The Seat Filler: A Novel

by Sariah Wilson

  “How?”

  “When the story of us meeting didn’t show up in a tabloid or on a website or splashed all over Twitter.”

  “Why would it?” Don’t get me wrong, I loved gossip as much as the next girl, but what would that headline be? SEAT FILLER BICKERS WITH AND PUTS DOWN INTERNATIONALLY BELOVED SUPERSTAR? I didn’t need that kind of backlash from the Noah Douglas Hive in my life, thanks.

  “You’d be surprised.”

  Somehow he moved even closer, and my heart beat so fast in my chest that it hurt.

  He added, “I was hoping that I could see you again. In a non–dog grooming capacity.”

  My breathing went shallow. Needing distance, I walked over to his front window and looked out at the incredible view—there were lights in the valley beneath us for what felt like miles. I found that I wanted to say yes. And that scared me more than anything else.

  I didn’t want to date anyone, and for reasons I couldn’t say, Noah Douglas was the absolute last man on earth that I could ever date.

  I turned to look at him. “Why?” I asked, having to know at least that. Why me? When he could, quite literally, have anyone? The most beautiful and talented women in the world probably routinely threw themselves at him. There was nothing special or important about me. I was just a regular person living a regular life.

  “Why?” he repeated, sounding a little surprised. “Maybe I have a weakness for feisty spitfires who love dogs.”

  A large lump of regret formed in my throat. “Oh. Okay. Thank you. But that won’t be possible.” There was absolutely no way. It was such a no. A big no. The no-iest of nos. There was so much no here he would get to cruise through the no express lane.

  Now he looked totally bewildered. He came over to the window to stand next to me, and my stomach fluttered at the way the moonlight lovingly bathed his profile. “Can I ask why not?”

  “It’s a long and really embarrassing story, and it’s not one that I share with anyone.”

  “Not even your best friend?”

  “Not even her.” We stood in silence, and I felt compelled to keep explaining. “This really is a hundred percent me. There’s something about me that makes it impossible for me to date.”

  I didn’t want to sound overly dramatic, because when you got down to my reason why, it felt stupid: I couldn’t kiss anyone. Whenever I tried, I had these full-on panic attacks. I was absolutely terrified by the idea of kissing, because the first time I’d ever tried it, it had gone unbelievably badly. In a truly humiliating way. No one had hurt me, but I’d so embarrassed myself that apparently I’d been unable to move past it. So relationships, and kissing, were completely off the table for me. The only way to avoid my freak-outs was to avoid being close to someone.

  But right now, in this moment? Boy, did Noah Douglas make me want to say yes.

  Only I couldn’t. Even thinking about why I had to say no made me feel like I was at the beginning of an attack. My heart was thrashing around, and there was that nauseous feeling at the back of my throat. I had no intention of telling him the reason why I couldn’t go out with him, but my body apparently thought I was going to and prepared to implode.

  “Okay. Message received.” He turned to look at me and that intensity was there, the one that would make me run across a bed of hot coals if that was what he asked me to do. But he broke it off, walking over to the front door. He pulled it open.

  “Thanks again for coming over last-minute.”

  I hesitated. I was shocked to discover that I wanted to explain. But a rush of panic engulfed me and I knew there was no way.

  The only thing left for me to do was to go home. I joined him at the door and said, “You’re welcome. And thank you for the ridiculous tip.”

  That earned me a tiny smile.

  “I’ll share your business card with my friends, if that’s okay.”

  Why did I like the idea of him telling other people about me? “That would be great.”

  I stepped outside, and I heard him say, “I’m glad I got to meet you, Juliet Nolan.”

  The door shut and that was that.

  I crossed my arms, the January air suddenly feeling extremely cold against my still-wet shirt and jeans. I hurried into the van and turned the music on loudly so that I wouldn’t think about what had just happened.

