Lauren followed quickly behind Carly, hostility flaring. “Please don’t insinuate that I need to relax. That’s rude. I arrived on time for my job. You’re the one who kept twenty people waiting and made both of us look bad.”
“I said it was a mistake.” Carly raised a shoulder as if to telegraph this was no big deal and they should move on. “Why can’t you understand that things happen.”
“To just you? Because everyone else made a point to arrive on time, prepared. I think we all deal with alarm clocks. We all have the same traffic to battle. Hell, this apartment is ten minutes from the theater.”
“I’ll be early tomorrow. How’s that? I’ll add a little investment to your time management bank account, because you’re clearly keeping track. Doesn’t clock-watching get boring?”
“That’s not enough.”
“Fine. What is it that you want from me? Why don’t you just spell it out and save us time? Because I’m starting to feel like it’s my head on a platter.”
“That’s not at all what I want.” Lauren clasped her fingers in front of her to keep her tone calm, reined in. That had never been difficult before. Why was she struggling? “You have to make changes to not just your punctuality, but your approach to life. At the very least, to your work.”
Carly stared at her with fire in her eyes. The anger turned them a deeper shade of blue. Yep, she’d finally upset Carly. “Oh, I need to change the way I approach my work? Because I haven’t achieved any kind of status in a cutthroat town like LA. Got it. Thank you so much for your unsolicited wisdom from…where are we again?” She looked around. “God, it’s good you’re here now to steer me back onto the right path.”
“Well, if I wasn’t, you’d still be asleep. So there’s that.”
Silence hit. “It was an accident,” Carly said, biting off each word before disappearing into the bedroom in a beautiful flutter of anger.
Lauren stifled an eye roll and stepped inside Carly’s apartment, as she’d left the door ajar for her. Wow, okay. Once inside, she took note of the fact that the space was definitely a lot neater than Lauren would have predicted, given hurricane Carly. The entirely gray and white kitchen and modern living room both gleamed. The granite countertops sparkled. No clothing bombs or pizza boxes to be seen. Everything appeared neat, tidy, and organized. Carly Daniel, who wasn’t capable of organizing her life if it killed her, was neat? No. Who was this person? That’s when it hit her. Carly was capable. She just had to care enough. “All right. I see how it is.”
“Did you say something?” Carly called from in the bedroom.
“Nothing important,” Lauren called back.
Now alone, she had a moment to get herself under control again. She was at Carly’s apartment on business, and her job was to keep the polished stage manager veneer in place. She tried to cut herself a small break, however, because her feelings were edging to the surface, making it all feel like a messy, jumbled ball of competing emotions she had trouble separating. Plus, she was in a strange state both mentally and physically, and it all began Saturday night. Carly got her all worked up and bothered in too many ways to keep track of. Instead of trying, she forced herself to focus on the important issue at hand. Carly missing her call time wasn’t charming or endearing. This was bad behavior and nothing new for Carly Daniel, according to the headlines, which made it worse. But then there was the Carly with the confident swagger at the bar, the sweet smile she afforded anyone in the rehearsal room. She never said an unkind word to anyone, well, until today, and—
“Are you having a conversation with yourself?”
Lauren looked up from Carly’s couch, where she’d apparently sat down at some point, to see Carly studying her like an interesting science experiment. “I was just sorting out all I need to get done today. It’s a lot, so we should get going.”
“Well, the warring expressions that just took turns on your face tell me that your day must be pretty dramatic. Conflict ridden, in fact.” Carly paused and placed one hand on her hip. She now wore slim-fitting jeans, a really soft looking long-sleeved pink T-shirt with a dip at the neckline, and short lace-up boots. Sigh. The universe was taunting her with a gorgeous movie star who kissed like a goddess and had little regard for professionalism. What a combo, indeed. That’s when she remembered that Carly was still regarding her expectantly.
“I don’t know what my face was doing. I can’t always worry about my face’s agenda. I was busy.” Lauren did her best to make sure her face now appeared perfectly blank. She couldn’t decide if she’d succeeded and glanced around surreptitiously for a mirror.
Carly eyed her knowingly. “It’s just that we haven’t seen each other since the other night. Is that where your mind went?”
Chita Rivera, were they really doing this? Right now? On the heels of a disagreement when they should be racing back to work? “Carly, we’re due at The McAllister yesterday.”
“Good point.”
Lauren stood and walked to the door.
“We can talk about the porch kiss in the car,” Carly finished.
Everything came to a screeching halt, including Lauren. “No. No, we definitely shouldn’t do that. In fact, I don’t think we should talk about it at all. Ever.”
“Oh,” Carly said. Her tone was soft, and the knowing smile dimmed. “Got it.”
Lauren sighed at the pang of guilt that slammed her and tried to explain. “It’s just that the whole thing, everything that night, was alcohol fueled, and skewed, and not a good representation of who I am as a person. As a stage manager, I mean. This”—she gestured between herself and Carly—“never should have happened.”
Carly blinked once, and a distance settled between them, her eyes glacial. “Understood. A total mistake to erase from the history books.” Carly breezed past her out of the apartment, seemingly unaffected.
While that should have been a good thing, an appropriate conclusion to their interaction, instead, it left Lauren feeling…listless, unsatisfied, and full of a tugging she couldn’t quite name. Just erased from the history books, huh? Wasn’t that what she wanted, though? Suddenly, she wondered.
Didn’t matter. They had a job to do. When her gaze drifted to Carly’s ass as they walked the length of the hallway, she reminded herself of just that.
It didn’t work.
* * *
Carly was over the judgmental attitude. Since when did being a stage manager come with such a healthy dose of superiority? She was quiet in Lauren’s care on the way to the theater. To cover the awkward silence, she sang quietly along with the radio, stealing an occasional glance at Lauren, who had her hair pulled partially back today, with the ends in a lazy curl. Nope. She would not crush on Lauren any longer. She shook herself out of it and watched the road instead.
What a complete cluster the morning had been. Though she was not thrilled with herself for staying out with Kirby and her boyfriend so late and missing her call time, she was equally annoyed with Lauren and the way she’d approached the situation. Not only that, but now her head wasn’t in the game. She’d had trouble connecting to anything meaningful in the scene work with Evelyn as of late and felt like a fish flopping in the sand when it came to her work on Starry Nights.