Tall Dark & Handsome

by Wilde, Amelia

  “Juno!”

  It’s not an attention-getting shout, just loud enough for me to register that Maggie’s here.

  I turn my head, my lips brushing against the sauce-covered meat, and my eyes connect with hers. She’s here with Matt and Chloe and giving me a cute little wave with her fingers.

  I am so fucking busted.

  My hand moves lightning fast, a pure reflex, and I bat the fork right out of Cannon’s hand. An icy cold embarrassment pummels my gut as the fork hits the tablecloth with a dull thwap and clatters to the floor, sauce spewing everywhere. I give Maggie an answering wave, my teeth gritted together, and then turn back to Cannon. “Too far. Too far, Mr. Hunt.”

  He looks up at me, amused, brushing flecks of sauce from the buttons of his shirt. “You really looked like you wanted another bite.”

  “That’s…” I take a deep breath, steadying myself, hyperaware that I now have an audience of people who are supposed to be taking directions from me for the foreseeable future. It’s not good. This is exactly the scenario I wanted to avoid, and now I’m stuck in the middle of it like a deer caught in the headlights of an eighteen-wheeler. “That was inappropriate, and I think you know it.”

  “I think you don’t quite know what you want,” he says easily. “You’re a conflicted woman.”

  “How would you know?” I can feel how painfully red my face is. “You know what? It doesn’t matter.” I grab my purse from where it was hanging on the back of the chair and dig around inside for cash. All I can come up with is a twenty-dollar bill, which is too much, but I’m not about to ask for change. I want to, a little. It seems excessive to pay twenty dollars for a bill, but this situation… obviously, is not going to allow for that. I toss the twenty on the table. “There. I bought you a beer. And now this business dinner is over.”

  I turn and head for the door, pausing only to force a smile at Maggie’s table. She bends to say something into Matt’s ear and my head fills with curses. This is going to be the talk of the set tomorrow. I just know it. And I’ll be pegged as the woman who couldn’t resist Cannon Hunt.

  I’m three steps outside the door when his voice cuts into the hot Georgia night. “Ms. Anderson.”

  I wheel around, cheeks still tight and hot from when he tried to feed me a fucking piece of meat like we were some sickeningly romantic couple. “What?”

  He dangles his keys from his hand, the pale moonlight catching on the metal ridges. “Forgetting something?” Cannon gathers them into his palm with a crisp snap and moves toward me. Closer and closer he comes, and I’m rooted to the spot, watching every graceful movement. The night seems to cling to his skin and I want to lick it off as badly as I want to slap him.

  He stops six inches away and bends so that his lips are level with my ear. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.” I huff, looking for a response, but he steps around me like I’m nothing but a traffic cone and heads for his car. “Come on, Juno. I drove. Unless you want to ride back with Maggie and the gang?”

  I can see them through the window of the fondue place, Maggie’s gorgeous hair catching the light, Matt and Chloe leaning their heads together. They’re probably talking about me right now, and it’s the worst.

  No, it’s not the worst. The worst would be going back inside and joining them, like Cannon and I just had a lovers’ spat.

  Which we did not.

  “Fine.” I tighten my grip on the purse and follow him. “Take me home.”

  11

  Cannon

  I become the invisible man.

  Juno’s eyes skip right over me on the set, even during the crunch time when we have to reshoot bits of scenes that weren’t perfect before. One day, I walk past her to the catering table at lunch, only to hear Maggie, the assistant director, ask her about that fateful night.

  “So, did you like it? The Big Dipper?”

  Juno doesn’t hesitate. “No.” Then she scribbles a note on a notepad. “Fifteen minutes, and then we’ll be ready to move on.”

  I can’t fucking stand it.

  What happened to this woman to make her so vehemently opposed to admitting that I’m not actually Satan incarnate? My mother used to say, not looking at me while she adjusted her hair in the mirror, that not everybody was going to like me, and I should get used to it. I got used to it. But that doesn’t explain those flashes in Juno’s face when she laughs at my jokes.

