Filmed: An Alpha Bad Boy Romance (City Series Book 3)

by Hamel, B. B.

  “It can’t be Lacey Havisham, can it? Dramatic, lots of perfume, feather boas, acts like a silent film star?”

  That cracked me up. I remembered the feather boas hanging on her coat rack and the thick perfume she wore.

  “That’s exactly her!”

  She whistled. “Good luck with that one. She’s a character.”

  “How do you know who she is?”

  “Lacey and I go way back. She’s been in probably hundreds of movies starting back when she was young, but she never really broke out. Anyway, a few years ago she retired from the screen, and I had heard she moved into the city to produce plays.”

  “Now I guess she manages the theater.”

  “You make sure to tell her I said hello.”

  “I will. Actually, I have a question for you.”

  “What’s up?”

  I thought for a second, wondering how I should play it. I could be honest and tell her exactly what I was thinking and feeling, which wouldn’t have been the first time I talked with her about boys, but something about Noah held me back.

  “Do you know the name Carterson?”

  “Well, I’m guessing you’re talking about the Carterson who financed the theater you’re working at.”

  “Yeah, exactly. I work with his son.”

  There was a short silence on the other end, which confused me. My mom usually had nothing but amazing things to say about everyone in the business, but the fact that she paused before saying anything spoke volumes.

  “That’s interesting,” she said, sounding reserved.

  What the heck was going on?

  “Yeah, apparently I’ll be working closely with him.”

  “Very good, that’ll be fun.”

  I had no idea why she wasn’t taking the bait, asking a million questions about him, maybe even giving me the dirt on his family. My mom wasn’t the type to be reserved in her opinion, and yet there she was, acting like it was no big deal.

  “Do you know his dad?” I asked, deciding to press a bit more.

  “Only a little bit.” She paused, then said, “Hey, I have to go, I’m really sorry.”

  “Okay, sure. Talk to you later?”

  “I’ll give you a call tomorrow. Bye sweetie.”

  “Bye, Mom.” She hung up.

  I looked down at my phone, shocked. My mom rarely dodged a question so obviously, let alone got off the phone in less than ten minutes. I really couldn’t believe it. What could possibly have happened that made my mom act so weird? She clearly knew who the Cartersons were, and I guessed she had some experience with them in the past. And yet she wanted to avoid all mention of him. It was completely unlike her.

  Confused, I put my phone away, and went back to studying. No matter how many paragraphs of my assigned reading I went through, Noah Carterson and my mom’s reaction kept scrolling through my mind like the opening of Star Wars.

  The next day, I floated through my classes, my head still spinning about my mom and Noah’s family. I had no clue what made her act so weird, and I really wanted to know. I didn’t have my film history class that day, but I hoped I would see Noah at the theater.

  Around four-thirty, I headed over toward the student center, my stomach full of butterflies. It was totally irrational to be excited to fill out a W-2, but I knew that there was a chance I’d see Noah. Maybe together we could get to the bottom of why my mom was so weird about him. That, or he’d be a total asshole again, and make me want to smack him. Maybe my mom felt the same way about his dad; maybe Mr. Carterson was a huge asshole, too. I practically skipped down the stairs and rounded the corner.

  Chelsea was sitting behind the box office again, and I suddenly felt like she lived there. I had never seen her anywhere else but behind that glass; it was uncanny.

  “Hi, Chelsea, is Miss Havisham around?” I asked.

  “Sure, she’s in there. Just knock.”

  I nodded in thanks, and then knocked on Miss Havisham’s door. After a moment, I heard a shrill “Come in!” and pushed the door open.

  “Well hello Linda!” she cried, practically brimming with energy. She was wearing thick-rimmed glasses and sitting in front of an open ledger.

  “Hi, Miss Havisham. I’m here to fill out that paperwork you mentioned.”

  “Of course dear! Take a seat.” She gestured to a chair in front of her desk while she rummaged through a filing cabinet.

