Realizing he was staring into space, recalling the way her elegant fingers walked through a record stack, he wet a cotton ball with antiseptic and stepped close, hesitating only a second before pushing the hair back from her forehead. Their gazes met and danced away quickly. “Are you going to cry when this stings?”
“No.”
“Good.” He blotted the wound with cotton, his gut seizing up when she hissed a breath. “So? What happened with creating the soundtracks?” he blurted, to distract himself from the fact that he was causing her pain.
“Well . . .” She breathed a sigh of relief when he removed the soaked cotton ball. “I’m kind of a glorified serf at the production company. When a task arises and no one wants to do it, they summon me like Beetlejuice.”
“I can’t imagine you as anyone’s serf, Hannah.”
“It’s by choice. I wanted to learn the industry, then work my way up on my own merit, you know?” She watched him sort through the bandage section of his kit. “We were almost to Westport. I thought this trip could be my chance to . . . flirt with a higher position. I was just about to ask Sergei and Brinley if I could observe the soundtrack process, and that’s when Hannah went splat.”
“Oh, Freckles.”
“Yeah.”
“So you didn’t get to ask at all?”
“No. Maybe it was a sign that I’m not ready.”
Fox snorted. “You were born ready for making soundtracks. I have seven months of text messages to prove it.”
At the mention of the texts, their eyes clashed, splotches of pink waking up in her cheeks. Blushing. He had a friend’s blushing little sister sitting on his kitchen counter. Jesus Christ. Before he could reach out and test the temperature of those splotches with his fingertips, he went back to sorting through bandages.
“All right,” he said. “One missed opportunity. You’ll have more, right?”
Hannah nodded but said nothing.
Kept right on saying nothing as he applied Neosporin to her cut and laid the small Band-Aid on top, smoothing it with his thumb.
Not leaning in to kiss her when they were inches away felt foreign. Had he ever gotten this close to a woman besides his mother without the intention of sealing their mouths together? Flipping through his memories, he couldn’t pinpoint a single time. On the other hand, he couldn’t recall all the times he had kissed women. Not with any clarity.
He’d remember kissing Hannah.
No the fuck you won’t.
With grabby movements, Fox collected the Band-Aid wrapper and opened a lower cabinet so he could brush it into the trash. “Wanting to observe doesn’t seem like a big ask, Hannah. I’m sure they’ll say yes.”
“Maybe.” She chewed her lip a moment. “It’s just . . . did you notice the woman who was walking with Sergei?”
“No,” he answered honestly.
Hannah hummed, looking at him thoughtfully. “She’s the music coordinator. Brinley.” She picked up a hand and let it drop. “I can’t see myself doing anything that woman does. She’s . . .”
“What?”
“A leading lady,” Hannah said on an exhale, looking almost relieved to have gotten that baffling statement off her chest.
Fox’s confusion cleared. “You mean, she’s one of the actresses?”
“No, I mean she’s a leading lady in life. Like my sister.”
Nope, still confused. “I’m lost, Hannah.”
She fell forward slightly with a laugh. “Never mind.”
Damn. She’d only been here for five minutes, and he already wasn’t living up to the friend status. Did she not want to confide in him? It scared him how much he wanted to earn her trust.
Fox moved to the freezer and took out the ice cream. Chocolate-vanilla swirl had seemed like a surefire bet when he picked it out at the supermarket yesterday. Best of both worlds, right? Watching her reaction, he took a spoon out of the drawer and stabbed it into the top, handing her the entire pint. “Explain what you mean about Piper and this Betty chick being leading ladies.”
“Brinley,” she corrected him, laughing with her eyes.
Fox made a face. “An LA name if I’ve ever heard one.”
“You sound like Brendan.”
“Ouch,” he complained, clutching his chest. Letting his hand drop away. “An explanation, please, Freckles.”
She seemed to wrestle with her thoughts while taking a relishing bite of ice cream and drawing the spoon from between her lips slowly. Mesmerizingly.
Fox coughed and dragged his attention higher.
“I’m good at being . . . supportive. You know? Giving advice and doling out helpful suggestions. When it comes to my own stuff, though . . . not so much.” She let that settle quietly in the kitchen before continuing. “Like I can pack up, put my job on hold, and move to Westport because Piper needs me. But I can’t even ask my boss for a chance to observe? How crazy is that? I can’t even”—she gave a dazed chuckle—“tell Sergei I’ve had this dumb crush on him for two years. I just kind of stand around waiting for things to happen, while other people seem to make them happen so easily. I can help others—I like doing that—but I’m a supporting actress, not a leading lady. That’s what I meant by that.”
Wow. Here she was. Confiding in him—in person. About her insecurities. About the guy she wanted to date. This was his first heart-to-heart with a girl. No flirting or pretense. Just honesty. Up until that moment, it was possible Fox hadn’t fully grasped that Hannah really, actually, one hundred percent only thought of him as just a friend. That all those texts weren’t a unique, platonic style of foreplay. After all, she had eyes. She’d seen him, right? But there was no unspoken interest on her part. This really was just friendship. She apparently liked whatever the hell Fox had lurking on the inside. And even though he felt like he’d been socked in the fucking stomach, he still wanted to meet her expectations. Although, he suspected his ego would be purple with bruises by the time this was over.
“Hey,” he said, clearing the rust from his voice, putting another few inches of distance between them. “Look, I’ll be honest, I’ve never heard such a load of bullshit in my life. You’re supportive, yeah. The way you defended Piper to the captain? You are fierce and loyal. All those things, Hannah. But you’re . . . Don’t make me say it out loud.”
“Say it,” she whispered, lips twitching.
“You are leading-lady material.”
Those twitching lips spread into a smile. “Thanks.”
Fox could see he might have made Hannah smile, but the issues were far from solved. For one, she liked the director, and for some reason Fox couldn’t fathom, the dumbass wasn’t chasing after her with a bouquet of red roses. How could he help with that? Did he want to help her with that? It was a fisherman’s nature to plug leaks, fix problems when they arose. For another, Hannah not feeling one hundred percent happy was a definite problem in his book. “The guy was jealous, you know. Back at the bus when I came to pick you up.”
Her head came up, expression hopeful, but it faded just as quickly, unlike the knot tying tighter inside him. “No, he was just being nice,” she said, digging back into the ice cream. Chocolate side only, he noted for next time.