout an erection while filming their make-out scenes together, but something about her bouncing around in spandex was really doing it for him. “What else happens in this episode?”
Jasmine skimmed through the pages as she walked. “There are some scenes where Victor struggles to record new music. Carmen has a heart-to-heart with her father about the family legacy, and Victor auditions for the dance show producers. But he doesn’t get picked.”
“Poor Victor. He’ll be crushed.” Ashton could relate. Even though it came with the territory of being an actor, it sucked not to get the part.
“It looks like the show’s producers think he’s too unreliable—thanks to canceling the tour—so they don’t accept him.”
“Luckily he has Carmen to comfort him.”
“Yes, but she’s Carmen, so you know she’s going to make it a teachable moment.” Jasmine reached over and tapped the rolled-up script he’d stuffed into the drink holder. “Ready to start?”
“Um, sure.” Ashton lowered the speed on the treadmill and wiped his face with a towel. He had to get his desire for her in check. Thank god this episode required less touching.
When he lowered the towel, he caught sight of Jasmine’s face and rushed to pause his treadmill.
Eyes wide, jaw slack, she stared at the wall-mounted TV in abject horror. Ashton reached over to shut off her machine before she tripped, then turned to see what she was looking at.
Puñeta. That pendejo McIntyre filled the screen, leaning in to talk to a very pretty, very young-looking entertainment reporter. The sound was off, but the closed-captioning appeared at the bottom: So, McIntyre, tell us about your new girlfriend. A second later, Jasmine’s face appeared in a box in the corner, next to a photo of another woman who shared an uncanny resemblance.
Before Ashton could say a word, Jasmine scrambled off the treadmill and dashed over to the TV. With desperate movements, she ran her fingers over the edges, probably looking for an off button. When she didn’t find it, she reached behind the TV and yanked the plug. The screen went black.
Breathing hard, she kept her back to him, but Ashton could see her stricken expression in the mirrors.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice hoarse. “But that—”
“I know.” Ashton got off his treadmill and went to stand next to her.
When she didn’t move, Ashton placed a hand on her shoulder and gently led her to the weight bench to sit. Then he retrieved her water bottle and brought it to her. He sat next to her while she took a long drink.
When she finally lowered the bottle, her expression was bleak.
“Can I tell you the worst part?” she whispered.
He would have given her anything she asked for in that moment. “Dime. I mean, tell me.”
She swallowed hard and hunched her shoulders. “I don’t even think I liked him that much. I just . . . wanted to be liked. And I thought he did.”
Ashton’s heart broke for her. What could he say to that? More than anything, he wanted to take her in his arms, to comfort her. But they weren’t close like that. Victor and Carmen were, but Ashton and Jasmine weren’t.
Still, she’d just revealed something big, and he needed to respond. I like you was on the tip of his tongue, but instead, he took her hand and just held it. When her fingers tightened, he stroked her knuckles with his thumb.
She gave herself a little shake. “My cousins want me to move back to New York. Because of all . . . that.” She gestured at the blank TV screen with her free hand.
“You grew up here, right?”
She nodded. “Most of my immediate family is here. My grandparents on my mother’s side live in San Diego, but the Rodriguez side? They’re here. New York is home.”
“But you live in Los Angeles now.”
“It’s where the soaps film, but I dread going back.” She gave a sad little shrug. “The traffic, the stress, the fake friends . . . I don’t even know which of my so-called friends took money in exchange for giving anonymous statements to the tabloids—multiple people, I suspect, probably even some of my castmates on The Glamour Squad. How do you know who to trust after s
omething like that?”
“No sé,” he said. “Yo sólo confío en mi familia.”
Her forehead scrunched, like she was trying to translate in her head. “I only . . . something . . . in my family. Sorry, I don’t know that word. Confío.”
He gave her hand a squeeze, then let go. “Trust,” he said. “Confiar means to trust.”
She nodded, and the hand he’d just released clenched into a fist.
“I hate LA,” Ashton said, trying to lighten the mood. He stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles. “Do I want to work in Hollywood? Absolutely. But I don’t think I could ever live there full time.”