  I circle back to her as Maggie jogs off. She doesn’t look up from the notepad. She’s still writing furiously, but from my single glance I can see she’s scribbling bullshit. I stifle a laugh and stare off into the woods, angling my body away from her.

  “Eventually, you’re going to have to forgive me,” I say in a low voice. “I know I shouldn’t have tried to give you a bite of meat that you were obsessed with, but your mouth was too pretty to leave you alone.”

  “Go away, Cannon.”

  “Nobody can see we’re talking to each other. I’m pretending to ignore you.”

  “I’m actually ignoring you.”

  “You’re doing a shitty job, and you know what that means.”

  “Go. Away. You are being highly unprofessional.”

  “I thought we were past that whole professional/unprofessional thing.” I sneak a glance. She’s gritting her teeth, staring down at the notepad, not even pretending to write anymore. “Hey.” I nudge her with my elbow, and she whips her head toward the point of contact like she’s been bitten by a snake. “It’s also very unprofessional to ignore a member of your team who’s come to you with a legitimate concern.”

  Juno wheels toward me then, crossing her arms hard over her chest. I drag my eyes up from the way that grip pushes her breasts upward under her white T-shirt and focus firmly on her face. “What’s your legitimate concern, then? Are you having trouble with the shooting schedule? It’s a little late in the game to replace you, but if this is too much, then—”

  “It’s not the shooting schedule. But now that I have your full attention…”

  She frowns, but her eyebrows go up in a hopeful little way that makes me want to kiss her right here in the middle of the set.

  “…I wanted to let you know that from here on out, I won’t slip up anymore.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I won’t ask you for any more beers, for starters. And I won’t look lower than your eyes.”

  Juno straightens her back, and I can see in my peripheral vision that it has an absolutely scrumptious effect on her breasts. “Oh, have you been looking lower than my eyes? Because that’s—”

  “Unprofessional.” I lean in close. “It’s so fucking unprofessional I can’t stand it. And you have every right to be pissed. But I’m hoping that after this conversation, we can be colleagues. Just colleagues. Nothing more. No more dinners. No more bites of meat. In those exclusive features, we can sit next to each other and be nothing more than chatty acquaintances.”

  “That sounds great.” Juno’s eyes flash with disappointment, but her gaze hardens into determination. “Because you’ve been after me since—”

  “Hush.” I reach out and put a finger on her lips, my last unprofessional move. “That’s all in the past now. Do you hear me? It’s behind us. It was nothing, and it’ll never be anything. When this film wraps, we’ll be two people who once were forced to work together, and that was the end of the story. I’ll fade into a distant memory. You’ll fade into a distant memory. And nobody will ever be able to accuse you of sleeping with the enemy. Not that I’m the enemy. Just a colleague. Like any other colleague.”

  Juno’s jaw juts out, and I feel the movement through the pad of my finger. I want so desperately to rub my thumb over the swell of her bottom lip, but I can picture what the result would be. She’d jerk her head back, eyes narrowing, and hiss something about professionalism.

  “Deal?” I stick my hand out between us and take a half-step back.

  She hesitates for one heartbeat, and then takes my hand in a crisp, power
ful shake. “Deal.”

  I turn and go, leaving her standing at the edge of the clearing, in the shadow of the camera rig. My heart pounds in my ears, and my body braces for the sound of her voice, calling me back.

  She doesn’t call me back.

  She doesn’t call me, and I don’t look back. That’s not the game we’re playing. And it is a game we’re playing, because I saw her face at the Big Dipper. I saw her face when she let me take her by the arm and save her from total embarrassment in front of the cast and crew. I know there’s something there, and my sense has been honed by a lifetime of trying to make someone love me who didn’t.

  “Part of winning,” my mother said once, as she left the house without a backward glance, “is knowing when to quit.”

  I’m not quitting.

  I’m only changing strategies.

  Juno thought she could put a chill on the heat between us by pretending it isn’t there.

