Page 55 of Fire

Allie nudged her back. “He soooo was.”

See?

“Whatever. Show me the rest of this place then let’s grab lunch. I’m starved.”

They’d decided to eat at the commissary—a cafeteria style café at the heart of the studio—as Allie said it was the place toseeand beseen. Gwen didn’t care about either of those things but since Allie did and Gwen wanted to eat sooner rather than later—she got cranky when hungry—it was settled.

It was past the lunch hour and too soon for the dinner crowd, so the line was thankfully short. It didn’t take long to grab some food and find a seat.

“Can you believe this is going to be my life for the next six months?” Allie gushed while rubbernecking, presumably to catch sight of someone famous.

“You’ll be living in style,” Gwen teased as she gestured to her prepackaged salad with her plastic fork. Granted it was a kick-ass prepackaged salad with all the fixings—but still.

“Hey, you could’ve gone the fattening route.” She indicated the meatball sub with a pinky while licking tomato sauce from the corner of her mouth. “You chose to eat rabbit food.”

True enough. She’d just speared a bite of lettuce when her phone rang. She pulled it from her bag and looked at the screen.

“Blake?” Allie asked before shoving another bite of sandwich in her mouth.

“Yeah.” She pressed accept and brought the phone to her ear. “Hey.”

“I’m at your apartment, and you’re not fucking here. Where are you?”

She pulled the phone from her ear and stared at it like it would explain to her why Blake was angry. What? Did he expect her to sit around waiting on him all day? Like his beck-and-call girl? “I’m out with Allie. Why are you angry?”

She heard his sigh clearly through the phone and a long pause before he said, “I just… I expected you to be here. Sweats and ponytail.”

She could understand that, she had deviated from her norm. But that still didn’t explain his anger.

“I just got back. Drove straight here.” There was another pause. “I wanted to spend the rest of the day with you.”

So, his anger stemmed from disappointment. Was it crazy that knowing that made her stomach dip and flutter? Probably. Instead, she’s the one who should be angry. It had been him who had taken off, ruining their day. But all she could think about was him rushing back to her. Yeah, that was completely crazy.

She must have taken too long to answer because he was asking again, “Where are you?”

“Warner Brothers.”

“The studio?”

He knew Allie was an aspiring actress, but she hadn’t told him the good news. “Yeah, Allie got a recurring role on a TV show, and she was showing me around the set then we stopped for lunch.”

Silence on his end of the line. She decided to be nice instead of antagonizing him further. She threw him a bone to see if he’d bite. “We’re almost done. I can meet you at your place in an hour or so.”

His response was instantaneous. “I’ll wait for you here.”

Not only did he bite the bone, but buried and was guarding it, as well. He would rather sit in his car than go home? What did that mean? “I’ll be there soon.”

“See you then.”

The line went silent and she pulled it from her ear to see he’d disconnected.

Chapter 14

As promised, Blake was waiting for Gwen when she arrived home. He stood leaning against his car, arms folded, eyes tracking her. “Get in.”

Gwen turned to Allie. “Thanks for taking me today. I had fun.”

Allie looked over Gwen’s shoulder at Blake. “Looks like you’re about to have more fun. Man, that guy does broody like no one’s business.”

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