He didn’t mention that he didn’t want his son growing up there. Or that California was too far from Puerto Rico.
He didn’t say any of that, which wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was that he wanted to. He wanted to open up and confide in Jasmine. He suspected she’d be a good listener. But then she’d look at him with compassion in those stunning eyes of hers, and he’d be lost. And he couldn’t afford to lose himself when his whole family relied on him to stay strong.
Instead, he just said, “Let’s rehearse. And you can show all of them how wrong they are about you.”
“Thank you.” Her smile was sweet, but sad. “I mean that.”
As they returned to the treadmills and picked up their scripts, Ashton wondered what it would be like if they were two different people in a different situation. If he were just a single dad who didn’t have to worry about keeping his son’s existence a secret, and if Jasmine were just a woman who didn’t have national media attention focused on her.
What would she think if she knew about Yadiel?
But she couldn’t know. And that was that.
Chapter 17
After a few days, Jasmine worked up the nerve to ask Ashton to help her practice Spanish. She’d worked on it a little with Miriam and Peter, but asking Ashton for help seemed like a bigger deal. Not that she thought he’d say no—their rapport had improved substantially, especially after their talk at the gym—but because she still felt self-conscious about her command of the language.
She thought they’d practice in one of their dressing rooms, so she was surprised when he suggested they go to the grocery store near the hotel one evening after filming.
It was one of those Manhattan supermarkets with high shelves, narrow aisles, and fancy food. Ashton claimed he actually needed to buy groceries, but Jasmine didn’t fully believe he needed the ginger ale and peanut butter in his basket.
They were incognito, Ashton in another guayabera shirt, cargo shorts, and leather sandals, plus a Yankees hat and a pair of sunglasses he removed once they were inside. Jasmine wore yoga pants, a plain white T-shirt, and sneakers, with her hair in a messy bun. She imagined they looked like a good-looking upper-class Latinx couple, shopping for a dinner they’d cook together in their Upper East Side apartment. He was a doctor maybe, and she . . . a Pilates instructor?
Whoa, wait a second. Why couldn’t she be the doctor? And Ashton a . . . personal trainer, maybe. It was easy—and delightful—to picture him demonstrating proper exercise form.
As they strolled up and down the aisles, Jasmine tried to stop sneaking appreciative glances at him and imagining them as different characters. He was here to help her out—nothing more. Well, maybe to buy some peanut butter.
But he was just so handsome, even in his Rich Latino Dad disguise.
She shouldn’t have gone to meet him at the gym. And she definitely shouldn’t have worn her best sports bra, the one that gave lift and separation instead of uni-boob. She knew it wasn’t playing fair, but Ashton’s reaction had been worth it.
On a personal level. On a professional level, she was annoyed with herself. She wasn’t supposed to be making herself attractive for him.
But then, there’d been nothing attractive about her reaction to seeing McIntyre on TV. She’d been scared to return to the Hutton Court’s fitness room, in case she’d broken it. And when she thought about how much she’d opened up to Ashton, she got a flush of embarrassment. He was a good listener, easy to talk to. So different from the character he played—Ashton was quieter and far more reserved than Victor—but there must have been some part of him that connected with Victor, because he was able to turn the sexy on like a light switch.
And he had looked so freaking hot, running hard in those clingy shorts, with his bare, muscled arms pumping. Thanks to their scenes as Carmen and Victor, she’d known he was hiding some serious muscles under his costumes, but seeing him revealed had been worth the wait.
“¿Y esto?” Ashton held up a box of saltines.
Jasmine sighed and stopped eyeing Ashton’s ass. “Galletas. I told you, I already know words for food.”
He shook the box at her and said in a patient tone, “Usa la palabra en una oración completa.”
A complete sentence. Fine. “Um . . . me gusta comer galletas con . . . queso?”
He replaced the crackers on the shelf. “Adequate, but maybe come up with a different sentence starter than ‘I like.’ So far you’ve said you like bread, wine, and now crackers with cheese.”
“I do like bread, wine, and crackers with cheese,” she grumbled, then took the box back off the shelf and put it in her basket. “Speaking of, let’s go get some cheese.”
“En español,” he reminded her in a singsong voice.
