Love Scene, Take Two

by Alex Evansley

  This could be your Hunger Games, Ted.

  Teddy turns the book over and tries not to pout at all the praise written on the back.

  If he were in the mood to be honest with himself, he’d acknowledge the real reason why he didn’t feel good about his audition today. Regardless of how overprepared or unprepared he could have been, Teddy stills finds the whole prospect of auditioning for “the next major YA film franchise” spectacularly terrifying, and it messed with his head this morning. It’s intimidating as hell to take on that kind of role and all the expectations attached to it.…

  So much so, that Teddy can’t even psych himself up to crack the book open now. He just sits there with his copy of one of the most hyped books being adapted to film in 2019, running his fingers over the slightly raised letters spelling out “M. B. Caldwell” across the top, and telling himself that God, he really blew it today.

  Eventually Teddy’s pulled out of his downward self-deprecation spiral when movement to his left snags his attention. There’s a pair of jean shorts in his peripheral vision, and when he turns his head he’s confronted with a spectacular view of whoever’s ass is in the aisle next to him. His eyes wander north, all the way up to a blond braid spilling out from underneath a baseball hat.

  Teddy’s kind of a sucker for chicks in ball caps.

  His gaze drops to the girl’s jean shorts again when she moves to sit in the opposite window seat. He tries to steal a glance at her profile, being nowhere near discreet, but her head is down and covered by the bill of her hat. He’s so busy trying to get a look at her face that he almost startles back into the window seat next him when that same flight attendant comes out of nowhere and blocks his view.

  “Would you like me to stow your backpack in the captain’s closet, ma’am?”

  “No, thank you,” Teddy hears the girl reply. “I’ll keep this one with me.”

  Subtlety has never been one of Teddy’s strong suits, so it should come as no surprise that he doesn’t have a talent for eavesdropping, either. As soon as the flight attendant walks away, he finds himself staring directly across the aisle at the girl in the baseball hat—staring, and trying to rein in the initial shock that runs through him when their eyes meet, because it only takes a split second of accidental eye contact to realize that he’s definitely seen this girl somewhere before.

  Her eyes flicker away, and Teddy goes back to staring at his tray table.

  One of the flight attendants comes on the intercom a few minutes later to do the usual preflight safety routine, but now Teddy’s too distracted to listen. He meets new people pretty much every week thanks to his career choice, and he’s never had a problem with putting a name to a face before. He’s worried about coming across as rude, and he’s not trying to get a reputation in Hollywood as an unfriendly asshole who ignores people on airplanes.

  Teddy’s still flipping through his mental Rolodex of people he might run into on a flight to North Carolina when the pilot announces to prepare for takeoff, effectively upstaging all thoughts of jean shorts and baseball hats. You’d think with how much he flies that he’d eventually get used to it, but nope. Usually his anxiety level is already in the lower stratosphere by the time the plane pushes back from the Jetway.

  Teddy thumbs through the M. B. Caldwell book in his lap without seeing anything on the inside and tries to ignore the way his stomach drops when the plane begins to pivot.

  “’Scuse me?”

  Teddy barely registers it at first. Then she repeats it and he glances left.

  The familiar chick in the baseball hat is looking at him again—pretty sure she just spoke to him, too, now that Teddy’s brain has had a chance to kick-start.

  “Yeah?” His voice cracks. The corner of her mouth quirks up as her eyes drop to his lap, and Teddy’s brain has no idea what to do with that.

  “Sorry to bother you”—she levels her gaze with his again—“but I was wondering if you like that book you’re reading?”

  There’s a subtle drawl to her words—a slow curve of the vowels that rules out any chance Teddy might have met her before. He would’ve remembered that.

  The girl blinks at him, and at last it occurs to him that she’s talking about the book in his lap.

  “Oh—” Teddy looks down to hide the embarrassed smile spreading across his face. “Haven’t started it yet.”

  She gives a polite, noncommittal hum, and when Teddy looks over, she’s digging through her backpack despite the plane creeping toward takeoff.