  “Here we are, new hire forms. Take your time dear,” she said, placing a few pages in front of me. I dug a pen out of my bag and started to skim through the forms They were mostly the usual things, a waiver for the university, tax information, standard papers. It didn’t take long to sign my name over and over, and I was finished in about five minutes. When I was done, I looked up at Miss Havisham, who was staring at her ledger again with a serious look on her face. It was completely at odds with the crazy mess of her office.

  “Excuse me, Miss Havisham?”

  She looked up. “Yes?”

  “I’m all finished.” I handed the papers across the desk. She took them and tucked them under the corner of her keyboard.

  “Great! Thanks so much.”

  I paused for a second. “I have a question, actually.”

  “What’s up?” She took her glasses off. It was a nice gesture; I got the sense that she cared about what I was going to say, and wasn’t brushing me off.

  “Do you know my mom? Her name is Marilyn Lewis, she works at UPenn, in the film studies department.”

  Miss Havisham looked surprised. “Marilyn Lewis, of the Times?”

  My mom sometimes wrote film reviews in the New York Times, though not nearly as often as she used to. Back in the day, she was considered a huge critic, though that tapered off a bit as she adjusted to academia.

  “Yep, that’s her.”

  She laughed loudly. “I know old Marilyn! Your mom was quite the critic back in the day.”

  “So I hear. She says hello, by the way.”

  “Oh that’s incredible, tell her I say it back. I can’t believe Marilyn is your mother!”

  “Yep, it’s a pretty small world.”

  Miss Havisham leaned back in her chair and looked thoughtful. “I guess it was fate that brought you to me. Marilyn was always supportive of my career, such that it was.”

  I nodded. “My mom had nothing but good things to say about you.”

  She smiled, and I could tell she was genuinely pleased to hear that. “Well, you tell her to stop by and visit some time.”

  I stood up to go. “I definitely will. What time should I be here on Monday?”

  She pushed her glasses back on, shifted through the papers on her desk, and then pulled out a schedule. “Let me see here...can you do five to ten?”

  “Yeah, that’ll be good.”

  “Great. We’ll set you up with a more permanent schedule on Monday.”

  “Thanks again, Miss Havisham.”

  “Okay Linda, have a good day.”

  I waved and pushed the door to her office open, feeling good. My mother knew a lot of people in the film world, and I had heard nothing but good things about her. She seemed liked and respected by everyone, and I loved running into old friends of hers. It happened more and more since going to Temple. She had a lot of contacts in Philadelphia, and more seemed to appear every day.

  Back in the lobby, it was pretty empty. Chelsea sat behind the glass looking bored, and Mikey and Chuck were throwing popcorn at each other behind the concession stand counter. I swept my gaze over the room then spotted him. Sitting on a small stool by the entrance to the theaters was Noah Carterson, flipping idly through his cellphone. He wore perfectly fitting black jeans and a black theater uniform shirt, which he managed to make look stylish. His hair was shaved short on the sides and it was mussed up and messy on the top. I walked toward him, and my heart started to hammer. I had no idea why. It wasn’t like I’d never spoken to a guy before.

  As I got closer, he looked up. Initially his expression was bored co
ntempt, as if the world were constantly a disappointment, but as he looked at me, it changed. His features brightened, and that cocky, self-assured grin appeared.

  “Well hey, polka dots,” he said, slipping his phone into his pocket.

  “Stop calling me that,” I said.

  “Give me a reason to, and maybe I will.”

  I sighed. I couldn’t remember why I thought it would be easy to have a normal conversation with him.

  “Look, I have a weird question for you.”

  “Yes, I will go down on you in the bathroom.”

  I blushed, and the image of his lips pressed between my legs jumped unbidden into my mind. My eyes ran over his muscled chest.

  What a dick.

  “Can you be serious for one second?”

  He struggled to make his face into a mask of blank seriousness. “Okay then. How may I help you, Linda?”

  I sighed. I guessed that was the best I’d get. “Okay so, my mom is this film critic named Marilyn Lewis. I was talking to her on the phone, and I mentioned getting a job here. When your dad came up, she got all weird about it. Any clue why?”

