“Oh.” A long pause. “Rocky is your…boyfriend?” Carly closed one eye as she awaited that little piece of unfortunate news. She imagined a muscle-bound ex-football player appearing on the front porch any moment, looking for his girlfriend. If sexy Lauren was taken, who was she going to have fun with while she was here?
“Rocky is not my boyfriend. He’s tiny.” She held her hand just slightly above the pavement. “He’s complicated, means well, and is very snuggly. I miss him.” Lauren sighed wistfully.
Aha. An undefined love interest who was apparently very small. This was complicated, indeed. Lauren was right.
“He’s also a really good dog. Mostly.”
Carly froze on her way up the walk. “He’s a dog? Rocky is a dog?”
Lauren laughed. “Yeah. What did you think he was? A hamster? Hamsters are no Dolph Lundgren.”
“You’re going to have to explain that one later,” Carly said, watching Lauren try three times to pull her keys from her bag. “Here. Let me do that.”
“You are really nice tonight.” Lauren leaned against the brick and stared at Carly, who felt Lauren’s gaze boldly roam her body. It sent a flash of heat all over. “God, you’re pretty, Carly Daniel. Just like the movies. No. More.” A pause. “Maybe you should come in after all.”
Damn it. Lauren might actually be into her, and because she was too drunk to decide, Carly couldn’t do a damn thing about it. “I think I’ll just get you in there safely and take off.”
“Okay, if that’s what you want. Is that what you want? You’re free to say, you know.”
Carly chuckled, just as the key turned in the door. She opened it for Lauren and stepped back. “If I went after what I wanted, this night would end very differently than it’s about to. Not that you’ll necessarily remember all of this conversation tomorrow.”
“Right? The world is a little…spinny, which is the most fun word. Spinny.” A pause as she marveled at the sound. “Spinny, spinny, spinny.” Carly laughed. Lauren was cute and made her smile. “Thank you for seeing me home safely, Supergirl. I’m going to drink water and sleep, okay?”
“Sounds like a great idea to me. Maybe the spinning will stop.”
Lauren walked past Carly into her home, paused, walked back out, and stared at her with those luminous green eyes. She didn’t say a word.
“Lauren? You okay?”
She nodded, grabbed the material of Carly’s shirt with one hand, and kissed her. Well, hello. Carly didn’t have time to think, to stop Lauren, because her body had taken the lead and had elbowed wisdom in its boring face. It was a simple kiss, but Lauren’s mouth was warm and wonderful, and she tasted a little like mango. Her tongue touched Carly’s lower lip and made her shiver. When Lauren stepped back and steadied herself with an arm to the doorjamb, all Carly could do was blink and smile. Well, that was settled. Not straight. Lauren Prescott was one hundred percent not straight. This was big. This was a victory, but it also had to be over for tonight. Lauren was drunk. Not that she could articulate that at this point. Carly, on the other hand, reveled. She bit her lower lip and let her tongue run over the same spot Lauren’s had, still tasting the sweetness from Lauren’s lips.
Finally, when her language skills drifted back to her, she passed Lauren a soft smile. “You certainly know how to say good night to a girl.”
Lauren grinned. “I just…wanted to. Oh, man. I’m going to regret that tomorrow, aren’t I?”
Carly backed up down the walk a few steps, her lips still pleasantly buzzing. “I think this is when we wait and find out.” She pointed at Lauren. “Drink some water. Pop a couple Advil, and I’ll see you at rehearsal.”
Chapter Four
What the hell had she done? That was the question of the day, and it played over and over in Lauren’s brain from the second she opened her eyes the next morning. Her head throbbed like someone was beating a bass drum inside her skull, but she couldn’t pay that any attention, because somehow she’d kissed Carly Daniel on the steps of her home, and if her memory served correctly, it had been really, really good.
“Lauren, are we going from act one, scene three, or are we starting at the top?”
She blinked, not at all thinking about a pair of full, kissable lips beneath hers that never should have been there. Trip was speaking to her. Had it been important? She had no clue because she was too busy reliving a kissing scene from a movie starring Carly Daniel, only it wasn’t a movie. It was her own life. “I’m sorry. What?”
“Rehearsal setup? We go in half an hour, and I was double-checking where Ethan wanted to begin. Did you chat with him?”
“Oh. Yes, top of the show. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. You in there? You need a Red Bull or twelve?” He touched her shoulder lightly as he passed.
She laughed ruefully. “I’ll take the twelve. Just a crazy weekend.”
“Oh, right. The Carly thing. Wow.”
She froze. How in the hell did Trip know about Carly? There was only one explanation, which of course she should have anticipated. Carly had told someone in the company, maybe multiple someones, forever tainting Lauren’s stellar reputation as a professional in the field. Stage managers didn’t engage with actors currently in their shows. That was just basic.
Trembling slightly, she turned around and faced Trip as he arranged the rehearsal furniture for the top of act 1 to simulate gate nineteen at the airport. “It was a passing moment. That’s all. I don’t even know how it got to…that. It never should have.”
“Oh, I know. But talk about attention, right? Otherworldly the way these things take off.”
Lauren chuckled along with Trip, because she had no idea what that meant but didn’t want to appear totally daft. But then, forget it, because she needed to know, and right the hell now, what he was referencing if she had any hope of squelching this thing early and fast. “What attention? I’m sorry. Slow today.” Her heart thudded as she awaited what would surely be a catastrophic reply.
“On Instagram. The post that rando put up got a lot of play.”
Lauren made a gesture as if to erase the board because she had an urgent need to understand what was happening, and it felt acutely like Trip had adopted another language entirely. “Can we start over? I think we’re talking about different things. At least, I hope we are, for the good of all things sacred.”
He squinted at her. “I’m talking about the Instagram post that went up Saturday night of you and Carly getting cozy over the pool table. The one where you were all up in her space, teaching her your break shot, looking like a total badass.”
Her mind stuttered to catch up. She remembered putting her arms around Carly to teach her to break properly. It had been a little intoxicating. “How is that online?”
He stared at her like she should know this. “Cell phones were everywhere that night. One of her adoring fans snapped it, and it got shared about a million times.”
“Right,” Lauren said, squeezing the spot between her eyes.
Trip continued to talk as he prepped the set. “She’s crazy famous, and people are clamoring to know who she’s dating. She stays tight-lipped in the press about it.”