  “Have you read it?” he asks, watching her pull out a thick manila folder.

  She doesn’t look up when she says, “I have, actually.”

  Teddy almost asks her how she liked it, stopping short when the plane starts taxiing up the runway. He closes his eyes and pushes his head back into his headrest instead.

  God, takeoffs are the absolute worst thing about flying. Except the landing. And the turbulence. And the annoyingly small snack bags—

  “Hey.”

  Teddy’s eyes snap open and he looks across the aisle.

  Baseball hat is staring at him and trying not to laugh.

  “You all right over there?” she asks.

  “I’m good,” he says, then blows out a breath that completely undercuts his attempt to not seem like the biggest pansy in first class today.

  “Really? Because you kinda look like you’re about to throw up.”

  Teddy gives up and points a finger at the roof of the cabin. “Not the biggest fan of flying.”

  “I can tell.”

  “Is it that—” He lets out another shaky breath as the plane picks up speed. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Little bit, not gonna lie,” she says, crinkling her nose.

  He extends a hand to her. “I’m Teddy.”

  “Aw, man.” She has to lean all the way across the seat next to her to return the handshake. “So you’re not actually Buzz Lightyear?”

  Teddy freezes, because there’s only one explanation for why in God’s name a stranger would ask him that, and he doesn’t want to turn around to check for confirmation.

  “You can totally see inside my duffel bag right now, can’t you,” he says.

  Grinning, she slips her hand from his and says, “Little bit, not gonna lie.”

  Sure enough, when Teddy forces himself to look, a pair of bright blue boxer briefs are hanging halfway out of his bag—the apparent aftermath of rummaging around for his M. B. Caldwell book. The folded-over waistband is announcing to the entire plane: UZZ LIGHTYEA in bold white lettering.

  Teddy’s at a loss for how to explain his way out of this one, so he shoves his underwear back into his duffel and zips it up with as much dignity as he can pull together at a time like this. He’s almost disappointed the full BUZZ LIGHTYEAR OF STAR COMMAND hadn’t been visible. If the universe is so keen on embarrassing the shit out of him today, the least it can do is not do it halfway.

  “Yeah,” he says slowly, facing the aisle again and pointing a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll be honest—I have those in, like, six different colors.”

  She purses her lips when she looks up from her manila folder, holding back a smile. “I’m Bennett, by the way.”

  “Bennett?” Teddy repeats in surprise, then wishes he hadn’t. She raises her eyebrows at him, waiting for him to continue, and honestly? He’s got nothing. “I mean, I’ve never met a girl Bennett before. Well, I don’t think I’ve met a guy Bennett, either, but I like it. It’s—yeah. It’s a cool name.”

  Bennett appears to be somewhere between trying to figure out the angle he’s working and trying not to laugh at him. Again.

  “It’s short for Mary Bennett?” she offers. “I don’t think I look like a Mary.”

  Teddy gives her a quick once-over before he realizes what he’s doing, then attempts to play it off by letting his eyes dart around the cabin for a moment. “So, you’re from the south then?”

  “What?” she laughs.

  “I just figured s
ince your accent, and, like, the double name and everything…” His awkwardness knows no bounds, apparently. “That’s a southern thing, right?”

  Bennett cocks an eyebrow. “Are you gonna ask why our tea is so sweet next? I can probably find you a Buzzfeed article or something that covers all this.”

  Teddy holds up his hands, pleasantly surprised by the sarcasm. “Hey now, cut me some slack here. I was born in Pittsburgh and grew up in California.”

  “Yeah? That’s cool,” Bennett says, looking around thoughtfully. Teddy wonders what the logo is on her hat. “But, yeah—I’m from North Carolina. I’ve lived in the same spot in North Carolina my entire life, actually. Kinda lame.”

  “I don’t know, staying in the same place for a while sounds nice to me,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. He bounces around filming on location so much that it’s starting to feel like nowhere is home anymore.

  She snorts. “I’m supposed to go to college there, too, though. Also kinda depressing.”

