Page 19 of Role Play
Lucy
Islid into the passenger seat of my little Smartcar Fortwo and rolled down the window. Ash stood outside, door flung open, staring at the small space in the driver’s seat. “Here,” he leaned in, handing me a bottle of water he had snagged from Andrea and a brownie from his pocket. “You should drink water and have something toeat.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “A brownie?” Yeah, not sure how much a giant square of sugar and chocolate was going to help soak up thealcohol.
“It’s protein infused… a friend of mine is a health nut and also a baker… he gave it to metoday.”
I unwrapped the cellophane and pinched off a corner, popping it into my mouth. It was… holy God, it was heaven in brownie form. “Wow,” I said, chewing. “This is… this ishealthy?”
Ash shrugged. “Hell if I know.” Still standing outside, eyeing the driver’s seat, he blew out a breath, then hunched over, and climbed behind the wheel. It creaked the whole way as he slid the seat as far back as it would go. “Christ, I had matchboxes as a kid bigger than thisthing.”
His knees framed the wheel, and he stabbed the keys into the ignition, turning the caron.
“If you’re going to complain, I can always call that Uber,” I said. He aimed his scowl directly at me, but I ignored it, grabbing my seatbelt and latching it at myhip.
“Don’t you dare open that app,” he warned. “I cannot believe this tin can on wheels is roadlegal.”
“Don’t you want to save the planet,Ash?”
“Not at the expense of my back.” But beneath that scowl was the smallest, tentative smile. He exhaled a breath through puffed lips, then threaded his fingers through his dark, tussled hair. With strong hands, he adjusted my rearview mirror and his eyes immediately locked on something behind us. In the hatchback section of my car hung three of Uncle Richard’s suits that I had picked up from the dry cleaners as a favor to him. His name was printed large on the receipt stapled to the front hanger, and I cringed as Ash spun around and pointed toit.
“Why do you have Rich’s drycleaning?”
I shrugged, potential lies swimming through my brain. “Part of the shitty grunt work of being a wardrobe assistant,” I answered, but it came out more like a question. “He… ran into me in the halls as I was heading to the dry cleaners and asked if I wouldn’t mind taking a few of his suits as well, since I was goinganyway.”
Ash’s brows dipped, but with a small “huh” sound, he nodded and turned back around. “Not sure why he wouldn’t just have Jasmine bringthem.”
Jasmine! His assistant. Of course, I should have blamed her. Said that she asked for the favor… not Uncle Rich. I mentally smacked myforehead.
“Well… I was going to the dry cleaner anyway.So…”
Ash chuckled. “That lazy bastard,” he said, but it seemed like he was mostly kidding. He backed out of the spot, pulling up to the red light—the entrance into and out of the LnS parkinglot.
I covered my smile with the back of my hand. He looked utterly ridiculous. His knees were up to his chest, his back was hunched, chin and neck jutting forward; he looked like a cartoon character. “Turn right,” I instructed, “then get on the highway. Head toward WestHollywood.”
His mouth curved, and he shook his head giving a snort of laughter. “I have to drive all the way to West Hollywood in this thing?” He sighed. “Man, maybe Ishould’velet you take that Uber.” He grinned, and holy shit, the sight of his smile knocked the breath right out ofme.
This flirting we were doing—it was hot. Tonight was the most action I’d had in two years. God, that was sad.Iwas sad. Could you become a virgin again? Wasn’t that a trendy thing … born again virgins? Yeah, Andrea had warned me of that. That if I wasn’t careful, cobwebs would form and sex would be miserable all over again, just like it was the first time I did it with Duncan at senior gradnight.
This banter back and forth with Ash was far better than any foreplay I’d ever had. Which probably had a lot less to do with Ash and a whole lot more to do with the lame-ass dudes I’d dated in high school andcollege.
The breeze from my open window caught his wavy dark hair, ruffling it in the wind. The moonlight sliced over his face, casting a bluish tint on it and giving him an almost magicalglow.
Ash merged the Smart into the highway traffic seamlessly. Only in LA could there still be this amount of traffic this late on aweekday.
Would it really be so bad? Breaking the fraternization rules?They were meant to protect women and people in lower positions from being taken advantage of… but I didn’t feel that way. I knew my position at the studio didn’t rely on whether or not I hooked up with Ash. Hell, I knew it more than he did. And for the first time in over a year, there was a man paying attention to me that actually made me… excited. For the first time in years, I actuallywantedto pursue someone. With my history? Maybe I shouldn’t ignore thatimpulse.
“You’re staring again,” Ash said, cutting his eyes briefly from the road to look at me. “Not that I mind, ofcourse.”
Shit.I jerked my gaze away, out the window and swallowed hard. “It’s hard not to stare at you,” I answered, honestly.What the hell?Clearly the vodka still had control of my tongue. I didn’t say stuff like that to men.Ever. Ever, ever, ever. Not even when I was dressing up and putting on cute, glittery dresses and heading to sorority parties. This intense connection—it was like a low simmering heat that the more time I spent with Ash, the more achy and hot I grew. “What made you want to be a director instead of an actor?” I asked, in an effort to get my mind off how acutely attracted to him Iwas.
The man could easily be an actor. He looked like a younger, more rugged John Stamos. Why would someone so beautiful choose a life behind thecamera?
He laughed at that, tilting his head to the side. “I thought about acting. I was pretty good at it, too. When I was a freshman in college, one of the assignments was to put together a fake reel. Just as practice. I turned to the guy sitting next to me and asked if he wanted us to help each other—I’d film his, he’d film mine. That guy? It was Jude Fisher. And I enjoyed filming him more than I enjoyed acting in my own reel. I had a knack for the shots. His reel was way better than mine, and I give him shit for it still to this day—it wasn’t because he was a better actor than me, but because I was a better director/cinematographer thanhim.”
“And you’ve been best friends eversince?”
Ash shrugged. “Pretty much. What about you? Why costume design rather thanacting?”
