Exposure

by Morgan

  Michelle gasped. “You can! I have a wonderful idea!”

  “What?”

  “My makeup guy told me about this amazing bar near the stadium. Why don’t you and I take Shaunna out tonight?”

  David opened his mouth, and Michelle supplied the answer. “Yes! Great!” She flitted away while he stood there with half a strawberry in his hand.

  When he grinned, his lips were bright red.

  Michelle texted Shaunna:

  You & me tonight on the town, I insist.

  Car will pick you guys up at 8.

  Shaunna texted back:

  Who’s us guys?

  Michelle responded:

  David and I are taking you out

  to a cute place we know

  and no you can’t say no.

  Shaunna’s response was simple:

  Can I just ignore you?

  Michelle laughed as she punched in her reply:

  Too late for that.

  I know you want to see him.

  He talked about you,

  in the makeup trailer.

  Shaunna couldn’t type fast enough:

  WHAT DID HE SAY?

  Michelle closed her phone and read through her new manuscript after she sent her final text:

  I’ll tell you tonight.

  Shaunna tossed her phone into her purse and then fished it out again to see what time it was. She had just over six hours to get ready. To her discontent, it was more than enough time.

  As promised, the limousine was parked outside the hotel at eight o’clock. David arrived before Shaunna, and he was standing outside, holding the door, when she emerged from the lobby. He kept looking for photographers, but didn’t see any. He watched Shaunna with interest as she did the same.

  “I swear it was all Michelle’s idea,” David admitted as he watched her walk toward him in a white strapless dress. A dress that was almost as short as the towel she had wrapped around her body the night before.

  “Oh…” Shaunna acted hurt. She usually didn’t do such babyish things, but couldn’t help herself around David.

  Normally, David would have felt self-conscious, but anticipating such awkwardness, he’d indulged in two bottles of Miller Genuine Draft before leaving his room and was feeling airy. He laughed off her reaction because he was already drawing her into a hug.

  Shaunna smelled his sweet cologne, and his strong arms were wrapped in a soft dinner jacket that rested over a pale green dress shirt. His words were pleasant in her ear.

  “I hope you plan on having fun tonight.”

  It was important for Shaunna to approach the evening with a positive attitude. She wasn’t the type of person to go out with well-meaning friends only to cross her arms and resent the world for spinning. She hugged him back happily, and when she turned her head to answer, her lips brushed his cheek. It was a pleasing punctuation to her words.

  “David, I plan on having a ball.”

  The duo toasted to Michelle’s recovery and future happiness on the way to the Four Seasons to collect her. Halfway there, David reached out and took Shaunna’s hand. He didn’t say anything. He just held her cool and slender fingers in his warm, relaxed grip. She sat transfixed and was amazed by how intensely aware she was of the weight of his fingers laced within hers. Their hands fit so comfortably together that it felt like they’d been made for each other.

  The limo driver had wisely chosen light, but upbeat music. David bobbed his head and sang along, but Shaunna was way too embarrassed to join in.

  She did, however, have a second glass of champagne.

  When the car pulled up to the Four Seasons, the doorman tipped his hat at the car and then disappeared inside the lobby. A moment later, Michelle strolled out, wearing a silver dress and heels. Her hair was up, and her long legs were bare.

  David was out the door and standing with it open before the driver could so much as get his seat belt off. A half dozen cameras flashed from across the street as Michelle took David’s hand and stepped into the car with a natural grace.

  “Good evening, you two,” Michelle greeted. She said “you two” in a way that made it clear she considered them to be on a date.

  Shaunna felt a flutter of excitement in response.

  “Hello, Michelle,” David answered. “And thank you for tonight.”

  She touched his cheek. “You’re welcome, and don’t even think of trying to pay for anything.”

  David laughed. “Don’t worry.”