  “Really? What school?”

  “Davidson College.… It’s about thirty minutes north of Charlotte,” she says, like she isn’t expecting him to know where it is. (To her credit, he doesn’t.)

  “Nice. Do you know what you’re gonna major in?”

  “Negative.” She shakes her head absently for a second, then says, “Hey, so how’re you feeling about that audition this morning?”

  Teddy stares at her.

  “Whoa, how did you—” He stops midsentence as the pieces finally click together. “Hold on—I do know you. You were at my audition, weren’t you?”

  A hint of a smile flickers across her face.

  “You totally were!” Teddy remembers now. She was sitting (sans baseball hat) with the group in the back corner. How the hell could he forget that? Teddy knows he has a tendency for tunnel vision when he’s working, but he hadn’t realized he’d gotten that oblivious.

  “Are you like an intern or a PA or something?” he asks, wondering why she didn’t say anything sooner.

  She shakes her head. “The director really liked you, by the way.”

  “Are you serious?” Teddy resists the impulse to lean forward, hope surging in his chest. “It felt like an absolute train wreck on my end.”

  “Didn’t seem like it from ours,” she says, and Jesus, Teddy can’t sit still now.

  “So, like, what’s the over-under on me getting the part?”

  Bennett makes a face. “Come on, you know I’m not allowed to talk about it.”

  “You come on!” Teddy says, only half joking. “I’m dying over here. Not even a little hint?” He tries to give her his most charming smile, then worries he looks like a psychopath and stops.

  “Sorry, Buzz,” Bennett says. “But the good news is, you handled that takeoff way better than I was expecting.”

  “Wait, what—?” Teddy turns to look out the window. Sure enough, they’re already thousands of feet in the air, still ascending, but the worst is over for now.

  “Holy…,” he breathes out, then glances back across the aisle and finds Bennett watching him again. There’s even a little grin at the corner of her mouth giving her away. “You sly dog,” he says, slightly dazed with what he thinks is gratitude, but can’t quite put the right word to it.

  Bennett shrugs him off and turns back to the stack of papers in her lap. “It was the least I could do. You looked so nervous you were giving me anxiety.”

  Teddy watches her lower her tray table and fan the stack of papers out in front of her, the bill of her hat covering her face again. He wants to say something to get her to look up, but of course, he draws a blank—the one time he could actually use his talent for talking in circles. Maybe if he wasn’t busy being so endeared, he’d be able to come up with something to say.

  When the flight attendant appears after the captain turns off the seat belt sign, she asks Teddy if he wants to order a bourbon on the rocks now. Actually, daring him to order that bourbon on the rocks is a more accurate description. Teddy politely declines and settles for a soda. Bennett follows suit.

  “So, random question,” Teddy says once they’re alone again, because he can’t help himself. Desperate times, desperate measures. “You don’t happen to know where Terminal E is in the Charlotte airport, do you?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Teddy and Bennett talk for almost the entire flight.

  Well, mainly Teddy talks. It starts out with not-so-discreetly prying for information on Parachutes (homegirl is like Fort Knox over there with her manila folder and indestructible poker face), and it kinda evolves from there. Teddy talks, and Bennett works on whatever those papers are, occasionally asking questions or offering snarky commentary on something dumb he says. It’s a solid four-and-a-half-hour distraction.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but we’re preparing to land,” the flight attendant says to Bennett, wedging herself into Teddy’s dramatic retelling of a Fourth of July fireworks debacle he was involved in last year. “May I take your trash for you?”

  “Yes, please.” Bennett smiles up at her. “Thank you.”

  She reaches for Teddy’s trash without a word.

  “You’re mannerly,” he says to Bennett once the flight attendant is out of earshot. “Your mama must’ve raised you right.”

  “Bless your heart.” Bennett presses a hand to her chest, exaggerating her own accent. “No wonder you’ve got one of them picture shows on the tee-vee.”

