Hate the Player: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romantic Comedy(13)
I’m not sure why, but it seems like Andrew knows exactly what I’m thinking—and he likes it. A shiver runs the entire line of my spine and down my arms, igniting a tingle in the fingers of my hand against his.
He bites his lip, and uninvited, my nipples peak under the lace of my bra.
Soft vanilla and hints of something I can’t quite pinpoint, he smells as good as he looks. An ache so substantial takes hold of my inner thighs, I’m convinced I have a charley horse.
Why, God? Why would you let this awful man have all the good stuff?
“Let’s get started,” Mr. Capo announces, snapping me out of my trippy, arousal-fueled lapse in consciousness. I nod as Nell hands me a script and gestures that I should stand.
Andrew offers a hand again, but this time, I avoid it like the plague. I don’t need that kind of sorcery in my life again.
His grin is knowing, and a redheaded beast of a woman comes to life inside me.
Granny always said I was even-keeled until something pissed me off—my Birdie girl is sweet as strawberry pie, but Lord Almighty, when she gets angry, she’s got a temper like a hot tamale—and I have to admit the sentiment feels entirely too accurate right now.
Relax, I coach myself. Just focus. And whatever you do, contain your fucking anger.
Andrew
If this little Birdie had wings, she’d fly straight out the damn window.
Her eyes scan over the script in her hand, and the more she reads, the more her face morphs from annoyed—with me—to uncertain. And I don’t miss the way her teeth nervously worry her full bottom lip.
Her audition has officially started, and the entire room is quiet as they wait for Birdie to acquaint herself with a scene from Grass Roots. It’s one involving an argument that leads to what should be a hot, passionate kiss between Cal Loggins and Arizona Lee.
But with the way she’s standing there looking like a deer in headlights, I’m thinking the kiss will end up being more awkward and bumbling than anything else.
Since I’ve known about this script since the day Howie started writing it, I’m pretty familiar with every scene inside the damn thing. Hell, I could probably run through all my character’s lines in my sleep.
But Birdie is new to all this, and it’s more than apparent everyone in this room wants her to feel as comfortable as possible. Which, to be honest, is a rarity in this business.
Normal Hollywood auditions are cold, calculated, and critical.
Most casting directors would’ve kicked her out of the room by now.
But not this room, not this crowd. Everyone waits patiently while Birdie reads through the script.
And I do mean everyone—even me. If I weren’t so entertained by her long, sexy legs and full, pouty lips, I might be annoyed.
Somehow, though, with her, right now, it just seems endearing.
“So…” Birdie looks up with those big brown eyes of hers, all the fire in them from earlier extinguished to ash. “Are we doing the whole scene or just part of it…?”
“Whatever feels comfortable,” Nell Franz answers. “It’s okay if it takes a few tries or if you improvise the dialogue as you go,” she adds. “We just want to see what the two of you look like together as Arizona and Cal.”
“Okay.” Birdie nods, but her emotion is far less confident. Her gaze moves back down to the script, and she fidgets with the hem of her dress.
She’s anxious. That’s more than obvious. Left unchecked, she might fidget holes into the marble floor with those sexy cowgirl boots of hers.
I take it upon myself to get her out of her head and into the film—surely, with the beginning of this scene starting with a fight, she could use a little push in the anger department.
Leaning forward and grabbing the top of her script with strong fingers, I bring her eyes up to meet mine—and the flame back to the center of them. “Any day now would be great. Ole Willy Capo over there doesn’t exactly have all the time in the world, you know?” I say softly, just loud enough for her to hear.
Her whole body smolders, but she’s still not engaged. The script is an accessory to our argument right now, and it needs to be the center of it.
“Do you need more time, Birdie?” I ask loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear this time. “Or do you think you’re finally ready?”
Between one blink of her long lashes and the next, her face transforms—from sweet Birdie Harris right to Arizona Lee.
“Yep,” she responds, that one word rolling off her tongue like the crack of a whip. “I’m ready.” She punctuates that statement with a flip of her long, wavy blond locks over her shoulder and a narrowing of her beautiful, angry-as-fuck eyes.
Oh, yes please.
God, I don’t think I’ve been this excited to dive into an audition since I was a twenty-year-old nobody trying to break into the business.
I start the scene, tossing myself into Cal Loggins’s world and letting his character take over my mind and emotions. “Darlin’,” I say and shake my head. “I think you’re missing the point.”
“And what point is that, Cal?” she responds, her voice wavering ever so slightly with leftover nerves. She swallows against them, squashing them down to nothingness like a roller on pavement, glances at the script in her hands one last time, and continues, “Please…tell me what I’m missing here. That you’re an asshole? Is that what I’m missing? I know you know this business better than I do, but I’ll be damned if you’re going to tell me how to live my life. It’s none of your business who I see or talk to. You don’t get a say in that.”