  Michelle was pleased to see her friend smiling and tried to focus on Shaunna’s newfound happiness, hopeful it would be contagious. Michelle was a good actress and projected a brave public face; however, she felt her moods shifting constantly, bouncing back and forth between feelings of incredible invincibility and intense vulnerability.

  David found Shaunna’s hand again, and Michelle nearly squeaked with joy. She’d never seen Shaunna with a date, and it made her feel like love and hope were still alive.

  “We’re going to a great little place I heard about. It’ll have the fun-loving atmosphere we want and the privacy we need.” Michelle wasn’t wrong. Her makeup guy had made it sound perfect.

  It was called Rim Shots.

  A gay bar.

  They secured a nice little booth by the dance floor where they would get up one at a time, or in pairs, to entertain the others with exaggerated hip swivels during Erasure’s cover of “River Deep, Mountain High” and devastating pelvic thrusts to any song by Tom Jones. The whole place went crazy, actually. Apparently, celebrities like Michelle Cooper weren’t part of the regular clientele. She was welcomed enthusiastically and, more importantly in Shaunna’s eyes, respectfully.

  “I spoke to Gus today,” Shaunna told David during one of their resting spells. “He’s going to have Nathan film a screen test with a few pages that he’s e-mailing over tonight. They’re not waiting until you get back to LA. They want the casting director to see you now.”

  “Oh!” Michelle remembered something in the middle of a sip of her Long Island iced tea. “I was with Nathan this afternoon when Gus called. Nathan is going to shoot it this weekend. That way it’ll give David some time to study the sides.”

  “Wow! Thanks.” David was stunned. He didn’t know what else to say.

  “You’re a natural,” Shaunna told him matter-of-factly. “My father is a talent magnet, and it doesn’t surprise me that you attracted his attention.”

  David had been given an enormous compliment from someone he greatly respected, but all he could think of was whether or not Shaunna would kiss him again.

  “I’m surprised you don’t pick up the craft,” David offered, hoping she would take it as a compliment to her beauty.

  “Oh, we’ve tried to talk her into at least doing some modeling, but she won’t hear of it,” Michelle interjected, and as soon as she used the word “we’ve,” she felt a splinter in her heart. Early in their relationship with Shaunna and before a mysterious, confounding venom had consumed her husband, it’d been she and Kyle who repeatedly encouraged Shaunna to profit from her good looks and easy on-camera persona.

  “I worked as a child, and it wasn’t for me,” Shaunna said simply.

  “It’s not for children,” David retorted.

  “No.” Shaunna shook her head. “It’s not. How did things go today?”

  “Um, it was good,” David supplied.

  “Come on!” Shaunna teased, and her words were accompanied with a hand on his thigh under the table. She squeezed, and he jittered as if he’d been shocked. David was very ticklish, and Shaunna had just discovered that delicious fact. “Alix already sent me pictures of Nathan wearing one of the space helmets. What the hell did you guys do?”

  Michelle looked at David and shrugged. “You tell it. I didn’t see the whole thing anyway.”

  “Okay. Well, NASA let Nathan build a big long dolly track, and by the time the crew was done, it looked more like a roller coaster. I got to ride it!”

  “You did?” Shaun
na had seen an impressive bit of scaffolding in one of the photos. Now she understood what it was.

  “Okay.” David took a breath, clearly starting from the beginning. “You know how the storyboards show this left to right track shot of the hangars and the old sixties equipment? Well, NASA built these squatty cement buildings three months before we arrived, and they completely blocked Nathan’s money shot.”

  Shaunna was nodding her head. She’d heard something about it during the first week of shooting, but she liked to listen to David talk. She was fascinated with the mechanics of his mouth, the way his tongue danced over his teeth, and the way his lips parted when he drew in a breath.

  “The crew guys built ramps and ran the dolly right over the top of them. The roofs are flat, so it was an easy solution, and the shot even had a nice rise and fall to it.”

  “Why didn’t they just shoot in front of the buildings?” Shaunna asked.

