The Stand-In(24)

Not too bad. Today with Sam could have been worse. He wasn’t actively mean.

When’s your first event?

Few days from now. I have time.

We text casually back and forth as I try on more of the clothes and try to decide what feels easiest to wear. I send shots to Anjali, who has a bad habit of liking the most uncomfortable outfits best.

Beauty is pain, she writes. Fangli is a fashion icon. She’s not schlepping to the store in pj’s.

She probably has people to do that for her anyway. Mei had told me Fangli will go straight to her suite after the show, so after some more strolling around the room, I eat and go to bed, legs and feet aching and face slathered with a retinol serum Fangli’s dermatologist has apparently recommended for dire cases.

That’s the end of my first day. I learned to walk.





Ten


“Why are you here?” I demand. Sam is sitting in my suite’s living area when I come out of the bedroom, dress swinging around my legs as I halt. I forgot to shave them and pray he doesn’t look down. Mr. Physical Perfection doesn’t need to see that stubble.

He doesn’t put down his phone as he sips his coffee. “I have some time so I’m here to run your boot camp.”

I grab a coffee for myself, yawning. It was another night of fitful sleep as I ran through my many anxieties. My old therapist used to try to get me to have some perspective on my problems. That worked well enough when all I had to understand was that the world would not end if I returned a phone call Tuesday instead of Monday. My coping techniques are markedly less effective when facing a situation where public disgrace at a global level is a real possibility if I screw up.

“Where’s Fangli?” I ask.

“Resting.”

Although it would be nice to see her, the entire reason I’m here is so she can get a break. “What’s on tap today?”

“Conversation.” From the flat tone, I can tell he’s as thrilled as I am to spend the next several hours making small talk.

I try to rally. “Should we start with an icebreaker?”

He doesn’t change expression.

“Icebreaker it is.” I try to smile. He’s making it hard for me to do what Fangli hired me to do.

“No icebreakers.”

“Childhood memories?”

“No.”

“Best vacations? Favorite food? Two truths and a lie?”

I’m on the receiving end of an eye roll that would put a sulky teenager to shame and bite my lips together to keep from laughing.

“What?” he demands.

“Nothing.” I walk over to the table. “Tell me what you come up with, then.”

We sit. Sam’s here under duress but it’s not my job to make this go smoothly. I blink. That’s not something I usually think. Sam brings out the worst in me.

Or maybe the best. This isn’t my usual reaction, which would be to fuss and worry and fill the empty silence with whatever came into my head.

To pass the time, I take out my phone and check the news, which is bad. An email from Garnet Brothers gives me such a punch my whole body jerks with sudden coldness. I forward it straight to Fred the Lawyer.

“What happened?” Sam’s attention is on me.

“Nothing. Why?” I avoid his eyes.

He frowns. “You were looking at your phone and yelped like a small dog. It’s obvious you had a message you didn’t like.”

“This is what passes for conversation with you?” I ask. I don’t want to talk about the email, let alone with Sam.

“It can.” He smiles, the slow, predatory grin I remember from binge-watching his movies. It’s intriguing to see it in real life. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I don’t think I do,” I say. “That’s the face you get when you’re about to fuck someone over.”

“It’s what?” The smile disappears. “Fangli doesn’t swear.”

“Again, I’m not actually Fangli. Your expression. It’s the ‘you underestimated me and now I’m going to wreak some havoc’ look. From your movies. You did it before fighting the Triad guy in Dragon Claw, and you did it when you were confronting the man who betrayed you in Glass House. Oh, and you did it a bunch of times in Alley Boom Down. It was almost a tic.”

When his eyes widen, I see they’re very dark brown and not the black I thought. “How many of my movies have you watched?”

“Most of them.” I make a face because Mei made it clear skimming the web for plot summaries wasn’t an option and the man’s been busy. “Why is this a problem? Don’t you make them to be watched?”

Sam angles his head up to the ceiling, lost in thought. Then, God help me, he runs his thumb across his lower lip. In the hierarchy of unconsciously sizzling things hot men do, that has to be tops. The incomplete list, as compiled by me on behalf of all people who find men attractive, is:

1. Thumb on lower lip (mentioned).

2. Look up from beneath eyelashes; only for some men.

3. Hold a kitten. Bonus points if face is buried in fur and he smiles/addresses the kitten directly as if the kitten cares. Puppies will do.

4. That sideways glance over the shoulder.

5. Loosen tie.

6. Run hand through hair.