  He looked thoughtful for a second. “Honestly, polka dots? I have no clue.”

  “Have you ever heard her name before?”

  He shook his head. “No, I haven’t. But I’m not exactly close with daddy dearest.”

  Great. Back to square one, then. I briefly wondered what he meant by “not close,” but I put it out of my mind. I didn’t need his spoiled asshole drama on top of my own.

  “Thanks anyway,” I said.

  His serious expression was replaced by a small smirk. “So, you were telling your mom about me? A little soon, don’t you think?”

  I let out a sigh of exasperation and rolled my eyes. “Are you always this self-involved?”

  His grin intensified as he stood up and took a few steps closer. His body filled the space between us, and my breath caught in my chest. He moved with a surprising grace for someone so large. I had the insane impulse to reach out and trace the contours of his ripped chest, but resisted.

  “Only when girls like you can’t keep away from me.”

  I snorted. “You don’t even know me.” I considered adding, “and you’re a total asshole,” but decided not to.

  “Want to get out of here and remedy that, then?”

  Based on the tone he was using, I had a feeling he didn’t mean a nice, chaste conversation over coffee. I briefly considered agreeing, and had another imagine of him taking me back to his apartment and slowly pulling my panties down my goose bump covered skin. That was crazy, though. Before I could answer, maybe tell him he could go learn about himself, an incredibly high-pitched voice cut across the lobby.

  “Noah!” We both looked over, and I instantly recognized Stripper Barbie from our film history class standing by the staircase and looking impatient.

  “Looks like your stripper girlfriend is calling,” I said. I thought he was done with her, and a pang of jealousy ran through me, which was crazy. From everything I’d learned about Noah Carterson, it was clear that he was a player and a manwhore. Why did one more blonde chick matter to me?

  I didn’t even like him.

  He looked at me, and I didn’t recognize the expression that flashed across his face for a brief moment. It was quickly replaced by his confident smile, but I was left wondering what it had meant.

  “See you later, polka dots,” he said, then started to walk off toward the stairs. “Hey, Chuck, cover my shift?” Noah called out as he passed by the stand. Chuck gave him a nod and a wave. I couldn’t believe he was skipping out on work and asking someone to cover for him, but I guessed being the benefactor’s son had its perks. Chuck seemed agreeable enough, at least.

  I watched as he approached blondie, and they had a short, whispered conversation, and then started up the stairs together. They didn’t hold hands or hook arms or anything, but I knew that was a childish gauge of their relationship. You didn’t need to show public affection for someone to bang their brains out, which I guessed wasn’t hard with Stripper Barbie, since there wasn’t much there to bang out to begin with.

  Once they were out of sight, I started back toward the stairs. I felt oddly frustrated; Noah hadn’t been any help with trying to decode my mom’s strange behavior on the phone, but worse than that, he had me imagining running my fingers along the tattoo on his chest I had glimpsed the other day. There was nothing I wanted less than to get hung up on Noah Carterson, total asshole and manslut, but there I was, running through a million scenarios in my head, and wondering why he was leaving with Stripper Barbie instead of me.

  What a messed up afternoon.

  Chapter Five

  As much as I hated it, Noah and Stripper Barbie were stuck in my head. Chris was a saint, and sat out on the stoop for an hour with me, talking through the interaction. I knew it wouldn’t help, but I couldn’t stop myself from obsessing over every little detail. I hated that I had let him bore his way into my brain, but he was tunneled deep in there like those alien worms from the movie Tremors.

  Unfortunately, thinking about Tremors made me compare Noah’s ass to Kevin Bacon’s, which made me miss what Chris was saying.

  “I’m sorry, what?” I said, snapping out of my fantasy.

  “I said, he wanted to get to know you better?” she asked again.

  “Yeah, but he was being an asshole.”

  She looked serious. “Are you sure about that?”

  I thought back to his comment, and it definitely felt like sexual innuendo at the time. “I’m pretty sure.”

