Falling Into You (7 page)

Maybe that would be my wish and maybe not. And maybe fame would sneak up on me one day. But then again, maybe not.

“I never watched that sh
ow. But she is totally adorable.
”
She nods at me and looks at me curiously.
“So….what made you want to be an actor in the first place?”

I had been talking about myself for almost an hour
,
and there was no opportunity to turn the conversation on her. I start to remedy that, but as I look into
her face,
which is an open invitation, the whole story starts coming out—
the
fact that my parents
are
both in the entertainment business, my lack of desire to attend college,
not knowing
what I wanted to do with my life, and my love of being under the lights, whether it was on stage or in front of a camera.

“Then it sounds
like acting is perfect for you.
You should do the thing you’re most passionate about, no matter what.
” She nods
. “What are you going to do next?”

“I really don’t know. Like I said, I need to look at some scripts while I’m here. Then,
there will be
a round of auditions. I have an agent who calls me pretty much every hour,
so
it’s not like I can choose my projects or anything. I pretty much pick the one with the biggest part that might be a good film.”

We talk
for a long time about some of the scripts I had gotten. I
tell
her about a little indie that would start shooting in
New York in a couple of months. It
had a chance of being something
more than a teen romance
, and although the catering table would probably contain little more than stale peanuts, it might actually be a good movie with the right director and the right cast.
I can’t seem to muster up much enthusiasm about it, and she’s shaking her head.

“You don’t seem that excited about it
.
” She studies me. “It’s not the one you want to do.”

It’s an accurate assessment. I haven’t even wanted to admit it to myself, but a long-winded description of the real movie on my mind,
the big fish,
starts to come
from my mouth
. It’s
a reboot of an action franchise that had made stars of everyone in the cast when it had been released 20 years ago.

The hero was James Ross, a badass CIA agent who shoots first and thinks later. He was iconic—men wanted to be him, women wanted to fuck him. I wanted that role b
adly, but
I knew they would never pick me for it. A couple of the big names in Hollywood, established stars, were already being thrown around. I was probably last on their list.
Not
even on the backup list.

Just as I’m telling her all of this, h
er phone buzzes
, an
d she looks
at me apologetically.

“I have to get this. But I have a feeling that you would kill that audition. I could definitely see you as James Ross.”

I gesture to her phone, and she picks it up and starts to talk.

“No, I’m here. I’ll be there in a minute.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I can’t wait to hear about it, either.
Oh, ok. Then I’ll see you in the morn
ing, because it might take me some time. O
k. Ok.”

She
hangs up
and
shakes
her head at the phone.
“
I’m sorry a
bout that. I
t was completely rude.
But
I really need
to go.
I
t’s
been nice talking to you.
”
She throws some
money on the ta
ble.

“Really nice.” S
he
touches
my hand
for just a second
before she stands up, and e
lectricity flies
up my arm.

It feels like I just got hit with a bolt of lightning. I’m looking into her face to see whether she felt it too, but she’s brushing at her arm and giving me a friendly smile. What was that?

“I don’t even…”

Her words are coming out in a rush, and it’s obvious that she’s trying to get out of here as quickly as possible.
“I’ll be excited to brag to all of my friends that
I met you when we go to see that
movie.
I’ll have to exaggerate, though. Make it sound cooler than it was. You definitely
saved me from falling off the ledge at the party
.
I’ll make you a hero. Then, you chased me to the diner. A real movie star stalker.
”

I look up at her, trying to gauge if she’s serious or not. I catch
her eye
, and she’s fill
ed with laughter and light and it’s obvious that
she’s teasing
. In a
flash, she’s up from the table.
I call out to her.

“How do you know that’s not what actually happened?”

She turns
back
to me and speaks
over her shoulder. “You definitely thought that I was the maid
back there at the party
.
The coat girl.
” She winks at me. “
M
ov
i
e stars aren’t in the habit of chasing after girls that they hand their coats to.”

Shit. Had I really done that? In high school, we had always invited a freshman to stand at the door and take coats or booze. I vaguely remember handing the bottle I’d grabbed from my dad’s
old
stash to someone when I had walked in. I had just assumed…

And just like that, before I could figure out how to
apologize or to
see her again, she was gone. If only she had been wearing heels, she would have been slow enough for me to catch her.
My skin was
still
warm, buzzing with
the still-lingering touch of her fingers
.

I would just look her up the next day, I think. And then it hits me—I don’t even know her name. What kind of a selfish bastard talks to a beautiful girl for hours in a diner and doesn’t even manage to get her name?