  “Too close,” David answered, having asked the same question himself earlier in the day. “The rounded tops of the hangars would be out of frame, and that’s what Nathan wanted most.”

  Shaunna nodded. Nathan’s movies were all about symmetry.

  “Nathan was adamant that he be the one to risk it because there are no brakes on those things and those ramps are pretty steep. So they put a helmet on him and put him in the camera rig, and a bunch of the guys push him up as he rolls film. Everything goes great until he drops down the other side.”

  Shaunna was beginning to look appropriately concerned.

  “The rig usually goes three miles an hour, and here Nathan flies by doing twenty and cursing the whole way because the camera is shaking so bad, his shot is lost. Then he comes to the curve.”

  Michelle knew what was coming next.

  “Nathan wasn’t slowing down at all, and half the crew was running behind him, trying to keep up. The curve was pretty wide, but it wasn’t going to keep the rig on the track…so what does Nathan do? He wraps himself around the camera to protect it instead of jumping off and then closes his eyes and shouts, ‘Tell Kelly Ripa I’ve always loved her!’”

  “Is he okay?” Shaunna was laughing as she asked. She couldn’t help it.

  “Oh, he’s fine,” David concluded. “It stayed on the tracks, actually, but he went up on two wheels for a while, and I thought it was going to end badly.”

  “Did he ever get his shot?” Michelle asked.

  “Yeah. He went right back on with a handheld, and the difference in weight was like taking a whole person off the rig. He let us all take turns after they made a few passes with the camera. They even widened the curve so we could go two at a time safely.”

  Shaunna sighed, thinking of her favorite theme park. “I wish I hadn’t missed that.”

  “It’s still up!” David said brightly, suddenly thankful he’d stopped drinking early in the evening. “Do you want to go now?”

  She did.

  Michelle had them drop her off first and told them not to stay out too late, although she secretly hoped neither of them would get any sleep until the sun came up.

  She also insisted that they keep using the limousine, but David asked for them to be dropped off at their hotel, where he fished his own rental car keys from his pants pocket. He drove them to the NASA compound.

  “We still have the helmets if you want one,” David offered. “But I went with one of the crane guys, and we didn’t even come close to leaving the track.”

  Shaunna inspected the course, walking along the track from back to front, and glanced up at David. “It’s fine. We should have a fun and smooth ride.”

  “Oh, it’s smooth all right, and almost completely silent.”

  He pushed the empty rig into position, and then they both took their seats. Shaunna laced her fingers through his.

  “Hang on to your hats and glasses,” Shaunna said in a cartoony southern drawl. “’Cuz this here’s the wildest ride in the wilderness.”

  David laughed freely. “What is that?”

  “You mean you don’t know Big Thunder Mountain Railroad’s announcements by heart?” Shaunna giggled.

  “What’s Big Thunder Mountain Railroad?”

  Shaunna’s giggle stopped. “Wait…have you never been to Disneyland?”

  David looked down sheepishly. “Not yet.”

  She shook her head. “The minute we get back…” was all she said before David stuck his foot out and gave them a push over the edge.

  It was indeed a silent ride, and it was as dark as Space Mountain, although Shaunna knew she couldn’t tell him that because he wouldn’t have any idea what she was talking about. They navigated the course three more times, and they always held hands.

  When David drove her to their hotel and walked her to her door, he waited eagerly once again for her to make the first move. He wasn’t disappointed.

  Shaunna kissed him quickly before hugging him fiercely. “Thank you, David.”

  Her words were holding back a flood of emotion, and as her grip on his body tightened, she found herself saying them over and over in an effort to keep herself from sobbing.

  David was silent, enjoying the smell of Shaunna’s hair and the erotic sensation of her insistent breasts pushing against his heartbeat. He wrapped his arms around her and turned his head minutely to press his lips to her neck. Although he desired her, he yearned to comfort her anxieties even more. He worried that the act might be too intimate, but her hand on the back of his neck only encouraged him.

