“Get in touch with Gretchen, Flint’s publicist. She’s going to have you very busy this next month.” And just like that, he walks away.
Amazing. It’s not just that I’m going to be jammed up against Flint this whole month. I’ll also soon be experiencing the pleasure of having our awkwardness aired on national TV, for all the world to enjoy.
There he is, standing in a cluster of people, shaking hands and talking. He finds my eyes across the room, a look of quiet desperation on his face. I shake my head slowly, letting him see the doom. We’re stuck together. Better bend over and grab your ankles, because Hollywood just brought the lube.
28
“Aren’t you a little young to be having these frown lines?” my makeup artist asks, pursing her lips. Her name’s Leigh, and she works for Good Day Cali, a morning show with the brightest and most chipper host known to man. I’m pretty sure the host, Kandy Kristi, would’ve smiled while talking about the Hindenburg disaster. ‘And look at that! So many lives lost in that fiery inferno! Oh my gosh, the humanity!’ Twinkle.
“I like to think I’ve earned these lines,” I say, frowning some more as Leigh tsks and moves toward me with more foundation. She’s sassy but fierce, with platinum blond hair and on-point eyeliner, and she is not having my attitude this morning.
“You’re nervous,” she says, and nods. “It’s your first time. Makes sense.”
“I’m not nervous,” I say, mostly to convince myself. See that, self? You’re not nervous. No way you should try popping a few Xanax before you go out there. No way. I couldn’t even get the doctor’s prescription.
Flint’s sitting in the chair next to me, that little paper bib clipped just under his chin to protect his clothes. He looks suspiciously at the lip gloss, but for the most part he’s being a good soldier. His makeup girl, a cute redhead, keeps blushing and giggling and quivering whenever he looks at her. I know how that feels, hon.
“You don’t have to be nervous,” Flint tells me as Leigh moves in with some kind of cream to fight the apparently enormous bags under my eyes. “I can do most of the talking.”
“Can you believe we’re in a position where you’re saying that to me?” I ask him. At least, as well as I can ask, what with Leigh smearing something on my lips. “What happened to that scared, rugged man ready to fling himself off a cliff before the cameras started rolling?”
“I guess I got used to it.” He frowns as the makeup girl artfully messes up his hair, but he doesn’t fight it. “I’ve always been good at adapting.”
That’s true. Flint usually keeps a cool head. Even now, when he’s talking to the woman he cruelly pretended to have actual feelings for, he’s chatting easily. The awkwardness of our first day back together is mostly gone—mostly. Sometimes Flint and I still don’t know what to do about eye contact, or we get into a throat clearing game of ‘please don’t make me say something, oh look, a squirrel.’ But Flint McKay now seems more at home in the glitz and glam of show business than I do. Funny, that.
My stomach flips a little, then seems to ripple. I shouldn’t have had that sausage sandwich for breakfast. Or the second sausage sandwich.
“Done,” Leigh says, standing back and looking me over. Her lips are pursed in barely concealed disapproval. “Well, it’ll fly, at any rate. I guess there’s nothing to be done about your hair.” With those encouraging words, she leaves. Flint and I get out of the makeup chairs and go into the green room, the nice little holding pen for guests. We sit together, watching the opening segment and waiting to take our places. Kandy Kristi is wearing a pale pink suit with metal pyramid studs down the arms, that manic smile, and white stiletto heels. Stilettos, at this hour? I can barely walk in Uggs. Our host giggles and shrieks while a man with gleaming white teeth shows off Harlow and Garbo, two Shih Tzus modeling the latest hairstyle for celebrity dogs. The words ‘wavelike crimps’ are used seriously. I wonder if I’ve accidentally taken a wrong turn into literal Hell.
“Relax,” Flint murmurs. He leans down next to my ear to say it, sending that customary flush of heat through my body. What would be really relaxing is to reach up and put my arms around his neck, to feel him draw me in against him, to find his mouth on mine…
And after that, Santa, I’d like a pink pony.
“You’re on in a minute,” a man with a headset tells us. He’s looking at a clipboard, his hassled appearance suggesting he’s considering throwing this all away and heading back to his hometown suburb in Ohio, where he can get a regular job and fade in with everyone else, never standing out, never being uncomfortable.
Actually, the Ohio thing might just be me projecting.