All of her questions had been directed at me, and I hadn’t even thought to ask her anything about herself
, where she had come from
, or what her goddamn name was
.
I checked off the things I knew about her—
she
was refreshingly honest, she liked bad movies, and she refused to wear heels
, and last—she had the most incredible eyes
.

I also knew one more thing.
She had done the
impossible—I hadn’t thought about
Sophia
once. Not this whole time.

Point—flip flop girl.

Chapter 5

HALLIE

I shouldn’t have touched him.

Just the pads of my fingers touching his skin had
caused my whole body to flush. Even minutes later, m
y toes weren’t even cold, despite the flakes of snow starting to fall as I darted across the street.
At least I had managed to get the dig
in
abou
t him thinking I was the maid
, even though it had come directly after admitting that I was going to
tell all of my friends that he had
followed me to the diner
.
That clearly wasn’t the case.

Verbal diarrhea was my very worst habit. I never could figure out how to keep my mouth shut. Everything always just came spilling out whether I wanted it to or not.

He
probably
thought I was a total fool. Argh.

When I reach
Sophia
’s building,
I
take a deep breath, look
out o
nce more at the city, and open
the glass door to the lobby.
The doorman eyes me suspiciously, so
I
flash
the key ring that
Sophia
’s father had hande
d to me right before he and Cleo
left for
the Hamptons
.
He nods and moves
out from behind his desk to push
the elevator button.

For a moment, I feel
tota
lly helpless, but
I quickly realize
that it’s
probably just part of his job. Clearly,
there were plenty of people who lived in this building that couldn’t be bothered with little things like pushing elevator butto
ns. I smile and thank him, and he looks
surprised
but gives me a quick
grin
in return
.

“I’m Charles,” he offers, extending his hand.
“29B? The Pearce residence, right?”

He must have seen me with Sophia earlier.
“
You have a really good memory. I’m
Hallie
, and I’ll be here for a few weeks, so it’s nice to meet you, Charles
.
” I take his hand and shake it
before learning in to whisper to him. “
It must get pretty annoying, pushing buttons all day.”

He shakes his head and
smiles
. “
Sometimes, it’s a pleasure.”

“I’ll have to remember
that.” I frown at the elevator
and then glance back at him. “Wish me luck. I’m
jumping back in with the sharks
.”

He raises an eyebrow and gestures towards the empty elevator. “Good luck. I have a feeling that you might need it.”

I
can
hear the music thumping
as I ri
de up.
The door is slightly ajar, and as I slide through
its
opening and close it behind me,
I re
alize
that
Sophia
had been almost entirely accurate in her description of
the party
. A
girl with a bloody nose emerges
from th
e hallway, several people down
shots in the corner, and the
sweet smell
of marijuana is trickling in from the balcony
.
The living room has been turned into a close approximation of the dance floor at a club
,
and it’s filled with people who are
clearly looking
for a hook-up.

For a moment, I think about
join
ing
them.
Once my mother realized that I had developed a habit of falling down at the age of four, she had insisted on dance lessons, which had continued a
ll the way through high school. I wasn’t ever going to be a prima ballerina, but
I was pretty confident that I wouldn’t make a total fool of myself.

Despite my total lack of coordination in basically anything else, d
ancing had always been one of my favorite things.

My body is starting to sway to the rhythm, and it would be easy to let
the music to take everything else away.
That
usually worked.
Just as I’m moving towards the dance floor, I catch a glimpse of a guy pawing at an obviously drunk girl.
It wasn’t worth the trouble, I decide. Even if I wasn’t exactly in the same league as the girls at the party,
I had absolutely no interest in fighting off drunken boys with beer (or hard liquor) goggles on
.

Sophia is dancing with a good-looking boy in the corner, and she catches a glimpse of me and rushes over.

“We need to find someone for you to talk to,” she suggests, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

“
Soph
, I’m headed to bed. I’m tired.” I don’t have the energy to do battle with her, and although she’s disappointed, she nods quickly.

“Next time?”

I smile at her in response, even though my brain says, definitely not.
S
he flits back to her latest conquest.

The first time I had ever heard her say that she was “talking to” someone, I immediately assumed that she had made some sort of deep philosophical connection with the ridiculously hot frat guy that we had met at the Back to School Saints and Sinners party.

“Do you like him?”
I had asked her, getting nothing but a snort in reply.

“I like the fact that he has a car and a room to himself,” she said.
“I don’t like this whole towel on the door thing. Trashy. If I want to fuck someone, I want to at least do it without fear of having someone else catch the show.”