Maybe until me.
Suddenly, she turns to throw something at the trashcan. I don’t have time to warn her of my presence and she gasps in alarm, her big sapphire eyes getting bigger as she stumbles backward. The makeup chair clips her behind the knees and I see her start to go down. Her arms shoot out and her mouth rounds into an O, as in oh shit! I rush forward, reaching out to wind my fingers around her thin wrists and pull her toward me. The shift in momentum causes her to overcorrect and she falls against my chest.
“Oh!” she chirps, stunned. “Thank you. You startled me.”
“You’re welcome, and I didn’t mean to. I was enjoying the show.”
Color pours into her cheeks and she tucks her head. “How embarrassing.”
“Why?”
“Because. It just is. I mean . . . I don’t know.”
“I love that song, by the way.”
“You knew what I was humming?” She seems surprised.
“Of course I did. Now if it were me, it would be anybody’s guess. I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.”
Shyly, she glances up at me, a wry twist to her lips. “For some reason I doubt that. I bet you’ve never sucked at anything in your whole life.”
“I suck at things all the time,” I reply, hoping to keep the conversation going so that she doesn’t become too aware of the fact that I’m still holding her. Because I like holding her. I love the way she feels against me, all tiny and warm and curvy. And if she thinks too much about it, she’ll pull away.
“Like what?”
“Like origami. Like crocheting. Like ballet. Like—”
She grins up at me. “Have you actually tried any of those things?”
“I have.”
“Dare I ask why?”
“No, you dare not.”
“Secrets. A man after my own heart.” She says it in jest, but I know she’s only partially kidding. I don’t doubt that she has a lot of secrets. And I want to know them all.
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” I inject every bit of sincerity into my voice that I can muster. I don’t know why I would even offer. There are several things I couldn’t ever tell her. Wouldn’t ever tell her. But something tells me she’d never take me up on such an offer. That’s not who she is. I’d say she respects a person’s privacy. And asks them to do the same of hers.
Her eyes are locked on mine so I see the very second that awareness sinks in. Her expression starts to shut down before she physically backs away.
“Everyone is entitled to their secrets. I’ll be nice and let you keep some of yours,” she says, trying to be light and playful about it.
Even though I knew it wouldn’t be her style to want all the details, some part of me wants her to know all the ugly, all the unacceptable, all the things that no one else really knows. I want her to know about them and still give me the time of day. Despite them. “What if I want you to know them? What if I want to share them with you?”
“You don’t.”
“And why don’t I?”
“You don’t want to get involved with someone like me. I’m not the . . . I’m just not . . .”
I reach out to take her chin between my thumb and forefinger, capturing her before she can completely escape. “What do I have to do to convince you that I do want to be involved with you? Not someone like you, but you.”
That was too much. I can see it in the way she shrinks away from me.
I’m about to lose control of this opportunity and, knowing Katie, I might not get another one any time soon.
I plaster on a big damn smile even though I’m frustrated as hell.
“Luckily, I didn’t come here to discuss your worth as a human being. I came here to collect.”
“Collect?” she repeats with a frown.
“Yep. You totally derailed me on set today and Tony chewed my ass for not knowing my lines. Made me promise to rehearse them this weekend. And guess who got volunteered?”
I paraphrased, of course. She didn’t get volunteered, except by me. But paraphrasing isn’t lying. Is it?