Page 335 of How to Kiss a Hawthorne Brother
I jump, a hand flying to my heart, and turn to see Flint standing in the doorway. “Geez, you scared me.”
He’s leaning against the doorframe with an easy confidence I envy. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to.” His tone is warm and friendly, like he doesn’t care at all that he just found me snooping through his house.
I look back at the movie poster. “You wereinthis movie,” I say. “Why would you make a terrible movie?”
He shrugs. “Sometimes you don’t know it isn’t going to work until you’re already in it and it’s too late. Sometimes you just need a paycheck, so you do it anyway.” He moves into the room and stops beside me.
“Which was it with this one?”
“A little bit of both. I was in a bit of a dry spell, and the script seemed promising enough. My agent really wanted me to do it, so I did. But halfway through, I could already sense things weren’t clicking. The chemistry was off, maybe, or…I don’t know. Sometimes you can’t really pinpoint what’s wrong, only that something is. Sure enough, it tanked at the box office and was released for streaming less than two months later.”
“That’s not a good thing?”
He chuckles. “Not this time, it wasn’t.”
I continue my journey around the perimeter of the room, Flint following just behind. The next poster features Flint dressed asa soldier from what I’m guessing is World War II based on the style of his hair and uniform. “What about this one?”
“One of my favorites,” he says. “I won a Golden Globe for that one. Nominated for an Oscar, too. But I didn’t win.”
“Quite a comeback after the last one, then.”
“Something that every film critic felt they needed to point out,” he says dryly.
“I’m sorry you didn’t win the Oscar,” I say, and Flint scoffs.
“Are you kidding? I was up against Matt Damon. I know it’s what everyone says, but it really was just an honor to be nominated with someone like him.”
I wrinkle my brow, hoping the name will jog something in my memory, but I’ve got nothing.
Flint frowns. “You don’t know who Matt Damon is, do you?”
I grimace.
“Good Will Hunting?” he says. “Audrey, come on. It’s one of the greatest movies of all time.”
“I’m sorry!” I say through a laugh, and I really mean it. Could I possibly make myself any less interesting to this man? “Is that one I should watch?Good Will Hunting?”
“I mean, yes,” he says quickly. “Everyone should watch that one. But…” He holds up a finger. “Not yet. I want to be more intentional when it comes to you.”
My heart trips and stutters. He wants to be intentionalfor me?He’s taking this whole movie thing much more seriously than I thought he would.
An image of me and Flint, snuggled up on the butter-soft couch in his living room watching a movie, suddenly pops into my brain, and my cheeks flush with heat.
I spin around, not wanting Flint to see, and press my palms to my cheeks. “What about this one?” I say, motioning to the next poster. “Should I start with this one?”
He’s close to me when he responds, his voice just over my shoulder, and it sends another wave of goosebumps across my neck. “Not this one,” he says, his voice low. “None of these, actually. To convince the woman who doesn’t like movies to like movies? We have to go bigger than anything I’ve ever done.”
It occurs to me that knowing Flint isina movie might make me a lot more interested in sitting down to watch it.
But I’m not about to admit that to him.
I’m not sure I even want to admit it to myself.
I turn around, startling when I realize how close we’re standing. There isn’t six inches of space between us. I’m close enough to touch him—to lift my palm and press it against his chest.
Instead, I tuck my hands behind my back, just in case they get any ideas, and force a deep breath through my nose. “Bigger like what?”
Flint lifts his hands and wraps them around my shoulders, his fingers brushing along the hem of my sleeves. The skin-to-skin contact makes my heart rate spike even more than it already has, and my breath catches in my throat.
