I narrow my gaze on her. “So, you’re saying you know Ramon is a manwhore—” I wave my hand in an air circle. “And you want some of that action.”
She nods, a glint in her eye I’ve never seen before. “Uh huh.”
My mouth drops open. “You can’t be serious.”
Sally grips the edge of the swing with both hands. She pitches her voice so low, I have to lean forward to hear. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been?”
I blink three times. “Um…” We don’t often talk about sex. I figured it’s because neither one of us has had much of it.
“Do you know how many guys are in the early learning master’s program at the University of Oklahoma?”
“Um…”
“None. None, Iris. Not one.” She shakes her head. “And there’s just one male professor, and he’s like eighty!”
She gives me a scandalized look like this is the most egregious injustice she’s ever encountered. “It’s been two years, Iris! Two years!”
I bite my lip and say nothing. Because it’s been longer than that for me, and I’m only now starting to feel concerned about that. But the last two times—which were also the first two times—were so very bad, I have never wanted a repeat performance.
Clearly, Sally—my dear, sweet, innocent little Sally—has not had the same experience.
She sticks out her finger and points it toward the house. “I don’t care if that tall, toned, tribute to manscaping just wants me for my body,” she says, looking crazed. “I’m twenty-two! Someone should, don’t ya think?”
I’m too shocked—and a little afraid—to answer.
A sudden frown overtakes her expression. “I mean, I like him, too. As a person, I mean,” she says quickly. “It’s not like I just want his body or I’d be using him. I love spending time with him. And he’s sweet and funny and smart, but ohmygod, I just want to climb him like a jungle gym!”
I squeeze my eyes shut and cover my ears. “Make it stop. Make it stop.”
Through the shield of my hands I hear her giggling. “Okay. I’ll stop—”
I drop my hands and open my eyes.
“On one condition,” she adds with a calculating grin.
I give her a sour look. “What?”
She straightens up, her face sobering. “Okay, I want to be clear about this. I’m not asking your permission. Neither is Ramon,” she says, very businesslike. “But I am going to ask that you stop interfering. We’re big boys and girls and we can totally take care of ourselves.”
I press my lips together because this is a big ask. They’re my best friends.
Sally cocks her head to the side and gives me a meaningful glare. “Big boys and girls who want to take each other’s clothes off and—”
I shoot out of my chair “Alright! Fine! I won’t interfere. I don’t even want to know.”
She throws her head back and laughs at my squeamishness. I ignore her and pick up our empty bottles. Mica scrambles up and flanks me as all of us head inside. I lock the door behind us and switch off the porch lights.
“You’ll be okay by yourself for the weekend?” Sally asks, real concern in her voice.
I wave a dismissive hand. “Pfft. I’ll be fine.” I have no idea what I’ll do, but I’ll figure it out. “Besides, I have Mica.”
My faithful dog looks up at me, and I stroke his lovely head. “Right, boy?” I ask as we turn into the living room.
Then I stop cold.
Ramon is standing in the middle of the room, eyes on Sally. She freezes next to me.
One corner of his mouth lifts in a carnivorous smile. “I want you too.”
For a second, she just stands there, and I’m sure she’s about to melt into a mortified puddle, but then my best friend shocks me once again and launches herself at him, squealing.
Ramon catches her, and her legs lock around his waist like they’re in a movie, and before I know it, I’m watching my best friends kiss each other.
“Aaaaah!” I scream. Mica barks. And then I’m tearing from the room, Mica at my heels. “Save it for New Orleans!”
I slam my bedroom door on the sound of their laughter, reassuring myself that I’m not jealous of what they have.
Not jealous at all.
On Friday, there’s a knock on my trailer door during our abbreviated lunch break, and my heart sinks. Sally and Ramon just left to run home and walk Mica, so I know it’s not them. I look down at my barely touched cantaloupe and cottage cheese with real longing. We were on set at five a.m. for a daybreak scene featuring Raven Blackwell and a vampire vanquished by the dawn light.
So far, I’ve only had time for bulletproof coffee today. I’m. Starved.
