Zoe gave me a knowing look and then patted me on my arm. “If anyone knows how you’re feeling, it’s me. Because I’ve been there, done that, and given the way he is staring at you right now, you are in very deep trouble.”
CHAPTER TEN
Noah had nearly reached us when he was stopped by an older man who had his arm around a much younger, beautiful woman. At the man’s request, Noah agreed to take a picture with the woman, who looked like she was in danger of spilling out of the top of her very tight, strapless, champagne-colored dress. And there was a lot that would have spilled out.
Now she was talking to Noah, and he had this weird smile pasted on his face and a pained look in his eyes. Like a hostage trying to communicate without his captors knowing.
I decided to be nice and rescue him.
“I won Miss Malibu last year,” the abundantly bosom-blessed woman was telling Noah. “That’s how I met Harold here. He was one of the judges. And, if you think about it, winning kind of makes me a queen. I’ve got the crown and everything.”
Noah didn’t seem to know what to say. “Oh. I hadn’t heard that Malibu had incorporated as a monarchy.”
That made me smile, but his words seemed to confuse both Miss Malibu and her sugar daddy.
“There you are!” I said. “Chase and Zoe are waiting to talk to you. If you’ll excuse us?” I tugged at Noah’s arm, and he quickly followed me.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. But I hope you enjoy it. You only get one save per night, and you just used yours up. And what was that?”
“People just . . . tell me things. And try to impress me.”
That seemed so strange. “Why?”
“I don’t know.”
I probably shouldn’t fault them too much. At least they hadn’t met him and immediately called his shoes ugly. “That’s stupid,” I concluded. “I would never do that.”
“I know.”
There was something behind his words, something I didn’t want to examine, so I said, “Well, at least she was pretty.”
“She wasn’t really my type.”
“Uh, she was gorgeous. Just like that girl Hannah was gorgeous. And you’re trying to tell me you don’t have a type that’s physically perfect? Because yes, I’m sure you only date girls with personalities and brains that you can bounce a quarter off.”
He laughed, and it was loud and joyful and glorious. I’d heard him laugh in movies and on TV dozens of times, but this was different. It was real, and I was the one who had caused it. It felt like something I should cross off a bucket list or something. Made Noah Douglas laugh. Check!
When his laughter faded, that electric we’re-having-a-moment feeling returned, so I asked, “Don’t you find it aggravating? When people try to impress you?”
He shrugged. “It annoys me, but it doesn’t take much to annoy me.”
“Same,” I said and felt that click of connection again. I typically found myself generally annoyed with so many things. “Although I chose to be in a customer-based industry, which means I have to be nice. You are at a point where you could be a diva if you wanted to.”
“I could, but it’s a waste of everyone’s time. Working on a set is a bit like being in the army—we’re a team and we all have a job to do, and if one of us shows up late and throws tantrums, it ruins it for everyone. I don’t ever intend to be the weak link. And I do have to be nice to people at events like this. Because you never know who might be in charge someday. Although I was tempted to blow off the documentary winners I met.”
“You don’t like documentaries?” I asked.
“They’re just the news turned into kind of a movie.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “And here I was picturing you in a sweater-vest and fedora waxing on about the importance of documentaries to our cultural zeitgeist.”
“I’m pretty sure I’ve never used the word zeitgeist in a sentence before.”
We were both smiling when we joined Chase and Zoe. Noah greeted them both, congratulating Chase. The flashes from the photographers taking pictures of the two of them together seemed even brighter in this darkened room. Chase and Noah talked like the photographers weren’t even there. Like they were members of some glamorous zoo who lived their lives and ignored the tourists.
They finished chatting, and Noah turned toward me like he was about to ask me a question, when a photographer interrupted him.
“Could I get a picture of you two?”
For a second I thought he meant Chase, but then I realized his question had been directed at me. “You don’t want me in your picture. I’m just a seat—”
But Noah cut me off. “Of course.”
We moved closer together. I rested my hand against his back, near his waist, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulders.
Without meaning to, I leaned into him so that our sides were pressed together.
I had the strangest feeling. Like this was where I belonged.
The photographer took several shots and then thanked us. He moved over to Chase and Zoe next, making the same request, but they stayed seated for their shots.
I stepped back, wanting to clear my head. Being that close to him made me forget myself.
Noah cleared his throat, looking a little uncomfortable, too. “So I’ve kissed all the right rings and taken all the pictures required of me and made all the studio executives’ second wives happy. Would you like to, I don’t know, meet some star? Dance?”
“Dance?” I repeated. “Oh, I don’t dance. I don’t like to inflict that on other people.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t get me wrong. I love music, but I lack that thing that makes your body move the way you want it to. One time at a dance in junior high, a chaperone literally pulled me off the dance floor because she thought I was having a seizure, so I don’t do that in public anymore.”
There was a devilish gleam in his eyes. “I was just being polite when I asked. I didn’t really want to dance, but now you’re making me want to.”
I wrongly assumed he was commiserating with me. “You don’t like dancing, either?”
“Oh no, I can dance. I had lessons as a kid and can definitely hold my own. But the picture you’re painting, I can’t lie—it has me intrigued. I feel like I need to witness it.”
“Hard pass.” There was no way. No matter how boyishly handsome he looked at the prospect.
“Is there anything else you’d like to do? Do you want to grab some food?”
I was about to say yes because I was already hungry again, and I was still in my mode of wanting this night to go on. To get to keep this shiny memory that I could tell my grandchildren about someday. If that photographer posted our picture online, I’d even have photographic evidence in case my grandchildren turned out to be little jerks who thought I was lying.
But it was then that I noticed his face had taken on a haggard look. As if tonight had been harder for him than he would probably admit. I realized that I should put aside my desire to keep prolonging things and think about what would be better for him.
“I’m actually a little tired. Can we call it a night?”