  But it wasn’t enough. I thought of all the men who had asked me on a date or suggested hanging out and how every time I had said no. I hadn’t even been tempted to accept. The potential for humiliation had been too great.

  This was the first time I regretted it.

  And I had my regret to keep me company on the drive home, knowing my best friend would be waiting to hear every single detail.

  Sure enough, she was sitting in the living room watching the second movie in the Duel of the Fae trilogy. She paused the movie when I came in and set my stuff down on the kitchen table. She announced, “It just can’t be said enough how much better the second movie is than the third movie. Like, that director understood how to make Aliana a fully rounded heroine who is allowed to want a soul mate and a family in addition to beating up most of the bad guys. She doesn’t have to be one or the other. And he also understands the female gaze when it comes to Malec. He lets us love him where the first director saw him as a two-dimensional bad guy. If you don’t want us to love the villains and root for their redemption, then why do you give them soulful eyes, muscled chests, disheveled hair, and heartbreaking backstories? I’m just not that strong.”

  “You know I agree with you.” We’d had this same sort of discussion many, many times. It frustrated both of us that the trilogy had ended up as a tragedy instead of a literal fairy tale because the director and writer of the third movie had done such a poor job.

  “So that long-winded explanation of mine was just a setup so that I could say . . . speaking of Noah Douglas’s soulful eyes and muscled chest, how did it go? I would very much like to have all the details, please and thank you.”

  “I need to get changed.” Even though I’d had the whole ride home to sort through my feelings, my nerve endings still felt a little raw, and my stomach had that sunken feeling in it like I’d made a mistake. Much as I loved her, I worried that Shelby would make it worse.

  “Are you trying to up my anticipation here? You don’t have to. I’m already dying. Spill!” she said, following me into my room as I peeled off my wet clothes, threw them into my laundry basket, and changed into my pajamas.

  “There’s not really much to tell,” I said carefully. I didn’t lie to Shelby. Other than that one thing I never told anyone, she knew everything about me. “Oh! Except for Lily Ramsey was there. She let me in.”

  “What?” she shrieked. “I am so torn. I both adore the idea of them having a torrid affair in real life because I loved them together in the movie and am outraged that he would be cheating on you!”

  I laughed and tugged up my pajama bottoms. “They’re just friends. Their dogs like to play together, and she seems very happily married. Sorry to both burst your bubble and reassure you.”

  “Come into the kitchen,” she told me. “I went out and got rocky road ice cream.”

  I knew it was a bribe to ensure I’d fess up, but when chocolate was involved, I did not care. “I’m right behind you.”

  “So . . . then what happened?” she asked, getting the ice cream out of the freezer. I grabbed bowls and spoons and met her at the table.

  “Well, after Lily obviously became my new best friend, then I washed and brushed Magnus.”

  “And . . . where was Noah while this was going on?”

  “He was taking a shower.”

  She grinned mischievously at me. “With you watching?”

  “What?” I laughed, banning the images that conjured up out of my mind. “No! I’d prefer not to go to prison for being a Peeping Tom, thanks.”

  “I kind of think it would be worth it. He’s in fantastic shape. There was this article in American Weekly that said he still wor
ks out like he did when he was in the military.”

  I’d seen him up close. I could believe it. “Sounds about right.”

  “He’s so massive. It’s like he’s a reverse Beauty and the Beast character.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked after I’d taken a bite.

  “You know how all the servants in that movie are people who were turned into objects? He’s the opposite. Like a sexy refrigerator that was turned into a person.”

  That made both of us laugh.

  “He’s definitely not making a servant’s salary,” I said. “He tried to tip me over four hundred dollars and I had to talk him down to forty.”

  “You did that the wrong way. In business you’re supposed to get as much money as possible. Plus, he’s a celebrity, which you seem to have forgotten. If I’d been you, I probably would have swiped something from his living room as a memento.”

  “I think he would have noticed if I stuck his Golden Globe down my shirt.” She had a point about the money thing. I recognized that it didn’t make sense, but I hadn’t wanted to take his money.