She rolled her eyes, but grinned. “Vamos a buscar el queso. Happy?”
“Claro que sí.” From under the brim of his fitted cap, he sent her a warm smile that made her toes curl in her Adidas.
On the way to the dairy section, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” came on over the grocery store’s speakers.
“Hold up. I love this song.” Jasmine stopped in the middle of the aisle and did a few dance moves as she sang along softly with Whitney Houston.
Ashton raised his eyebrows and repeated the words in Spanish, but he turned it into a question. “¿Quieres bailar con alguien?”
She sent him a cheeky grin and said, “Sí,” as if he’d actually meant to ask her to dance with him.
To her surprise, he inclined his head and said, “Bueno.” Before she knew what was happening, he took her hand, spinning her under his arm before twirling her out, then back in toward his body, where he caught her in a dance hold.
Jasmine spun to a stop, breathing hard from surprise and from being so close to him. His body was warm and hard, and he smelled delicious. His hand held hers in a solid grip, different from the way he’d gently stroked her fingers while comforting her at the gym. She wanted to keep dancing. Or undress him with her teeth. Either one would be fine.
But they were in a grocery store, so instead, she changed the subject. “You have your dance scene tomorrow, right?”
“Sí.”
“Are you nervous?” At his pointed look, she repeated the question in Spanish. “¿Estás nervioso?”
He shook his head, then looked past her, toward the end of the aisle. “No, I . . .”
When he trailed off, Jasmine followed his gaze. By the freezer section, a woman wearing an apron with the store’s name on it looked down at her phone screen, but she held it at an awkward angle, almost as if . . .
As if she were taking their picture.
Jasmine’s stomach dropped to her feet. This was truly the worst part of fame—the loss of privacy, of anonymity. She felt raw, exposed, and . . . bitter. She couldn’t even act silly in an overpriced supermarket without worrying about someone watching her.
Ashton’s jaw tightened. He released Jasmine abruptly and slipped his sunglasses back on. “We should be more careful.” Jasmine nodded. “You’re right.”
Leading Ladies only end up on magazine covers with good reason.
Galletas con queso and “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” were not good reasons.
“Let’s go.” Ashton turned his back to the woman and left the aisle in the opposite direction. They paid for their items in silence and
exited the store.
Back at the hotel, they didn’t speak much except to say good night, and Jasmine returned to her room alone. In the suite’s tiny kitchen, she put away her items—she’d gotten the crackers, but no cheese to go with them—and wondered what might have happened if the woman with the phone hadn’t interrupted them.
JASMINE’S NERVES ABOUT the grocery store didn’t last. As she was getting ready for bed, she received an email alerting her to some changes. Everyone had been so happy with how she and Ashton were performing together that they’d written her into the dance scenes.
She’d rushed through her moisturizing routine—every time she was tempted to skip a step, she heard her grandmother’s voice in her head warning her about wrinkles—and flung herself into bed with her tablet. She opened the script file and flipped through at warp speed.
Some actors got better with reading and memorizing lines as they progressed. Some always struggled with it. Jasmine was in the third camp, and it was what had made her excellent at soaps—she could speed-read like nobody’s business, and had an excellent memory for things like song lyrics, poems, and, most importantly, scripts.
She found the scene where Victor was supposed to practice for his meeting with the producers. She and Ashton had already rehearsed it, with Jasmine reading the part of the producers. Originally, the intention was to show Victor on his own, without Carmen. But now . . . Jasmine kept skimming. In the updated version, Victor insisted Carmen be his dance partner for the rehearsal and audition.
Jasmine checked the call sheet. Apparently production was bringing in two pro dancers to help them practice for the scenes. Which meant . . .
She was going to get to dance with Ashton.
Since she was alone, Jasmine punched her fist into the air and yelled, “Yes!”
Then she gathered the tablet to her chest and let herself picture it. The few steps they’d danced together in the grocery store had left her craving more. His body was so strong and steady, and as she’d observed from watching him run on the treadmill, he moved with fluid grace. The thought of dancing in his arms, generating heat for the camera, and giving Carmen the chance to really let loose thrilled her. She couldn’t wait.