The knocking becomes pounding. “Open up,” Moira shouts.
Hell, yes, I keep my trailer door locked. For exactly this reason. Who needs Moira barging in while I’m changing? Or using the bathroom?
Or eating?
“Coming,” I call before shoveling a heaping spoonful of cottage cheese in my mouth. I force it down just as I unlock the door.
Moira steps inside, spots the lunch on my tiny table, and waves her hand at it. “You haven’t had more than two servings of fruit today, have you?”
I shake my head. “I haven’t even had one.”
She gives me a narrow-eyed glare. “Iris, what do you call that?” She points at the cantaloupe.
“A serving I haven’t eaten yet,” I say, unable to stifle the snark, but even as I say the words, I think about the strawberries and grapes I ate last night at dance class—courtesy of Beau Landry. Moira would have flipped over the grapes. Too much sugar.
Maybe I should skip the melon today.
She shakes her head like this conversation is beneath her. “I didn’t come to talk about fruit.” She crosses the trailer and collapses on the couch like she’s exhausted.
“I think you’re missing an opportunity,” she announces.
I blink. “What do you mean?”
She tsks, looking at me like I’m slow. “With Jonathan, of course.”
I screw up my face. “The director?”
“Don’t make that face, Iris,” she hisses. “You’ll have lines between your brows before you’re thirty and you can forget about landing roles like this one.”
I make my face go blank. Thank God for acting classes. I can completely change my expression with almost no warning.
“And, of course, I mean Jonathan Reynolds.” She throws her hands out and looks from left to right. “What other Jonathan do you know?”
I ignore this jab. “What do you mean? Missing an opportunity?”
“You don’t pay attention to him,” she accuses.
My spine straightens and my stomach knots. I go over the last four weeks in my mind, thinking of every exchange, every cue, every instruction I’ve gotten from my director. As far as directors go, Jonathan isn’t bad. He’s patient. He gives clear expectations, and he’s open to artistic interpretation. Most of the time.
I might not agree with all of his calls, especially with the way he thinks Raven Blackwell should deliver some of her lines, but I’ve done everything he’s asked of me the way he’s asked. And the one time he shot down one of my suggestions, it was no big deal. I totally respected his call.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Moira. I think we have a good rapport—”
She puts up her hands to silence me, and I stop talking.
“Yes. Yes. That’s all fine. In fact, that’s what I’m trying to say. You get along great,” she says, her eyes widening. “I think you should make the most of that.”
I frown. “O...kay?”
She stares at me with a loaded look. Silence descends.
I stare back. My stomach growls.
Moira rolls her eyes at the ceiling and gives an exasperated huff. “You should be nice to him. Flirt a little.”
“What?!”
Moira has never—ever—suggested I flirt with anyone.
She gives
a little shrug. “He’s single. You’re single.”
I gape at her for a second. “So?”
She looks at me with something between a smile and a sneer. “His star is rising, especially with the studio. It wouldn’t be such a bad thing for the two of you to be seen together.”
“Seen together? Like out? On a date?”
“Well, what else?”
“But, I’m not…” I pause and debate whether or not to keep going, but it seems relevant. “I’m not attracted to him.”
“Pfft.” She waves her hand like this is trivial. “I’m not telling you to marry him. I’m telling you to flirt. Go out on a few dates. Preferably in public, and if someone snaps a picture of you holding hands or kissing, so much the better.”
My eyebrows climb halfway up my forehead. “I-I-I realize he’s at a good point in his career, Moira, but what would that possibly—”
She cocks her head at a surly angle. “The last candid anyone tagged you in was a picture of you, Ramon, and your friend eating subways on a park bench.”
“They were poboys,” I correct.
Moria scowls. “Beneath it was the caption, ‘which one is Raven ravishing?’”
“The poboy!” As soon as I make the joke, I regret it. Moira’s scowl becomes a glower.
“And before that, the only pictures you were tagged in were on that awful hiking trip when you looked like a hippy.”
