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“It’s the word extreme. It really classes up any food.”
I laugh at his joke. It’s a giggly girlish sound that should not be happening. Please stop being so fun and amazing. I busy myself getting out a couple of glasses, then open the fridge. “We’ve got beer, lemon fiesta coolers, and Coke.”
“I say we go with lemon fiesta. You know, make it a party.”
I grin at him, knowing I should probably go for a Coke. But somehow, I find myself pulling two coolers out. I hand one bottle to Hudson, brushing his fingers with mine accidentally on purpose. We unscrew the caps and he holds his up to mine.
“What are we cheersing?” I ask.
“Cheersing?”
“It’s a new word. I just made it up now. Go with it,” I say.
“In that case, we’re cheersing to forgetting about the world for a while.”
I stare at him, realizing how hard it must be to be in the public eye all the time. Everywhere you go, being recognized and approached. Then I think about how nice it is to be away from my own work today, and to just … be. There’s no Chad irritating me, no family in my business, no race against time. Just us. “To forgetting the world.”
We sit down to eat a few minutes later, both of us starving from being out in the cold for so long. The pizza is piping hot, and loaded with pepperoni, Italian sausage, bacon, ham, and cheese. “They weren’t kidding about the extreme amount of meat.”
I have a few sips of my drink to wash it down, and I already start to feel a bit of a buzz, which should be sending off warning signals for me to leave it at one drink. Inhibitions are an absolute necessity, especially tonight.
After we eat, we work side-by-side to clean up the kitchen, him washing and me drying and putting everything away while he tells me about the worst person he’s ever worked with—a total male diva who constantly had the crew waiting for ‘the moment to be right,’ and I tell him about my biggest brush with fame before I met him. The time I took a flight from Vancouver to Denver and Dennis Quaid was on board. “I spotted him in business class as I was walking to my seat at the very back of the plane, obviously. He was on the phone and we made eye contact, and he definitely could tell I recognized him. I smiled, and he … pulled his hat down and turned away. Super rude, right?”
He clicks his teeth. “Well, it’s a bit of a tricky situation because if he strikes up a conversation with you, it’ll delay boarding.”
“Good point. So maybe he wasn’t so much rude as responsible,” I say, taking the last plate from his hand so I can dry it. “Now, my question is this: Was he on a real phone call or a fake one?”
He glances up at the ceiling for a second. “I’m going to say fake, which is a good strategy because people are far less likely to talk to someone who’s on the phone.”
“That’s what I thought. Although, the truth is, if he hadn’t been talking, I wouldn’t even have noticed him sitting there.”
“Oh yeah, good point, so he was actually drawing attention to himself.”
“Exactly. So, what do you do to avoid fans in that situation?”
“I wear a hat and pretend I’m already asleep. Works like a charm.”
“You should tell him that if you ever meet him.”
He laughs, then says, “I’ll definitely do that.”
“Good.” We stare at each other for a second, then he pulls the plug on the sink and lets the water drain. I hand him the dish towel so he can dry his hands. The whole thing feels so natural and comfortable, as if we’ve been doing this our entire lives. When we’re finished, we’re left with the dreaded question of what we should do next. My lady bits have a few ideas, all of them very, very bad.
I lean against the counter with my hands behind my back to keep myself from running them all over his everything. He’s standing a couple of feet in front of me, staring down at me. His eyes flick down to my mouth and back up.
My heart pounds and I’m filled with butterflies that need to calm the hell down already. “So, I was thinking, since we’re stuck here, maybe we should spend some more time in the observatory room. We’ll go over those charts again, only this time I was thinking you could take some actual notes.”
He moves closer, his body nearly pressing up against mine. “That’s probably a good idea. To read through those charts again…”
“Yeah, it would be the smart thing to do.” Did I just slowly lick my lips? I should not have done that because it’s clearly sending a message I shouldn’t be sending.
“But I thought we were going to forget about the world,” he says, moving a little closer.
“Is that what we said?” I ask, my voice coming out all breathless.
He puts his hands on either side of me and grips the counter. “We did. We even cheersed to it, remember?”
“Oh right,” I say, my entire body coming alive as he leans down. “But surely we didn’t mean we should forget about work, did we?”