  Maybe it was because part of me didn’t want our relationship to be a purely professional one, no matter what I kept telling myself.

  “I so needed this,” Shelby said and took another big bite of her ice cream. After she swallowed she added, “Because I went down to check the mailbox while you were gone, and guess what I found?”

  She reached toward the middle of the table and put a magazine in front of me called California Architectural.

  “Oh no . . . is this what I think it is?” I noticed a Post-it tagged to one of the pages and flipped to it.

  Sure enough, there was Millicent Nabors standing in her newly renovated condo. She was an actress from a show on the CW network and had met Shelby through Allan and hired her. Shelby had done a fantastic job, given these pictures, but at the last minute Millicent had fired her and reneged on her final payment by claiming that Shelby had violated one of the terms of their agreement (which she totally did not do), leaving Shelby in a financial lurch.

  And now in the article, Millicent was claiming credit for the design, saying she’d always “had a natural instinct for it.”

  Allan had told us that, given their contract, there wasn’t anything Shelby could do about it.

  “I was counting on this,” she said sadly. “I thought it was going to launch my career.”

  “I’m so sorry. You didn’t need her and her tacky animal-print rugs. You’re going to be a huge success.” I sighed, not wanting to let her down but knowing that this information could bolster her spirits. “And something happened tonight that might make you feel better, although I don’t want to get your hopes up, especially considering how badly this Millicent Nabors thing went.”

  “What?”

  “Noah Douglas’s house is a wreck, so I gave him your card and recommended you. His place is like if some supervillain from the 1970s was put into a cryogenic sleep and woke up today with the sole intent of decorating Noah’s home badly with a seventies flair. I’m talking green shag carpeting and yellow appliances, my friend.”

  “Oh no. That’s terrible.” Her face crumpled slightly but then immediately brightened. “But yay that he might call me! I know it’s a long shot, but hey, a long shot is sitting across from me right now.”

  I took a big bite of my ice cream. She wasn’t wrong.

  Shelby studied me and then announced, “I feel like there’s something else you aren’t telling me.”

  She knew me too well, and there was no way I’d be able to hide it from her. “There is.” I set down my spoon, and she widened her eyes. That gesture meant I was serious and she’d immediately understood it. “He said that he would like to see me, in his words, in a ‘non–dog grooming capacity.’”

  “Like . . . a date? He wants to go out with you?” she squealed, bouncing up and down in her chair.

  “Those were his exact words. Feel free to interpret them however you’d like.”

  “Oh, you don’t want to say that.” She had her hands clasped to her chest, and her eyes had a dreamy, faraway look. “Because he was very obviously saying he wants to spend the rest of his life with you and now our double wedding is going to be even more fabulous. Can you imagine the kind of celebrities we’ll be able to invite?”

  I shook my head, giggling at her silliness. This was why we were close. I brought her back down to earth when she went off on one of her flights of fancy, and she urged me to lift my head up and not get so bogged down by the daily grind of real life. She reminded me that it was important to dream and to fly.

  “I don’t want to be the one to burst your bubble here, but I told him I wasn’t interested.”

  A look of pure horror crossed her face. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because I’m not. I closed that door.”

  “Having worked with so many doors in my profession, I can tell you this—that’s the thing about doors. Once you close them, they’re designed to be opened again.” When I didn’t respond, she got up and rinsed out her bowl, immediately putting it into the dishwasher. I’d have to remember to do the same with my own bowl or else she’d get upset with me for letting it languish in the sink.

  “Are you really not interested in him at all?” she asked, and I heard that tone in her voice again, the one that let me know she understood something more was going on with my love life but that she wouldn’t press the issue. That she would wait until I was ready to tell her.

  I didn’t think I’d ever be ready.

  “Noah is . . . different.” It was the most truthful answer I could give her.

  “Different how?”

  I didn’t have the words to explain, so I just said, “I don’t know.”