  “Maybe the girl is just his friend?”

  “Why would he leave work if she’s not putting out?”

  Chris laughed. “I don’t know, Lindy. Maybe he really is the biggest asshole in the world.”

  “I didn’t say that.” I felt a little defensive for some reason, although inwardly I had been referring to him as King Dick for the past half hour.

  “No you didn’t, but he has the reputation,” she said.

  “And he’s not exactly a gentleman to me, either.”

  Chris gave me a look. “Come on, isn’t that a little outdated?”

  “Chivalry lives!”

  She laughed and leaned against my shoulder. “Maybe in your old movies.”

  “Why are you defending him?”

  “I’m honestly not. But I can tell you have a thing for this guy, and I don’t want you to write it off before you’re sure about him.”

  “I don’t know. Do I want to get involved with the campus player?”

  I felt her shrug. “Maybe it’s all just a rumor. Remember when people said that I had herpes?”

  I laughed softly, although it was only funny in retrospect. Back in high school, some guy that Chris had turned down decided it would be a great idea to tell all his friends that she had herpes as revenge. It was all over the school the next day, and Chris had to combat the rumor for the rest of her time there. I figured that was part of why she swore off guys, but I never asked about it. She had gotten over the whole thing, but it was still an unpleasant time in her life.

  “Yeah, that could be true. Just lies from his jilted lovers,” I said.

  “Or just boring chicks with boring lives.”

  I felt a little bad after that. Noah was definitely cocky, and he had a good time at my expense with his little nickname, but he had never been outright rude to me. Maybe I wasn’t giving him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe Chris was right, and I had to get to know him before I wrote him off completely. I was way too willing to believe the rumors about him, and too quick to dismiss him completely. I really hadn’t had a real conversation with him yet.

  I was grateful to Chris, and she even managed to keep the jokes to a minimum. I had a weird hate-crush, which was totally unlike me, and I was still barely working the whole thing out. She may have sworn off boys, but she was still pretty good to talk to. Eventually, it started to get dark, and we climbed the steps back into our tin
y apartment.

  I resolved to give Noah a shot.

  Or at least I wouldn’t completely dismiss him.

  The next day I sat up front again in my film history class. I had been falling behind on my studies, maybe because a certain someone distracted me, and so I decided to buckle down and take good notes. As Professor Johnson was about to start his lecture, Noah came in, late as usual, but without Stripper Barbie. I hadn’t seen her in class since the first day, and was beginning to wonder if she had dropped it. Before I could delve too deeply into that, Noah did something surprising: he sat down next to me.

  As he unpacked his books, he grinned at me. “Hey, polka dots.”

  “Quit calling me that, Noah,” I hissed back. Inwardly, my stomach was doing somersaults.

  His grin got bigger. “Whatever you say.”

  “Don’t you usually sit in the back?”

  “I told you that I wanted to get to know you.” His eyes looked back at me intensely.

  I was taken aback momentarily by his earnest response, but my reply was cut off by Professor Johnson’s lecture. The entire class was spent trying to ignore Noah next to me. Instead, the only thing I could pay attention to was his smell, his heat, and his nearness. We sat at a long, shared table, and our knees were inches apart. He diligently took notes, which surprised me. I had assumed he was a bad student, but he clearly cared about the material, and was paying attention. I struggled to keep up, simultaneously interested in early film technique and wholly distracted by Noah’s perfectly chiseled jawline.

  I had a lot of assumptions about him, but no real information.

  What did he mean, he wanted to get to know me? He hadn’t expressed much interest in me at all yet, other than my underwear and maybe my body. When I tried to talk to him about his dad and my mom, he more or less blew me off. Suddenly, he wanted to sit next to me and get to know me? It was bizarre. Noah had never been serious with me, either. So far, he was mostly one long string of pushy jokes and crude remarks, all wrapped up in a fantastic smile and amazing body. He was definitely confident, but he also didn’t seem interested in actually knowing me. In fact, from what I’d heard about him, he didn’t seem interested in knowing anyone.