Fame, Fate, and the First Kiss(10)

“My five-minute . . . what?”

“Your . . .” Wait, he was a stranger. Remy may not have sent me a coach, but that didn’t mean this guy sitting next to me wouldn’t make a good one. “You can help me.”

“Yes, exactly. Do you want to start with math or English?”

“Chemistry.”

He flipped several pages on the packet. “Do you even have chemistry this year?”

I began taking everything between us and putting them on the coffee table: my packet, a binder, a pencil, his phone. “You have never seen me without makeup on.” Sure, I was missing the big section on my cheek that made me look even creepier, but I knew what was left still wasn’t a pretty sight.

“Your dad also told me you would be very creative at finding ways to get out of this.” He reached for the stuff on the table.

I grabbed both of his arms and turned him to face me. “I’ll do your packet in a minute.”

“It’s your packet.”

“Whatever. Just help me real fast, and then we can work on that.”

He sighed. “I am setting my phone timer for five minutes. When it goes off, we start on the packet.”

I crinkled my nose. “You really are a choir boy, aren’t you?”

“Five minutes.” He picked up his phone.

I smirked a little. He could hold his own. Most boys let me get my way. “Fine.”

He clicked a few buttons, then set it back on the table. “So what do you need me to do?”

“Just sit there and tell me when you feel something.” For many auditions I’d had to go from meeting complete strangers to performing a scene with them in seconds. This was a little different, since he wasn’t an actor, but he’d be fine.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I lifted my hand slowly, then ran a finger along his shoulder while I stared into his eyes. He had nice eyes—chocolate brown with thick lashes.

He jerked back. “Wait, I thought you were going to try to scare me.”

“You’d think, right? No, I need to know when you feel a spark.”

“I don’t even know you.”

“I’m not trying to form a lasting connection. I just need to know how to create chemistry with all this on.” I pointed at my makeup.

His eyes traveled over my face. Had Grant’s eyes been traveling my entire face today too? Maybe he needed to concentrate on the one thing the makeup artist didn’t touch—my eyes.

“Hey . . .” I realized I’d forgotten his name.

He realized I’d forgotten too. “Donavan.”

“Right. Sorry. Donavan, don’t look anywhere but in my eyes.”

“Okay.” His eyes went back to mine. It was obvious he was feeling nothing but uncomfortable at this point.

I needed to change that. I kept my hands to myself and twirled my hair while locking eyes. I tried to make mine soft and vulnerable. My dirty hair crunched as I twisted it around my finger, and I held back a sigh. This was the problem—I was relying on the tactics I normally fell back on in a romantic scene, things that wouldn’t work in my current makeup-ed state. I inched closer to him on the couch. He smelled like mint gum. If he had a piece in his mouth, he wasn’t chewing it. He was perfectly still.

I reached for his hand that was resting on his knee and slowly laced our fingers together. His fingertips were slightly calloused, and I wondered what he’d done to earn those. Yard work? Building? I used my thumb to draw circles on his palm.

His body relaxed, sinking into the couch more, leaning closer to me. I leaned in as well, until my right shoulder touched his left. Then I let my eyes flicker over his face. He had tan, clear skin. His lips were a bit chapped but full.

The phone alarm went off, causing him to jump. His cheeks went pink as he reached for his phone.

“Perfect,” I said, backing away. “You felt something, right?”

“Um . . . sure.”

I knew he had. He wouldn’t have blushed otherwise. “And what about me? Did it seem like I felt something?”

“Yes.”

“Well, thank you. That will be very helpful for tomorrow.” And it would be. I hadn’t tried the hand thing on Grant. And I’d make sure we were better about maintaining eye contact.

“Did you?” Donavan asked.

“Did I what?”

“Did you feel something?”

Had I? I’d been concentrating so hard on making him feel that I hadn’t noticed. “No. But that doesn’t matter.”

Donavan picked up the packet off the table and handed it to me. “That was interesting. Now let’s get to work.”

“Can I take off my makeup first?”

“So many excuses.”

“Okay, fine. Packet. What’s another hour being stifled by makeup?”

There was a knock on my door seconds before it swung open, and Faith came in carrying some pink pages. Faith was young, probably in her early twenties. She wore glasses and always had her hair pulled up into a messy bun. “Revision for tomorrow’s scenes.”

“Really?” I took the pages and scanned through my lines. They weren’t much different, so I would be able to memorize the few changes easily.

“Noah said that you need to get something done to your nails tomorrow too, so you need to be here a little earlier.”