  She closed the dishwasher door. “Is it because he played Felix and Malec? Like you’re transferring your crush from them onto him?”

  “No, it honestly has nothing to do with the characters he’s played. It’s him. He’s just different, and this is the first time I . . .” I couldn’t continue.

  Thankfully she didn’t press me further. Another thing I loved about her—she always understood when to push and when to back down. “Well, I don’t think that’s the last you’ve heard of him.”

  “How could it not be? I told him no thanks.”

  She shrugged. “I just don’t think Noah Douglas is the kind of guy who gives up that easily.”

  Her phone rang, and she went into the living room to grab it. I could tell from the sappy look on her face that it was Allan. Again, I felt that pang of envy that I didn’t have anyone in my life who made me feel the way Allan made Shelby feel.

  Maybe you could.

  It was dumb to think. Even dumber to hope for. I didn’t know how to get over my terrified-of-kissing issue. If it was just mind over matter . . . but it wasn’t. I wished it was, but I couldn’t just force myself to be fine and not have a panic attack every time I got close to a man.

  The problem was, as Shelby had so often bragged, she was usually right. And she’d been right about everything so far.

  That was what had me concerned.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It turned out to be a lot of worry over nothing. I didn’t hear from Noah again. My life continued on as it always had. I spent a lot of time going into different veterinarian’s offices to leave a stack of business cards with them, hoping somebody would pick one up and call me. I also went out on the few appointments I had for the week and groomed some gorgeous pooches. I hung out with Shelby a lot more than normal because Allan was working on a case that was demanding a lot of overtime, and I chatted with my mom a couple of times about her upcoming play. Ran some errands, ate some chocolate, watched some TV. Normal.

  There were no restricted incoming phone calls.

  A week after I’d groomed Magnus, Shelby was hanging out with Allan, which meant that I had all the time in the world to watch Noah Douglas movies. It was strange watching them now, knowing that I’d had conversation
s with him and he wasn’t just this actor performing on my screen, but a real, interesting, and all-too-attractive person.

  I woke up and decided to have belgian chocolate ice cream for breakfast. Why not? Nobody cared when you had yogurt for breakfast, and it was basically the same thing. I was halfway through the first Duel of the Fae movie when my phone rang. I glanced at the screen. It was Shelby.

  Before I could even say hi, she cut me off with, “Don’t say no.”

  I paused the movie. I’d heard that tone in her voice before. She was about to beg me for a big favor, and she knew I wouldn’t like it. “Why would I say no when you haven’t even asked me yet?”

  “Just promise you won’t say no.”

  “Fine. I won’t say no.”

  “Perfect. I need you to be a seat filler at the Academy Awards tonight.”

  “No,” I responded. What if I did that and I ran into Noah? What if he thought I’d changed my mind? That I was sending him mixed signals? I mean, it would be a fair accusation, given that all I felt were extremely conflicting signals all the time where he was concerned, but I wanted to put that little footnote of my life down at the bottom of the page where it belonged and move on.

  “But you were so good at it!” she protested.

  “It’s not really a skill.”

  She tried again. “You just promised you would!”

  “I can’t be held to any promise where you tricked me into agreeing first.”

  “Juliet, I need you.”

  I closed my eyes. She knew I couldn’t resist when she said that. “But I have plans.”

  “Sitting on our couch eating ice cream is not a plan.”

  How did she know I was eating ice cream? “But I already threw away the lid. I feel committed to finishing.”

  I could almost hear her rolling her eyes over the phone. “Not an excuse.”

  “Okay. I don’t have anything to wear.” That ought to work.

  “I rented your dress yesterday.”

  “What?” I stood up. “You knew this yesterday but you waited until right now to ask me?”

  “Because I know you left things weird with Noah and I didn’t want you to talk yourself out of it. Harmony called me yesterday and said she’d been so pleased with how well we did a couple of weeks ago that she wanted us to work as seat fillers again.”