Extreme Bachelor (6 page)

“Because he’s a serial
dater. A
luuuv-ah
,” she added dramatically, making full use of her
lips.

“When’s he coming?” Trudy
asked. “I want to see this
luuuv-ah
.”

“Later is all I heard,” Michele shrugged.
“But I’ll get some intel this afternoon,” she added with a wink. “I
promised Katherine Hepburn over there that I would run lines with
her.”

The four of them glanced at the Serious
Actress who they had dubbed Katherine Hepburn, based on her
intensity (extreme) and the fact that she studied her script all
the time.

“Ladies,
please
split up into
your armies,” Eli was begging. “East on the left, West on the
right.”

“Dodgeball, yes!” Leah said with a fist
pump. “I love dodgeball.”

“How can you love dodgeball? The last time I
played it was the fifth grade,” Trudy said, staring at Leah through
her humongous black sunglasses.

“Will you please take those off?” Leah
demanded, pointing at Trudy’s shades.

Trudy pushed them up on the top of her head
and smiled. “Let’s decide who we are going to take out first. A
Serious Actress or a Starlet?”

“Tamara,” Leah said instantly. “If she’s
even playing. She’s probably got an allergy to rubber.”

“Oooh, you’re so snarky. I love that about
you,” Trudy said, and linking arms with Leah, Yin and Yang, and
Michele and Jamie went off to the left to play dodgeball.

They lined up to wait for some instruction,
and when the guys finally got them to all stop chattering like a
group of mutant magpies, the song “Like a Virgin” began ringing on
someone’s cell phone.

“Now come on, you guys,”
Cooper cried. He looked close to losing it completely. “We
just
had a chat about
this. No cell phones.”

“Sorry,” a brunette called out, but she took
the call anyway.

“Okay, attention, everyone,” Cooper went on,
with a glare for the brunette who held both hands up around her
mouth and the cell phone, “I think we all know the game of
dodgeball.” Eli walked over to a cage and began to toss red rubber
balls to Cooper, which he placed on either side of the center line.
“Why are we playing dodgeball?” he asked as he laid out the red
balls. “Because we’re filming it, and we’re going to use your
movements to craft some of the animation we’ll add to the battle
scenes.”

Everyone instantly looked around for
cameras, and spotted one above them, the other at the far end of
the gym.

“We play six on a side,”
Cooper continued. “When I blow the whistle, each team retrieves
three balls. If you’re hit, you cycle out, and the next person on
your team cycles in. You can eliminate a player in two ways—either
hit her with the ball, or catch her ball before it hits the ground.
Aim for the body, not the head. Anyone aiming for the head will be
eliminated from the game and may even lose a job, okay? Everyone
get that? Safety first, ladies. Remember that—
safety first
.”

He paused, put his hands on his hips, and
looked at each team. “If you are taken out of the game, walk over
there,” he said, pointing to the bleachers. “And sit down. Don’t
talk. Don’t get out your cell phone. Don’t get out your nail
polish. No stopping to redo your hair like the incident we had
yesterday,” he said, looking pointedly at a Starlet who batted eyes
at him. “These games go pretty fast, and we’re going to play a
bunch of them until we have each side working together as a team
and get enough film to give the animators. But the whole point of
this exercise is to work as a unit.”

His speech was getting a little long, Leah
noticed. Several whispered conversations had begun.

Cooper seemed to know it, too, because he
clenched his jaw, then pointed at a Starlet on Leah’s team who
rarely spoke. “You,” he said sternly. “You are the leader for this
team.” He turned to the other team and pointed to Beth, a Serious
Actress who’d been mad at Leah since they ran lines and Leah had
snickered at Beth’s overwrought, over-the-top performance of a mom
out of valium. Well hell, she’d thought Beth had been kidding.

“You’re the leader for this team, all
right?” Cooper said.

Beth nodded and glared at Leah, who glared
right back.

“Okay,” Cooper said. “Talk about who you
want to target. Talk to each other on the line. Listen to your team
leader and just try and communicate.”