It was just two, and the pictures weren’t so bad. I favorited a couple of me and Sally that some Dartmouth students snapped of us outside of Hanover right at the end of our trek.
“A lesbian hippy,” Moira adds with venom.
Instead of calling out her homophobia, I bite my tongue, and maybe that makes me a coward, but I don’t need a fight right now. I still have a few minutes before we get back on set. Maybe even enough time to eat more lunch.
I glance at the perfect coral cubes of melon on my plate. Maybe I could just eat half of them.
“So, we’re agreed?”
I snap my focus back to Moira. What are we talking about? “Agreed?”
It’s a question, but Moira nods as though it’s my response.
“Good,” she says, smiling. “At least we can count on your looks. I’ll help where I can. If he asks you out, say yes.”
Then she’s gone as fast as she came, slamming the trailer door behind her.
And I’m left standing over a lunch I no longer want, realizing that I’ve just agreed to make a pass at my boss.
“He says he’s good,” Ramon announces as I climb into the back of the Range Rover. I collapse against the seat and stifle a groan.
Despite our early call time this morning, filming ran over, and I’m almost an hour late for dance lessons. At our last break, I told Ramon to text Beau Landry to see if we needed to reschedule. Knowing the guy has been pretty much forced into teaching me, I figured he’d seize the opportunity to cancel. Especially on a Friday night.
And then I could go home, eat dinner, and take a bath. And contemplate my solo weekend in the comfort of my pjs.
But, no. He says he’s good.
I slump lower on the seat as Ramon steers us past the studio barricades and onto the street. I. Do. Not. Feel. Like. Dancing. I never feel like dancing, but especially not tonight. I’m exhausted. I’m starving. And my seven-thirty dinner curfew is rapidly approaching.
But if I caved to those excuses, I’d never go to dance lessons, and I’d never learn these stupid routines. And I’m making progress. Sort of.
The ride to the dance studio is just minutes, definitely not enough time for me to perk up. I do sip a Perrier in the hopes that hydration and carbonation will give me a little lift, but when we pull up behind the old house, I’m still just as crabby and just as hungry.
Ramon and Sally hop out of the car, and I take my time climbing down, dragging ass across the gravel drive as my two best friends laugh and make eyes at each other.
At least I won’t have to put up with that all weekend, I tell myself.
Yeah, but you’ll be alone, I clap back.
I’m making myself nice and cozy in my mood chasm when I stomp into the studio’s kitchen and stop dead.
Beau Landry is standing at Mr. Hebert’s table, placing sliced apples on a tray. A tray that is laden with food.
Apples. A bowl of almonds. Giant Medjool dates. Kalamata olives. Pickled okra. Thick slabs of cheese. And some kind of little meatballs.
My stomach rumbles at the sight of it.
“Hey,” Beau greets us with a nod. “There’s food if anyone’s hungry.”
My jaw drops. Holy cow. My dance teacher made us a charcuterie board.
“Oh my God,” I murmur, mouth watering.
It hits me then that he’s had a little snack out on the table every night. Berries. Nuts. Kale chips. But nothing like this.
“Oh my God,” I say again, meaning something else entirely.
Beau doesn’t smile, but there’s something open about his expression. Something watchful. He aims this watchful stare at me. “Help yourselves,” he says, pointing to the little meatballs. “Make sure to try the boudin.”
Chapter Twelve
IRIS
It’s all I can do not to fall on the food.
And since tripping is always a possibility, I take one, small step toward the table and stop. “You—you really didn’t have to do that,” I say.
He lifts one sculpted shoulder in a shrug. He’s wearing a dress shirt again, but his sleeves are rolled up, a distracting combination of buttoned-up professionalism and masculine ease. My eye does a quick connect-the-dots from his crisp open collar and sun-browned neck to the cuffed sleeves that reveal his equally golden forearms and wrists. Defined muscles and tendons shift under every inch of exposed skin.
