“And I’m insecure,” I whispered. He touched the side of my face with the tip of his index finger, tracing up the curve of my cheek.
He massaged the area behind my ear, skimming his fingertips along the tattoo, making the skin there—and where my scar was—burn with the memory. “We’ll fix that too.”
“I’m selfish, too,” I said at last.
“God, Wills, so am I.”
***
The party went down without a hitch, other than my need to be across the room from Cooper. Every time our eyes connected, and it happened more than it should have, he gave me that deep-dimpled smile that made my knees feel weak and my heart twist painfully in my chest.
Later that night, after I’d returned to my rental house and lay alone in the dark staring at the moonlight through partially opened blinds, listening to Ellie Goulding on my laptop, I decided that I wouldn’t think about what would happen after the summer went away, when I was done with this movie.
I only wanted the here and now with Cooper.
I left for work the next morning repeating that thought in my head as Miller drove me to my filming location. Once we arrived, I felt myself being slowly immersed into my old life. The life of someone that I couldn’t be anymore.
I tried my best to shake away the panic slowly shooting through my veins.
“I can do this,” I whispered over and over again, as a makeup artist fussed over me.
“Can you hold your lips still, honey?” the artist asked, blowing a stray lock of her asymmetrical blonde bob out of her eye. I nodded slowly, coming to terms with the fact that I would hear things like that often over the next month or two.
I spent the next hour in hair and makeup, getting M.A.C. caked onto my face so I would look natural on camera and then another hour arguing with the costume designer about the string bikini I refused to wear. The moment I stepped out of my trailer dressed in the costume we’d finally decided on—a tiny pair of hibiscus-print board shorts and a tight, high-necked Quicksilver rashguard—I felt a weight drive itself down on my chest. Justin, my leading man, only made that feeling worse when I ran into him at a refreshment table.
He tossed an apple into the air before taking a bite out of it, and I rolled my eyes. “We’re on Yahoo’s entertainment page today,” he said.
“Let me guess—WilTin?” I asked, grabbing a bottle of water and a donut. He laughed.
“Close, Jillow.”
I made a disgusted face. “It sounds like a cross between Jell-O and bodily fluid,” I said, and before he could get a word in, I added sweetly, “With you being the bodily fluid.”
He scratched the tip of his lightly freckled nose and cocked his head to one side, squinting at me. “Damn, so I don’t have a chance.”
“Not at all.”
He sighed then shrugged. “Can’t blame me for trying. There’s always the girl who plays—”
But I’d already tuned him out, focusing my attention instead on Dickson who was coming toward the refreshment table. He clapped his hands together, grinning. “Ready to remake magic?”
I’d almost forgotten that he’d worked as the production manager on the first film. I shoved away the fear of failure that churned in the pit of my belly and bobbed my head. My hair, which had been styled to look careless, ruffled in the stifling late morning breeze. “I’m ready if Justin is.”
“Let’s make a movie then,” Dickson said cheerfully. He apparently hadn’t noticed the way my voice had faltered, and if he did, he didn’t say anything about it.
I spent the morning working on a love scene with Justin on the beach. I was numb to the kisses and touching, the way his long hair scratched my face, and found that I was more focused on trying not to develop a lazy eye from all the cameras—of the studio variety—flashing in my face for the sake of promotional stills.
Justin, on the other hand, loved it, especially when I had to lie flat on my back on top of a surfboard to finish up a make-out scene. As he pinned my arms over my head, I waited for him to make some wise ass remark, but he only spoke his lines.
“I can’t live without you, Alyssa,” he whispered, his hazel eyes reflecting the emotion of the scene. Then he swooped in to kiss me as an actor, and I did my best to respond to him, to act oblivious to the giant ass cameras recording us at just about every angle.
A moment later, the scene was called and Justin climbed off of me. He winked before disappearing in search of one of the extras he’d been talking to earlier.
When the crew took a break for lunch, Miller escorted me back to my trailer. He peeked in first and then nodded, giving me the go ahead to step inside. “I missed an important call,” he explained to me, holding up his phone. “You need me I’ll be right out here.”
“I’ll let you know,” I said, closing the door. I was in the middle of letting out an exhausted yawn when a voice with a distinctive Australian accent spoke up.
“He didn’t check very well.” I gasped as Cooper’s hands slipped over my eyes. My body automatically moved against his, and I shivered when his warm breath fanned my ear. “First illegal bonfires and now breaking into my girl’s trailer. I’m all sorts of bad,” he teased.
His girl.
I was his girl.
I licked my mouth, attempting to get rid of the sudden dryness at hearing him say that. “You said you had a lesson,” I whispered hoarsely, slowly turning around to face him. “At least that’s what I think you told me this morning.”