He and Eli made sure that the teams were
lined up properly, then stepped out of the way. Cooper raised his
arm. “Ready? Game on.”

There was a mad scramble for the balls lying
on the center line. One of the Serious Actresses on the other side
immediately hurled a dodge ball that hit a Starlet on the leg.
“Out!” she screeched.

“Hey!” the Starlet cried, rubbing her thigh.
“That’s not fair!”

But apparently it was fair, because the team
across from Leah was suddenly and gleefully hurling their balls,
accompanied with triumphant shrieks that were lost only in the
shrieks of those who were hit.

The quiet Starlet appointed to head Leah’s
team turned out to be a Commando Starlet, screeching at everyone to
pick up their feet and move. Leah was vaguely aware of Trudy
getting hit behind her when she cried, “Shit! I just had these
nails done!” But Leah was moving. She really did love dodgeball,
and it was all coming back to her—how to leap to avoid being hit,
how to throw on the run, how to stoop to catch a ball.

She nailed Katherine
Hepburn on her first throw—that one gasped and looked confused and
hurt before slinking off. Leah aimed for Beth with her second
throw, just missing her. As she scrambled to pick up more balls,
the Commando Starlet shouted at her to
shift left
,
shift left
, then rushed the line,
hurling her ball like a missile at Tamara.

Tamara dodged it, which
floored Leah, but then she sang out an uncharacteristic
nanner-nanner
at the
Starlet, and therefore missed the red rocket coming at her from the
other end of the line. A huge cheer went up from both sides when
Tamara took one in the ass.

Within fifteen minutes, there were only
three left on each side, and Leah was one of them. She could hear
Trudy, Jamie, and Michele shouting at her from the bleachers to
stay low. Leah, the Commando Starlet, and a Serious Actress huddled
together, ready to leap in opposite directions.

At least that was what the Commando was
telling them to do, but Leah wasn’t listening—she wanted to take
Beth down. Beth had been aiming at Leah since the start of the
game, firing off heated missiles like she wanted to see her dead.
Leah had to keep racing up and down and diving behind her teammates
to avoid being hit.

When Beth picked up two balls and threw them
in rapid succession at their little group, Leah seized the
opportunity to run down the line, trying to catch a ball as she
went. But as she neared the entrance to the basketball court, she
caught a glimpse of Jack and another guy standing just inside the
door, watching the game. It was only a fraction of a second, but in
that teeny tiny moment, Leah thought she’d seen a ghost.

It was enough to take her mind off the game
and long enough for Beth to hurl a ball at her. And the ball did
indeed find purchase—more like a two-fer sale, actually, because
the ball glanced off her shoulder and then hit her in the temple.
It didn’t hurt at all, but it surprised her, and her feet got
tangled, and down Leah went, somehow ending up on her back.

Leah was aware of the shrill protests and
boos being bellowed from her teammates, but the fall had knocked
the wind out of her, and she laid there, her eyes closed, trying to
get her breath back, frantically wondering if she’d really seen a
ghost or if he was real.

“Okay, this is what I’m talking about. Your
team leader said go right, and you went left.” That was Cooper’s
voice, and presumably, Cooper’s hand on her forehead. “You gotta
work like a team out there and listen to your leader, okay?
Anything broken or sprained?”

Only her pride. Leah shook her head.

“Are you all right, kiddo?”

She recognized Eli’s voice. “Yes,” she
sighed, and opened her eyes and pushed herself up on her
elbows.

Jack’s face was looming above hers,
squinting with concern as he touched her hairline and her temple.
“Think we ought to call the nurse?”

“No, no, don’t call a nurse,” she said
quickly, mortified by the suggestion. “I’m fine. I just had the
wind knocked out of me.” She tried to get up.

“Don’t move too fast,” Jack cautioned
her.

“I’m
fine
. I’m more embarrassed than
anything else—who gets hurt playing dodgeball, for
Chrissakes?”

“Good question,” Jack said.

Someone’s cell phone rang. “Hey. No cell
phones!” Eli shouted. “This isn’t a break. Beth, you sit down over
there.”