  But the way her eyes burn into my back tells me otherwise.

  When I get to the catering table and pick up a plate, I risk a glance back at the clearing. Juno hasn’t moved. She’s still watching me.

  Her eyes catch mine—a split second, a flare of green—and she turns away.

  12

  Juno

  He keeps his word.

  Cannon, that tricky bastard, is coolly professional on the set. His eyes never linger on my face, or roam over the curves of my body. He never sidles up to me at the craft services table and says “You look hot” in a confidential tone while he pretends to be consulting me about some minute aspect of the scene. The one time he pulls me aside before we leave for California, my body, embarrassingly, prepares itself for something... intimate.

  “I just wanted to clarify something.” Cannon beckons for a script, and somebody runs through the set and hands it off to him. He flips it open to a well-marked page in the center.

  I stop making notes on my notepad. “Yeah?” I bend my head over the script with him, leaning in a little closer than necessary. I have the wild idea that if I lean in far enough, he might press a flirty kiss to the side of my neck. The heat stroke must have been worse than I thought.

  “This line right here.” He puts the thick pad of his finger on the page and runs it across the line. “Last time we shot this, I leaned in. Do you want a take with me leaning out? Different delivery?” He straightens up and rubs his hand across the back of his neck. “Or keep it the same? I know we’re running short on time.”

  Change up the delivery! the director-voice in the back of my mind screeches. This particular shot was mostly fine; it was an issue with the lighting we’re correcting for now. But the space between us seems vast. He was so close, and now he might as well be on another planet. “I like it when you lean in.”

  The Cannon who walked into the audition room that day would have raised his eyebrows, that smile spreading across his face, revealing perfectly white teeth. He would have murmured something like “Oh, yeah? Should I lean in a little farther?” He’d have said it with his lips right next to my ear, so close his breath would tickle that curving shell.

  This Cannon gives me a crisp nod. “All right. Got it.” Then he slips a pen from the broken spine of the script, pulls off the cap with his teeth, and makes a note. I sway closer, half on instinct and half because he has this pull that’s never been more obvious, but Cannon stands upright.

  He finishes making his note and walks away.

  “Thanks,” he calls over his shoulder, not bothering to turn back.

  I turn awkwardly toward Simon the camera guy, who’s double-checking settings for the next shot, and unsurprisingly find I have nothing to say. I end up looking at him for way too long, until he finally picks up his head. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say, a little too defensively, which means I now have to walk it back. “Are you okay?” I clutch my notepad a little tighter. “Have everything you need?”

  He nods slowly. “Yep.”

  “Cool.”

  I walk away before it can get any worse, burying my nose in my notepad. Halfway to the craft services tent, I pretend to remember something I forgot and rush past, toward where the rented golf carts are parked.

  Disappointment swells like a cold balloon until it fills my entire torso and rises up in a thick lump in my throat. I slide into the passenger seat of one of the golf carts and lean back, swallowing it as much as I can without revealing anything on my face. At least, I hope I’m not revealing anything. I steal a glance back at the tent. The few people who are in sight aren’t looking this direction, and even if they did look, they’d only see me sitting here, consulting my notes.

  They won’t see me looking forlorn because I got what I wanted.

  Why the hell does it sting like this? I trace my pen down the edge of the notepad and wrinkle my forehead to keep the gathering tears at bay. I pushed Cannon Hunt away from me with all my might. I made it crystal fucking clear that what I wanted was a professional relationship. And now all I can think about is the hollow at the base of my ribs. Am I seriously this pathetic? Is this seriously my life? Can it be that I actually miss the way he looked at me when I walked on set most days?

  I sit up straight, resisting the urge to bury my face in my hands. There is no earthly reason for me to feel this way about Cannon Hunt. This is Tessa’s thing, if it’s anybody’s. She’s the one who’d have the nerve to go after a guy like Cannon. To be on his level, even if they shouldn’t have been on the same plane of existence. Everybody would agree with her, too.