  Shaunna hummed in delight and reflexively tilted her head to grant him more access. His lips were bold as they drifted over the soft column of her neck, and his hands rested firmly on her hips like guardians. His mouth moved against her heated skin for several long and delicious moments before she heard his whispered reply.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Soon after, much too soon, David released her.

  “I’ll call you first thing in the morning,” he told her earnestly.

  Shaunna laughed and entered her room with a practiced swipe of her key card.

  David walked to his own room and slept so poorly that he heard the morning’s complimentary newspaper hit the floor outside his door at half past five.

  Thinking that at least he’d have something to take his mind off Shaunna, David rose and turned on the television. He was flipping through the channels when a glimpse of his own face forced him to stop.

  To his astonishment, an entertainment network was talking about him.

  He’d been photographed with Michelle, their faces smiling, their heads tilted very close together and their eyes locked on one another and glimmering with excitement. David recognized it as the moment when they were dancing to “Summer Nights” at Rim Shots.

  His amazement transformed into concern, however, as an obnoxious reporter quipped, “Looks like Michelle Cooper is moving on…”

  Chapter Eighteen

  MICHELLE WAS SITTING SILENTLY in the big trailer that had been modified into a conference room. She had her elbows on the table with her chin resting on intertwined fingers.

  David was sitting beside her, double-checking his script.

  Kyle had a printout of a blog post in front of him that showed the same picture David had seen on TV. In big letters above the photo was the article’s headline:

  No Wonder She Dumped Him!

  Kyle was staring daggers at them from across the table.

  David had discussed the rumor with Michelle as soon as he discovered it. He’d driven to her hotel, in fact, which proved only to fuel the fire. A few hovering photographers snapped David’s picture on his way out. Nevertheless, the two had a good laugh about it. In the end, they agreed to simply explain the misunderstanding to anyone who cared to ask.

  Kyle cared, but he didn’t ask. He glared.

  His irate scowl grated on Michelle’s rawest nerves. Her sadness was a thing of the past. For the first time since Kyle had blindsided her with divorce papers and evicted her from their suite at the Four Seas
ons, she felt true, searing fury.

  She was angry about everything he’d done since arriving in Texas. She was livid at herself for falling in love with and marrying the megalomaniac prick. And she was annoyed because she would be spending an entire day with the asshole, strapped to a harness, hovering above the ground and maneuvered into a number of dizzying positions.

  It was clear to her that he’d believed that five-word headline linking Michelle to their new co-star. Word for pathetic word.

  She met Kyle’s cold gaze across the table and could see he intended to make her life hell over it, and this fact pissed her off most of all. Not because he’d been hurt by the thought of his soon-to-be-ex-wife with another man, but because the incriminating headline had shrewdly implied she found someone better than Kyle Petersen.

  His glare hardened, and now Michelle’s temper was on the verge of explosion. She opened her mouth to say something, when Nathan entered the room.

  “Okay, everyone,” he began the meeting before the door was even closed. “I know that this is going to be a physical shoot and that you’ll be up in the rigs all day, but we need to remember that this is an emotional scene, as well.”

  Nathan looked from Michelle to Kyle. “As astronauts, you two know what separation from the ship means in a spacewalk. You’re dead. Michelle, you’re going to attempt to be the voice of reason as Kyle becomes irrational and crazed. But you have your breaking point too.”

  “Got it,” Michelle replied promptly. In her estimation, truer words had never been spoken.

  Kyle grunted.

  “Now, we’re going to be rotating you with wires that’ll be attached to your legs in addition to the main support cables.”

  “We’re going upside-down?” Michelle’s voice caught on her last word.

  “Not exactly,” Nathan said. “But we can’t have you both just hanging there like sides of beef.” He peered at Michelle with a look of compassion.

  Michelle nodded. She would do her best; she always did. “I trust you, Nathan.”