All of her impulses were honest, but apparently, they were also presumptuous, and now all the progress they’d made over dessert had unraveled. For the first time since they’d met, Lila didn’t even seem amused by her. Cobie preferred the cat-and-mouse games they’d played early on over Lila’s studious disinterest now. Should she apologize? Should she try again to start another conversation about Lila’s feelings? Cobie didn’t want to push any more than she already had, but the so-called date wasn’t over. Lila’s comment about her making assumptions echoed through her ears, but would bringing up the kiss to come only force her to face the one that had come before?
The charade suddenly felt like Cobie’s real-life experiences with women: intense, confusing, and short-lived. She laughed inadvertently at the thought.
“What’s funny?” Lila asked.
“Oh nothing. Sorry.”
She glanced over to see Lila’s blue eyes boring into her and folded like a cheap tent. “It just struck me as funny that I’m apparently about as good at fake dates as I am at real dates, which is probably why I’m on a fake date instead of a real one.”
The corner of Lila’s mouth turned up for just a second.
“I guess now you know why I’m single.”
Lila didn’t respond, and Cobie shifted in her seat to face the road once more. “I’m clearly not as good at this as you are, but I don’t think I’m completely hopeless. I can learn to do better.”
Still nothing from Lila.
Cobie sighed. “For instance, we’re getting close to your place, and I don’t want to make any assumptions about how you want to play this next part or, honestly, if you even want to continue down the path we agreed on.”
“I’m not the one who likes to break character,” Lila said lightly.
“Touché,” Cobie said, “so give me the scene. Give me my cues. Help me hit my marks.”
“It’s supposed to look like you’re seducing me,” Lila said, her tone all business.
“And we’ve seen how adept I am at that, so if you’re hoping for something specific, you’d better play the role of director, because if I were really trying to seduce you, I’d walk you to the door and wait for you to unlock it. I’d let you think I was going to leave it at that, but just as you walked through the door, I’d take your hand and pull you back into me. Then I’d kiss you hard and fast, to give you a solid taste of what I had to offer, but break away before you’d gotten your fill. I’d want to leave you wanting more.
“Not my hand,” Lila said.
“What?” Cobie asked, a little dazed from her own imaginings.
“Don’t hold my hand. Take hold of me around my waist,” Lila said matter-of-factly. Cobie felt a twinge of something unsettling as she remembered doing just that moments earlier.
“And if you’re facing my front door, the paparazzi will be to your back, so you need to pull me to you in a way that angles our bodies toward them without making it look like you’re staging a shot,” Lila continued. “You’ve done that before, right?”
“I’ve had a little work with camera angles, yes.”
This time both sides of Lila’s mouth rose a little. “And hold the kiss long enough to let them get the shot, but don’t drag on forever. Some of them will have video, and we don’t want to give them too much, too fast.”
“Just enough to make it clear I’m vying for the role of romantic lead, not supporting actress,” Cobie confirmed. “And what’s your motivation in this scene?”
“I’m going to pretend the kiss caught me off guard but I liked it.”
Cobie thought the last part might be a stretch of Lila’s acting abilities, but she was eager to see what that reaction looked like on her. “Then we’ll be off. No turning back.”
Lila didn’t respond. She merely stared out the window, her expression more reflective than resolved now.
The GPS announced their arrival, and Cobie double-parked in front of a row of brownstones before turning to face Lila. “Do I have your permission to kiss you this time?”
Lila nodded. “You do.”
“Even though it will be a thing?”
“Only because it will be a thing.”
The comment caused her stomach to tighten, but she said, “Okay then. We only get one take.”
Cobie unbuckled her seatbelt and reached for the door handle, but Lila grabbed hold of her wrist.
“Wait.”
Her heart leaped painfully in her chest at the note of need in Lila’s voice. “What?” Was she having second thoughts? Did she feel something, anything, in this moment? Would she call the whole thing off?
“No comment to the press,” Lila said.
“Huh?”
“They’re going to hound you with questions on the way out of here and anywhere else you go until we see each other again. Don’t talk to them.”
“The press?” Cobie blinked a few times. Of course. She should have known the pleading in Lila’s voice hadn’t had anything to do with her. The only thing she needed was to control the story. At least that was one area where Cobie would have no problem complying with her wishes. “Don’t worry. I’ve never talked to them before. I’m not going to start now.”
Lila nodded, squared her shoulders, and shifted back into her practiced smile. “Then I’m ready when you are.”
Cobie took a deep breath, rolled her shoulders, and swung her car door wide, stepping into the cold winter evening. As she jogged around the front of the car, she mumbled, “Lights, camera, action,” then flashed an adoring smile at Lila as she opened her door. Flashbulbs illuminated the night.
Lila accepted her hand and emerged gracefully from the car, her eyes never leaving Cobie’s. The mirth she’d seen in the office and earlier in the evening had returned, and Cobie realized she’d missed it.
Malik met them on the sidewalk and pushed open a wrought-iron gate before closing it behind them and staying put at the entrance. He knew his place, Cobie mused. He played his role flawlessly. Maybe he could give her a few pointers sometime. Then again, he mostly just had to look intimidating, whereas she had to look like someone who could sweep a world-famous pop star off her feet.