  Cannon used to look at me like my very being had set the world ablaze. Like he was considering something fearful and beautiful. Now that he’s not looking, I feel horribly human.

  “Ugh.” I let my head fall back against the headrest.

  “Is the heat getting to you, Juno? Need a bottle of water?”

  I jerk myself upright and smile what I hope is a convincing smile at Maggie. “No, just running through the rest of today’s shots. I don’t know if we have enough hours in the day to get them all done.”

  Her grin wrinkles her nose. “It’s so thrilling, isn’t it? That race against time. Three days left.”

  Yes. A previous version of me would have reveled in having so little time and so much work. In college, I lived for the sharp, adrenaline-soaked moments like these, when everyone’s movements coalesced into something fine-tuned and dangerous and we were risky and inspired in filming and editing.

  The me of now, however, with my ass pressing into the uncomfortable plastic seat of the golf cart, would be more thrilled if Cannon would look at me. Would flirt with me.

  God, I am such an idiot.

  “It’s something,” I tell Maggie, then climb back out of the golf cart. “Is everybody ready?”

  “Everything’s set, unless you have more notes.”

  “No.” Half of my notes are aimless doodles anyway. The trip to the golf cart was wasted time when we don’t have any. “These are just personal reminders.”

  “All right.”

  We make our way back toward the craft services tent, which is the hub of all activity, as usual. Cannon stands at one end, half a bagel in his hand, and as we approach, his deep, smooth laughter rings out across the grass. I’d pay my entire salary for him to look up from Chloe’s face and call my name, fold me into that circle, and let me stand in his orbit.

  That, or I’m actually on the verge of a heat stroke.

  “I wish there was less food.” There’s a hint of irritation that I can’t keep out of my voice. “We’d be on track if that table wasn’t loaded up every hour of the day.”

  Maggie takes this as a joke and laughs, her face lighting up with the so-called humor. “Be careful what you wish for,” she says as she grabs a bottle of water from a tub filled with ice, tucked in close to the craft services table.

  “Right,” I reply, too quietly for her to hear as she heads toward the camera operator, probably to give him last-minute instructions in a way that he’ll love,
since everybody on the cast and crew loves Maggie. “I’ll be more careful.”

  13

  Cannon

  At two in the morning, the cast and crew of Homefront piles into a series of rented SUVs, dark and identical, to head to the airport. We’ve been filming in Nowhere, Georgia, and it’s an hour to Atlanta. I threw myself into bed two hours ago, ten minutes after we wrapped and a skeleton crew started packing up the essentials that would travel with us.

  It’s too early for human life.

  I get in the SUV closest to the door and watch everybody else climb in. The moment my head hits the headrest, I start to doze off, muscles sore and aching. We spent all day yesterday reshooting flashback boot camp scenes. Enough said.

  My head starts to fall to the side and it startles me awake.

  We’re... still at the hotel.

  What the fuck?

  I rub a hand over my face and peer into the front seat. The driver taps his fingers anxiously on the steering wheel, craning his neck to look at the front of the hotel. His phone pings in one of the cup holders closest to his seat, and he picks it up and reads the incoming text with a sigh.

  “Is there a problem?” At this point, I’m not against going back to my room, getting back in bed, and making my own travel arrangements to California. The call of the sheets is strong. So... fucking... strong.

  “No problem,” says the driver, his eyes fixed on the front of the hotel.

  It’s bullshit, really, that we’re out here at two in the morning. What are we waiting for, even? Some kind of secret signal from the studio higher-ups that will send us on to the chartered plane in Atlanta. I sink backward into the seat and bury my hands in the front pocket of my hoodie. I swore to myself a long time ago that if I got successful I’d never throw a fit about stupid bullshit like some asshole who thinks that having his face blown up to fit on a movie poster is license to act like a petulant brat. But I’m exhausted. I could calmly exit the vehicle and put plan Go Back To Fucking Sleep into action without causing much of a scene.