  Teddy laughs, despite the unease that shows up whenever someone mentions his acting career. He hasn’t been in the game long enough to be too paranoid about people’s intentions, but the thought that maybe he should’ve kept his guard up a little more around Bennett creeps into his head anyway. He steals another glance at her—at the way she’s meticulously evening the edges of her papers on her tray table, pen between her teeth and eyebrows furrowed in concentration—and feels like a complete douche.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, if I could have your attention, please,” the pilot crackles over the intercom. “We’ll be making our way into the gate in about twenty minutes; however, I do have an announcement to make, as I’ve been informed there are several passengers on board trying to catch connecting flights.”

  Teddy’s stomach drops.

  “Flight 1123, nonstop to West Palm Beach, and Flight 1435, nonstop to Miami, have been delayed indefinitely due to inclement weather. We apologize for the inconvenience and will assist passengers in any way we can to help make other arrangements. On behalf of myself and the crew, thank you for flying with us tonight. Welcome to Charlotte.”

  Teddy presses his head back against his seat, and the word is out of his mouth before he can stop it. “Shit.”

  “Sounds like that was your flight,” he hears across the aisle.

  Rolling his head to the left, he nods at Bennett, and instead of panicking about landing, Teddy spends the rest of the flight trying not to look as pissed off as he feels.

  * * *

  “So, you got a game plan, Buzz?” Bennett asks on the way off the plane. Teddy’s so distracted by his blossoming predicament and those damn jean shorts and being called Buzz that he doesn’t realize when the strap on his duffel bag gets caught on an armrest until he’s suddenly yanked backward.

  “Uh—” He flails around to untangle himself, thankful Bennett doesn’t turn back at the sound he makes. The flight attendant from earlier definitely watches all this go down, though. Teddy ducks his head and turns his phone off airplane mode for something to do underneath the unimpressed glare he receives. It chimes immediately with a voice mail from Chelsea. He pauses just inside the Jetway and presses the phone to his ear.

  “Hey, Ted. I know you’re on a flight right now, so this is kinda shitty, but I’m stuck in Vancouver for the weekend. Give me a call when you get this.”

  “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he mutters, because of course this is happening. Today’s just one shade of awesome layered over another. He scowls at his voice-mail screen for a
moment, trying to decide whether to call Chelsea back or throw his phone off the Jetway. He decides to catch up with Bennett instead. He needs to regroup. Or something. And he figures talking with a local would be more productive than anything. Except when he looks up to find her, she’s nowhere in sight.

  Continuing up the Jetway, Teddy finds an information desk and heads over, pulling himself out of the scene looping through his head—one that involves buying a ticket to Vancouver, showing up to Chelsea’s set, and demanding an MLA-formatted explanation on exactly what the hell her deal has been lately.

  Since the plane arrived around nine p.m., Teddy definitely isn’t in the mood to turn around and hop on a red-eye back to LA tonight. He toys with the idea of catching a flight to Pittsburgh to see his grandparents, then thinks better of it. There’s really no way around being stuck in Charlotte at this point, and Teddy knows this isn’t the lady behind the help desk’s fault, but he isn’t doing a good job of hiding his impatience as she lists off tomorrow’s flight options.

  “I’ve got a nonstop to LA tomorrow afternoon at two p.m.—I think it’s the best option we’ve got for you. I could get you out earlier in the morning, but with the connections, you’ll be arriving back in LA around the same time,” she says, typing on her computer. She kind of reminds Teddy of the receptionist from his audition, and it only adds to his current sense of gloom.

  “Let’s just do that, then,” he sighs, getting out his wallet and handing over his credit card. He’s been standing at the service desk for a few minutes now and keeps glancing around the line that’s formed behind him to check if Bennett’s still nearby.

  “All right, sir. You’re all set for a two p.m. flight to Los Angeles tomorrow.”

  “Thanks,” Teddy says, fumbling with his card and wallet as he steps aside. He uses his foot to drag his duffel along with him, and spots a girl in a baseball hat emerging from the bathroom across the way. He tucks his credit card into his wallet and almost trips over the bag at his feet to follow after her.