Totally doable.
The paparazzi hit the gate behind them, their camera bags and bodies clanking dully against the wrought iron that held them at bay, but with Malik there they wouldn’t dare try to cross the barrier.
“Cobie. Lila. Lila. Cobie.” The shouts were excessive and, quite frankly, worthless. As if either of them could really not know the mob had followed them or what they wanted. “Look over here. Give us a smile. How did you meet? Are you working together? Lila, are you going into movies? Cobie, are you recording an album?”
“It’s good to know what the prevailing theories are,” Cobie said in a low, cooing voice only Lila was close enough to hear.
“They don’t seem to be onto us yet.”
“I’m a little hurt actually,” Cobie said as she walked casually up the front steps to a hunter-green door set back against the brownstone. “I felt like I made it very clear I was trying to get into your pants tonight.”
Lila threw back her head and laughed. “You had high aspirations. They think I’m straight.”
“Whatever gave them that idea?” Cobie asked as Lila put the key in the door and opened it before turning back to face her.
“Certainly not you feeding me dessert off your fork.” Lila ran one index finger down the length of black tie hanging loosely from Cobie’s collar. “Think we should make it a little more clear for them?”
“Yeah, and we’ve only got one shot, so let’s get it right.”
Lila’s smile turned coy while her eyes held nothing but challenge. “Show me what you’ve got.”
She turned back toward the door, and Cobie’s mind went into screen mode. She internally counted the beats, measured the pace, and watched for Lila’s cues. The turn, one step, one foot over the threshold, don’t rush it, one more, let them all see her go. Give them a second to proce
ss the ending. The green door started to swing slowly closed, and she shot out her hand to stop it solidly before she reached inside and caught Lila around the waist. With one fluid motion, she pulled her close, letting the momentum of their bodies colliding spin them the half-turn needed to face the clamoring calls of the press.
Holding her close, she cupped Lila’s face in her palm and guided her head down until their lips met again. This time she didn’t notice the beat of her own heart or the rush of blood it sent roaring through her veins. Here amid the fireworks of flashbulbs and the collective intake of breath, she only counted the seconds to some undetermined number between angelic and over the top. Then, in much the way it had begun, Cobie began her deliberate draw back. She moved fluidly, like a dancer who’d learned the moves enough to add a little flair but never breaking step with the pre-set routine.
First, she loosened her hold on Lila’s waist, then she relaxed the pressure of her lips against Lila’s. Slowly pulling back only the distance of a breath, she allowed a smile to spread across her face as her eyes fluttered open. She watched as Lila’s baby blues came into focus and noted the perfect little circle of surprise formed by her bright red lips. The signs of shock slowly shifted to pleasure, and her heart gave an annoying little twinge of something irrelevant to the scene. She stepped back, her hand lingering only long enough to make sure Lila didn’t topple over, a prospect she considered highly unlikely.
“Goodnight, Lila,” she whispered.
“See you next weekend, Cobie,” Lila murmured as she brought her fingertips to her freshly kissed lips.
Nice touch. She jogged down the stairs with a little added bounce in her step. As she hit the sidewalk, she braced for the onslaught from reporters, silently reminding herself she was supposed to be walking on air right now. She’d just kissed one of the most sought-after women in the Western world. As far as anyone else was concerned, she was a total boss.
Malik swung open the gate and gave her a nod of approval, but she didn’t have time to return it before the press pushed in on her.
“Cobie, Cobie, Cobie.” The voices shouted out from every direction as they gave her only enough space to take two steps. Cameras flashed and snapped from every angle. “Are you dating Lila Wilder. How long have you been together? Was this your first date? Is Lila gay?”
She kept her sly smile plastered across her face while resisting the urge to grit her teeth at the invasion of her privacy and personal space. This better be worth it.
She opened her car door and glanced back up to see Lila still watching her from the top step, her expression of surprise now fully replaced by one of satisfaction. Cobie’s heart gave another little leap, and her smile softened to something more genuine as she fired up the Tesla. She’d done her job, and while she’d have to wait for the official reviews to come in, the initial response seemed positive, at least by the standards everyone had set for the evening.
She and Lila hadn’t killed each other. No one had made any massive gaffes, unless you counted the first kiss, but the press didn’t know about that one. As far as the paparazzi were concerned, she’d just scored the perfect end to the perfect first date, and in a way, she had. They’d both had wildly different goals than she would have had on a real first date, but as far as fake ones went, she’d done pretty well.
As she wound through the streets back to her Times Square hotel, she tried to make sense of her mixed emotions. Part of her remained tense at the multiple sets of headlights following her through the city and at the sense of her privacy slipping away. She’d worked hard to protect herself from the media circus that followed too many of her colleagues. Then again, she’d also worked hard to become a successful actress. The craft of slipping into the heart and mind of another human being was her life’s work, and tonight moved her a step closer to where she wanted to be on her career path.
