The Redhead Revealed (Redhead #2)(21)
Author: Alice Clayton

“Pfft. No more Marcia talk. It’s giving me heartburn,” I moaned.

Besides, I had other things to worry about. Like the way my butt looked in those pictures. I shifted in my chair a little. Was I imagining it, or did my pants feel a little snug this morning?

“Eh, take some Tums and suck it up, ya little fruitcake.”

***

And so it went. Holly and I were, of course, fine, and she started sending me early press releases and pictures from the photo shoots Jack had been doing for months. As the pre-movie hype machine began to roll, all the photos Holly had been hoarding were slowly released to the press. It had quickly become clear that when Jack was featured in a magazine, sales went up. Simple as that. He was going to be quite a hot commodity, and Holly had her hands full with new press inquiries and requests for additional interviews—not to mention the demand for photos, photos, photos! I was amazed at Holly’s savvy, as there weren’t enough hours in the day for Jack to pose for all the photos now. She’d banked on him. Brilliant. And I was lucky. I got a sneak peek at a lot of the images before they were released.

My goodness he was pretty.

I especially liked the ones from a shoot in Santa Barbara. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but I swear I saw something different in those pictures. He always looked, well, perfectly shag-able, but in those pictures? Mmm…They were taken the day after we had our first boom-boom, and I swear on all that is Super Sexy Scientist Guy, he looked…

Pleased.

Sated.

Wicked.

Freshly done.

In love?

Sigh. Yes. In love. He looked in love.

And still impossibly horny…

Holly also sent me the interviews he was doing. Most evenings, just before bed, I went through all the new Jack goodies she’d sent me, followed by a check to see what was where on the internet. Some of his interviews were just priceless—really captured him. The female reporters often got quite flirty (who could blame them?), and once, when asked whether he preferred blondes or brunettes, Jack quipped, “It depends.”

“Depends on what?” the reporter asked, leaning forward and seeming to forget she was on live TV.

“I mean, are they all lined up and I get to choose? Like a buffet? Or is this strictly self-serve? What are my options?” Jack asked seriously.

She didn’t get the joke, poor thing (she wasn’t even a blonde…), but after that, the buffet line was the most-downloaded sound bite on the internet for three weeks straight.

See what I mean? Priceless.

Jack and I had agreed that I was never to take things personally when he said he wasn’t seeing anyone. And in fact, he was now using the interviews to talk directly to me.

“Listen up, Nuts Girl. When I say, ‘I don’t have a girlfriend,’ what I want you to hear in that tiny little head of yours is, ‘I love you, Grace,’” he instructed on the phone late one night. “When you hear me say, ‘No, I’m not seeing anyone right now,’ what you need to hear is, ‘Yes, yes, I am, and she has the best tits in the free world.’ Can you do that, please?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll listen for your secret messages. Jeez, this is so cloak and dagger. You’d think you were a spy or something.” I laughed.

“Maybe we can role play that specific scenario next time I see you—although I’m not sure how you’d take to being dipped entirely in gold.”

This quickly turned into a discussion of whether I would indulge his Bondian fantasies in the future, although frankly I think he just enjoyed torturing me with the words “Pussy Galore”—emphasis, of course, on one word in particular.

He really did get into the girlfriend question now, and he relished finding new ways to make sure I knew he was thinking of me. I found I could tell when he was really missing me, because he’d deny it more forcefully, sometimes adding a “Girls never talk to me.”

I made sure to give him a little more phone boom-boom on those nights.

***

Rehearsals were going really well, and the show was coming together. Michael was finally pleased with the tone of the script, and his rewrites were limited now to simple phrasing changes. It was a real show.

We now worked exclusively in a small black box theater, but because we weren’t putting up a full production, we used a limited set. The show relied heavily on its music and the work of the actors to demonstrate what it could be, if it were to receive full backing. The process was thrilling, and as we approached the preview dates, I became more and more nervous.

I was relying heavily on Michael for guidance, as his vision for my character, Mabel, was absolute. He leaned on me for moral support as well, as this was his first attempt at a musical of any kind. He had a writing partner for the score, but the spoken words, the lyrics, the melodies were all Michael O’Connell.

We’d slipped back into our old college ways. The shorthand we used made it infuriating for anyone else to try to get a word in edgewise when we were on one of our tangents, cracking each other up into fits of crying laughter. We argued about music, movies, politics—oh boy, did we argue about politics. This subject almost caused an actual fight one day at lunch when I threatened to remove his Adam’s apple with my spork if he didn’t agree with what I said about healthcare. Needless to say, people stopped wanting to dine with us.

I’d forgotten how thoroughly I used to rely on him back then. He was like my own cute little moral compass. He called me on my shit, he extolled my virtues when I needed propping up, and he knocked me down a few pegs when I got too big for my britches. But we’d been college students when we were friends before. We were still figuring out who we were, and since we were in drama, we did it in a big way. Now that we were adults—at least chronologically—we’d mellowed, slightly. I realized the quirky emo boy I knew in my twenties had evolved into a fully formed, wonderfully smart and funny man in his thirties. He’d been seasoned in the post-college years, and although he’d kept the idiosyncrasies that would forever link him to that boy in the Ministry T-shirt, he was all grown up.

He was a brilliant businessman who conducted his business in old Timberland boots, faded jeans, and a North Face hoodie—all the while chewing Fruit Stripe gum. He had investors lining up to consider backing this show, and he did it all with the same charm and subtlety that had won over the girls back in the day. He was incredibly charming and funny, and the years had only intensified his draw on the opposite sex.

Hot guy? Of course. Funny hot guy? All the more enticing.