Leah groaned. “Let me up, will you?”

Jack moved back, and that was when her ghost
came into full view. He was down on his haunches at her feet, his
face as handsome as ever, his expression every bit as stunned as
she felt. He stared at her hard, as if he couldn’t quite make her
out, and then asked incredulously, “Leah Kleinschmidt? Is that
really you?”

“Kleinschmidt
?” someone
echoed.

“Oh. My. God,” she said, squeezed her eyes
shut, and wished she’d been knocked out cold.

IT was no nightmare, unfortunately, because
when Leah opened her eyes again, Michael had come closer. Cooper
helped her up and sandwiched her between Michael and himself so
they could walk her over to the bleachers and check her over.

As if the whole scene wasn’t bone-jarring
enough, Trudy’s frowning head popped up over Cooper’s like a
jack-in-the-box. “Hey, are you all right?” she asked.

“I’m fine, I’m
fine
!” Leah said,
jerking back from Michael’s peering at her head. “This is so
stupid. I just tripped and embarrassed the hell out of myself, but
that’s it,” she insisted, swatting Cooper’s hand away from her
jaw.

“Actually, it looked like you stopped and
then tripped,” Trudy clarified. “Right over your own two feet.”

Leah wished someone would just shoot her
now. “Thanks, Trudy.”

“You know, someone ought to do something
about her,” Trudy said, tapping Cooper’s shoulder with her finger
and pointing to Beth. “That chick was aiming for Leah’s head.”

“We’ll take care of it,” Cooper said. “You
can go back to your army now. We’re going to start another game in
a minute.”

“You better take care of it, pal, or you’re
going to have a mutiny on your hands. They’re already talking about
it,” she whispered, nodding fiercely in the direction of some of
the Starlets. “Do you want me to stay?” Trudy asked Leah.

“No. I’m fine.” Leah smiled brightly to
prove it, but she wasn’t fine, how could she be fine? She felt
absolutely ill. A rush of old and long-buried feelings were gushing
up and drowning her—hurt, anger, humiliation, to name a few.

Trudy shrugged, handed her a bottle of water
before reminding Cooper to do something about that chick, and then
disappeared behind him again.

Leah didn’t want water,
she wanted a giant shot of tequila and a single minute with no
noise, no one asking her how she was, just so she could think,
because her mind was whirling hard and fast around the unbelievable
coincidence that after all these years, Michael Raney would show
up
here
, on this
studio lot, of all the places in the universe.

It was so unreal that she glanced at him
again out of the corner of her eye. His expression was full of
concern, and he put a hand on the small of her back the way he used
to do a hundred million years ago when they were together and he’d
lean over to tell her something.

What made the whole scene outrageously bad
was that while she probably had a huge welt on her head where she’d
hit the floor, and was wearing gym shorts and a T-shirt and no
makeup, he looked so damn good. He still had that sexy thick,
collar-length black hair and penny-colored eyes. And he was nicely
tanned, too, with little lines fanning out from the corners of his
eyes. To top it all off, he had a dark stubble of beard.

That stubble had always been her
undoing.

Dammit, had he always been so gorgeous? His
lips that full? His jaw that square? This sexy? Her mind suddenly
flashed back to a night he’d gone down on her with that stubble . .
.

She couldn’t look at him. She glanced at the
bottle of water Trudy had given her and pretended to read the label
so he wouldn’t know it was official—that seeing him again after all
these years had knocked her completely off her axis. She was
spinning off into the universe without a net.

God, she was so
unprepared. So self-conscious. The weird thing was, Leah couldn’t
even count how many times during the years she thought she’d seen
him—the way some guy would get in his car would make her think it
was him, or she’d see the back of a man on the street ahead of her
and know it was him. Worse, there were times she’d fantasize about
seeing him again, but in her fantasies, she was gorgeous and skinny
and fabulously successful and— here was the important part—always
with another guy. That was really key to the casual encounter with
an ex— she had to at least
appear
to be way better off without him. At that moment,
she’d have given her life to appear to be better off without
him.