“When Ramon texted to say you’d be late, I knew I wanted a bite to eat, and I figured y’all could use one too, so I stopped at Champagne’s.” He gestures to the spread again. “Dig in. I should probably offer the movie star a plate and fork, but—”
“I don’t need a plate and fork,” I level, bristling a little at the movie star thing. First of all, I’m not. Not yet. My IMDB page has fewer words than a fortune cookie. Secondly, I’m no snob. And it’s suddenly important that he doesn’t consider me one.
To prove it, I reach forward and take a slice of apple and a piece of cheese. I stack them together, take a hearty bite, and close my eyes. Mmm.
Ramon steps up to the table, Sally at his heels. He nods toward the tray. “What’s boudin?”
As though he’s been awaiting the question, Beau grins for the first time since we arrived. It’s so gorgeous, I inhale a little apple. And then I cough and splutter for a few seconds.
I can see the headline now. Death by Charcuterie: B-List Actress Bites It in the Bayou.
Beau turns to me, the rare grin disappearing. “Need some water?”
I shake my head, forcing myself to recover. “I’m good,” I rasp. And then because I’m embarrassed, and don’t want everyone—especially Beau—staring at me, I point to the food. “Boudin?”
“Boudin,” Beau picks up one of the meaty balls and holds it out for us, “is Cajun crack. Are you brave enough to try it before I tell you what it’s made of?”
He quirks a brow at me, and I feel it like a challenge. Then he pops the ball into his mouth.
I’m no chicken. I’m not afraid to try adventurous cuisine, but I don’t do bugs or gonads.
I narrow my eyes. “There not, like, Rocky Mountain oysters, are they?”
Beau swallows, wrinkling his nose. “God, no.”
I want to try one, but more than that, I want to show him I’m game. I pick up one of the balls. It’s softer than I expect and warm. Like it just came out of the oven. Up close, I can see a confetti of rice and spices peppered throughout the morsel.
It smells like Sunday dinner. A savory, down-home aroma.
I bite into the boudin, and layers of flavor roll over my tongue. Salt, spice, ri
ch meatiness, and a hint of cayenne. The flavors expand to include sweet onion and an almost earthy marrow.
I close my eyes because I haven’t had anything so rich in ages. Californians don’t eat food like this. Nothing so unapologetically greasy and, well, carnivorous.
“Mmm.” I moan, opening my eyes to find Beau watching me, his gaze focused.
The stuff is so good, I want to lick my fingers, but I resist the urge. As though he senses my need, Beau steps away and returns with a paper towel for each of us.
“Good,” I mutter and then nod. “Okay. I’m ready. Tell me what I just ate.”
His grin returns with what I think is a hint of admiration. “Nothing too terrible. At least not these days.” He picks up another piece. “Like most sausage, boudin used to be the Cajun way of making use of all of the scraps after a boucherie.”
“Boucherie?” I echo with a smile, liking the sound of the word.
He grins. “A butchering.”
My smile vanishes.
Beau chuckles. “Anyway, boudin was the way to make sure nothing was wasted. Not the heart, or the liver, or intestines.” Still grinning, Beau pops the piece he’s still holding into his mouth.
My eyes go round, and I look at the remaining boudin and then back at him. “I just ate intestines?” I’d like to say I sound stalwart about it, but my words seem a bit hollowed out.
Beau shakes his head, a soft smile touching his mouth. “No. You can still find it like that in a lot of places, made in links with a traditional sausage casing—” he drops his voice to a stage whisper, “pig intestines—but most places sell it in synthetic casing, which is made of collagen.”
I’m relieved. Mostly.
He gestures to the tray. “But these are boudin balls. No casing. Just the filling.” Then he shrugs. “And that’s just pork, rice dressing, vegetables, and spices.”
Now I’m totally relieved. “That’s all?” I reach for another boudin ball, and Ramon and Sally do the same. The three of us hum our appreciation.
“Mmm. I could get used to this,” Ramon mutters, reaching for another.
So could I, and that’s a dangerous thought. Boudin is definitely calorie dense. I reach for an okra pod instead. Five minutes later, I make myself step back from the table. I could keep eating—boy, could I—but I’m no longer crazed with hunger.
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