It had also provided her a new challenge as a performer. She didn’t love putting her personal life on display, but nothing about what she did with Lila would ever really be personal. It may have felt like that a time or two, but those moments had ended badly, or at least awkwardly. Maybe that was a life lesson for her. She always did better playing someone else than playing herself. That’s how she knew she could take on the role of Vale and make it her own, and that’s how she would have to play the part of love-interest to Lila. She would stick to the plan, stay in character, harness everything she’d ever learned about acting, and use every opportunity to simultaneously hone her craft and her image. She’d ended the evening with a huge triumph. All she had to do now was stay the course, and really, it wasn’t like Lila had given her the opportunity to do anything else. It was simply business. As long as she kept it that way, she’d be fine.
Just then the tech system in the car said, “Incoming message from Lila Wilder.”
Cobie touched the button on the dash to read Lila’s response to the kiss. It simply said, “Not bad, but the first one was better.”
• • •
“It’s a full-page spread in Entertainment Herald,” Mimi said excitedly as she climbed back into bed and unfolded the paper.
“Which page?” Stan asked, pulling his reading glasses off his head and onto his nose.
“Front, of course.”
“Of course,” Stan replied as she skimmed the paper.
“What about the websites?”
“People, TMZ, Perez Hilton, they’ve all got the photos. A few of them have video.”
“Same video as last night.”
“Pretty much, though I also saw one that starts a few seconds earlier with Cobie opening the car door for Lila.”
Mimi put a palm over her heart. “She opened the car door for her? What a sweetheart. You know, she might be just what Lila needs.”
“It’s not what Cobie needs. The date looked like they were high school sweethearts, not an edgy, out-lesbian dream team,” Stan groused. “If she throws away her career for some LGBT afterschool special . . .”
Mimi laughed. “Lila hasn’t done anything PG-rated for at least five years. They’ll get to the hot and heavy stuff soon enough.”
Stan’s brow furrowed, and he worried he might need to bump up his next Botox injection. “What’s the paper say?”
“All around It girl, Lila Wilder, was seen out in New York’s Greenwich Village Sunday night with teen movie sensation Cobie Galloway. The two had pizza at a small Italian restaurant. It was noted by patrons, who were kept at a distance, that the two often seemed deeply engrossed in heavy conversations, which led some to speculate they might be planning a joint project. Another patron, however, mentioned that Galloway made Wilder laugh on several occasions.
“The first indication that the pair might be more than business associates or casual acquaintances came during the dessert course, when Galloway reportedly shared some of her dessert with Wilder.
“‘It just felt tense, like there was something more going on,’ said one restaurant employee, who requested to remain anonymous. ‘Cobie fed Lila off her own fork, which doesn’t seem like something you do at a business meeting.’”
Stan scoffed. “Not any sort of legal business anyway.”
Mimi gave him a light slap across the arm. “Focus. Your girl handfed a man-eating lioness. Oh look, there’s a picture.”
Stan pushed his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose and stared at the grainy photo clearly shot through the restaurant’s front window with a super-zoom lens. “Not the best resolution, but they’re leaned in, and the eye contact seems good.”
“And sexy,” Mimi added. “Sweet dessert, shared silverware, lots of focus on lips and tongues.”
“Are you editorializing or writing a romance novel?”
“Maybe both,” Mimi said. “I wonder if Cobie came up with that on her own or if Lila coached her.”
He didn’t care to hazard a guess. The press coverage had been good, and the shock value certainly seemed to play across every story he’d encountered, but something still
felt off to him. Perhaps it was the millions of dollars in movie deals Cobie had just flushed down the toilet. “Keep reading.”
“The pair left the restaurant together and returned to Wilder’s West Village brownstone, where Galloway walked her to the door and put to rest any doubts about the nature of their relationship with a whopper of a goodnight kiss.”
“It says ‘whopper?’ Like the burger?” Stan asked, wrinkling his nose.
Mimi pointed to the word in print. “Right there. And it did look like one hell of a kiss. Play the video again.”
Stan didn’t argue even though they’d both already seen it a hundred times. He clicked the open link on his laptop screen and watched as the camera zoomed in when Cobie pulled Lila to her.
“They really did it.” Mimi’s voice was filled with awe. “Admit it. Aren’t you a little bit proud of her for going all in.”
He wasn’t sure pride was the emotion he felt, but he did have to admit he didn’t just see the shift from a business perspective. Somehow, sometime, Cobie had grown up. She had played last night perfectly, and while he’d always known she had more to her than the simplistic roles she’d played, he also understood the process of transitioning to a different type of stardom would carry a different kind of cost, one he was surprised Cobie had agreed to pay. He worried he might not have made the realities of this risk clear to her. Then again, maybe she was on a mission to make it clear she could handle whatever the industry threw at her.
Mimi reached over and paused the video. “My favorite part is how all the reporters go speechless when Cobie kisses her. It’s like you can almost hear the collective air being sucked out of all of them.”
Stan nodded. He couldn’t deny the drama of that moment, and he couldn’t have staged it better himself.
“What’s your favorite part?” Mimi asked.
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