Page 20 of How to Kiss a Movie Star
“I’m not hiding fromyou,” she says, like that’s the most absurd thing she’s ever heard. “I’m hiding from the squirrels.”
“Oh, right. The squirrels.” Her expression is so serious, I hate to keep smiling. But this woman clearly has no idea how adorable she looks with leaves sewn onto her hat. Ican’ttake her seriously. Not really. I scratch my jaw. “Tell me again why the squirrels at your house aren’t good enough. Why is it you have to risk going to jail to see the squirrels over here?”
She winces the slightest bit when I say jail, but she quickly regains her composure. “The squirrels at my house are just regular eastern gray squirrels,” she says, her words measured and slow like she’s trying to explain trigonometry to a six-year-old. Or maybe like I’m a guy who just doesn’t understand squirrels. “But the squirrels over here are white.” She takes her hat off and tucks it under her arm while she pulls out her ponytail and shakes out her hair. It’s long—longer than I expect—cascading over her shoulders in dark waves.
I swallow.Focus on the squirrels, man. Squirrels.
I clear my throat. “I remember you mentioning that. But why does that matter? Are they albino?”
She shakes her head as she regathers her ponytail, talking around the hairband she’s holding with her teeth. “It’s called leucism.” She pauses long enough to grab the hairband and secure it. “It’s a condition characterized by reduced pigmentation linked to a recessive allele. You can tell them from albino squirrels because they still have dark eyes and skin. Just white fur.”
I study Audrey closely, noting the way her eyes brighten as she talks. Her posture is confident, her tone steady, her words punctuated with an air of certainty. I’m positive, even just from those few sentences, there isn’t anything I could ask about squirrels, probably about these woods in general, that she wouldn’t know. It’s a weird thought, considering she’s dressed like a bushandshe’s trespassing on my land, but her confidence, her knowledge—it’s kinda sexy.
I take a step toward her, but she immediately steps backward, and I lose the ground I gained.
Okay.Sexy and still entirely uninterested.
If onlyIhad white hair and a little brown nose.
“I think I saw one of those the other day,” I say.
If Nate were listening, he would not be happy. Mentioning the squirrels I saw outside my kitchen window is only going to make Audrey want to see them. And that’s going to make her ask me if shecan,and then I’m going to have to say yes. Becauseof courseI’m saying yes.
Her expression visibly brightens. “Just one? Or more than one? Where? Were you near your house?”
I chuckle at her enthusiasm. “There were two. And I wasinmy house. They were on the lawn beside the pool.”
“That’s the first time you’ve seen them?” she asks.
“First time. Though it’s possible I saw them and just didn’t notice until you showed up and told me it was a big deal.”
“Right. That makes sense.” She lifts a hand to the back of her neck, her eyes glazing over the same way Brody’s do when he’s doing high-level math in his head. “There were two of them?” she finally asks.
I nod, and she moves her hand from her neck to her forehead, her expression disbelieving. “Two. That’s—that means this isn’t just a fluke but an actual migratory event.”
“Slow down, Dr. Doolittle.”
She looks up, meeting my gaze, and I grin. Her eyes are so incredibly blue, it’s really hard not to stare.
“How about you try again in English?” I say gently.
A slight blush tints her cheeks, but she nods like this is something she’s been asked before. She’s used to communicating with people who aren’t as smart as she is. “For over a century, white squirrels have only been native to a very small part of Western North Carolina. But now, apparently, they live in other places, too. The population is growing—moving.”
I move over to the four-wheeler and pull a water bottle off the back. I screw off the top and offer her a drink, but she declines, picking up a straw that’s connected to the shoulder of her backpack. “I have a Camelbak,” she says.
Of course she does.
I have a feeling she could live out here for days and probably be just fine, living on the land, mapping her location using her shoestrings and the clouds overhead. I take a long swig of water. “You said something about your PhD the last time you were here. You’re a scientist?”
“Wildlife biologist,” she says. “I wrote my dissertation for my PhD on the migratory patterns of the class Sciuridae as a result of urbanization and suburban sprawl, so the fact that these squirrels are moving—it’s incredibly relevant to my research. You have no idea how thrilling it is to discover it happening.”
Okay.Her brains aredefinitelysexy. Nokindaabout it.
Audrey studies me for a long moment before she steps forward, her expression pleading. “Look, I know I’m trespassing. But I swear I’m only here for the squirrels. Can you just…” She bites her lip, and I’m momentarily distracted by the way her teeth press into her skin.
I prop my hands on my hips. “What, give you permission?”
She nods. “Obviously, I wouldn’t go near your house. Or, at least notin it.If you saw them by the pool, they’re probably nesting nearby, which means I’d have to get close enough to take pictures. And I’d need to find their nest. See if I can date it and determine how long they’ve been living there.”
