“But, hey, if you need to get over your fear, I’m happy to help you practice.” She put a hand to my shoulder. “Why don’t you come over after rehearsal and we can knock this out together? It wouldn’t be a bad thing for me to get used to kissing someone with lipstick.”
“Umm, sure.”
Did Jessica Black just ask me to come over to her house and make out with her? Did I just agree?
***
Nerves didn’t begin to describe my anxiety as Jessica’s car sped down the highway with me in the passenger's seat. I was grateful she’d offered to drive, seeing as I’d sold my car to pay for rent that month. I hadn’t gotten fired from my night job after all—apparently Jessica never told management about my regretful outburst—but my shifts had been cut back to almost nothing since I’d asked to go home early. Tiny as my paychecks from this movie would be, I couldn’t wait for them to start rolling in. An extra couple hundred bucks a week would be a godsend to a person in my position.
The day had been long, full of rehearsal, costume measurements, and boring paperwork. I really wanted to be going home right now, but I’d stupidly agreed to… I didn’t even know what I’d agreed to do, but now I was sitting in Jessica’s car, driving to her house to… kiss her, I guess. Putting that much planning into a silly kiss felt absurd. It all felt absurd.
The air from the open window rustled Jessica’s blonde hair and she tapped her hand on the steering wheel to the beat of the hip-hop music playing on the radio. There was no sign that she was freaking out as hard as I was—or at all. She just looked happy to be driving home from work. Somehow, that made me lose my shit even harder.
Her phone started ringing in the cupholder between us.
“Would you mind checking who’s calling?” she asked without taking her eyes from the road. “If it’s the Aorta, you can put it on speaker.”
“Uh, it says, mom,” I said after checking the ID.
“Never mind.” Her lips seemed to curl down. “I’ll, uh, I’ll call her back later.”
When we pulled up to her house, it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. It was a gorgeous modern building covered in glistening windows, but it wasn’t huge.
“I don’t like having a ton of empty space,” she said, as if reading my mind.
“Your house is gorgeous,” I replied as we got out of the car and walked up the perfectly manicured garden walkway lined with cheerful pink and yellow flowers.
“Thanks.” She smiled warmly. “We can practice by the pool if you want. I can lend you a swimsuit.”
Somehow learning to kiss a woman in a swimsuit was the most awkward thing I could imagine. Jessica seemed to sense this and I realized that despite her ditzy demeanor, she was really quite thoughtful.
“Or we could relax a bit first,” she said, throwing her bag down on the marble floor of her foyer. “Pop in a movie and a open a bottle of wine.”
“That sounds awesome,” I said, and meant it. “Do you need to call your mom back first?”
“Uh, no, it’s fine.” She ran a hand through her hair looking upset for just one second. “What kind of wine do you like?”
“What kind of wine do I not like?”
Jessica laughed hard at my stupid joke and said, “I think you and I will get along just fine.”
For the first time, I felt that was true. Jessica wasn’t the ditz I’d first taken her for. I mean, I couldn’t honestly claim she seemed like an intellectual, but she was nice. Really nice.
After settling Marshmallow in her bedroom, she closed the door, which I was grateful for. As much as I was warming to the mutt, allergy meds could only do so much. And the small gesture of putting the dog in a room away from me made me realize that Jessica really was a considerate person. Just a bit silly and forgetful.
I took a seat on the modern leather sofa, reminding myself not to spill anything on it because it probably cost more than I’d ever made in my life. Jessica grabbed some popcorn, threw on a rom-com and we downed a couple glasses of wine, laughing about the cheesy lines and bad acting.
“You know, it’s probably not good to laugh at other actors.” Jessica said after drowning a long laugh with a mouthful of wine. “To be honest, when I look at some of the dumb stuff I’ve starred in, I’m a little embarrassed.”
“The stuff you act in isn’t dumb—okay, well, fine it is, but that’s the point. Fluffy movies are an escape from reality and there’s no shame in that.”
“I never thought of it that way.”
“You’ve helped millions of people—myself included—escape from their crappy lives for a couple hours. You should be proud of that.”
“Did you just call your life crappy?”
“I was speaking figuratively.” I chewed my lip, hoping she’d drop the subject.