Page 28 of Begrudgingly Yours
Although Jett himself looked downright murderous everytime someone made a critique against me. It’s wild to me that my number one supporter is someone that I thought enjoyed seeing me annoyed. I think I may have been wrong, but that thought in itself is confusing.
My scene partner notices my silence and puts his script down to give me his full attention. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m just thinking about how we probably won’t be practicing together for much longer.”
He rears back. “What?”
“I’m pretty sure Chapman is going to switch me and Nicole’s roles because of how awful I’m being. So, you better be prepared to spend your Saturdays with Regina George.” I shrug, going for nonchalant and joking. The look on Jett’s face tells me that my attempt was poor.
“That would never happen. First off, we’re too far into rehearsals for something like that. And second, nobody in that class—and I literally meannobody—would be able to stand for something like that. The rest of them may be quiet right now because they don’t want to rock the boat, but someone would have something to say about that kind of injustice.”
I scoff. “Yeah, like who?”
“Like me.”
The declaration causes me to gape at him in surprise.
“Look, Nicole is bitter. How and why she became like that, I have no idea, but she’s jealous. You got the role over her and now she’s doing whatever she can to get any kind of make-believe power back. You don’t deserve that.” He gives a heavy sigh and then runs his hands through his hair. “As for Chapman… he’s biased. I don’t know how that happened, either, because what kind ofcreativeperson can think like that…”
He can’t even finish his sentence, the anger evident on his face. For the first time, I wish I could smell him andactually feel the fury it holds. I wish I could actually smell whatever scent he is hiding beneath all the leather.
“And this may be weird to say, but I’m glad he’s biased,” he says, and the statement causes me to give him an incredulous book. He huffs out a laugh. “If he wasn’t, we wouldn’t be doing this together. I wouldn’t get to have this experience with someone who is sofreakishlytalented.”
I feel my cheeks heat up. “Shut up. Be serious.”
Jett meets my gaze and holds it. “I am being serious. I knew our freshman year when we had our first film class together. I thought, ‘this girl is going tobe somebody’ and I felt so incredibly grateful to know you. To see what you can do up close, because I knew one day I’d be able to look at you in a series or trailer and tell everyone that I went to school with that person. And now, I can say I got toactwith you, too? It’s amazing. And what you’re doing with Juliet is amazing, even if our professor is too dimwitted to see it.”
My heart is beating a mile a minute. My omega pushes me to do something, anything, but I ignore her. Now isnotthe time to misread niceties for intimacy.
I swallow, my throat feeling like sandpaper. “Jett, you don’t even like me.”
Jett gives the tiniest sigh that I almost miss. “That’s not true in the slightest, Rory.”
Rory. Not twilight. “It always seemed like you were annoying me on purpose.”
He looks at me, and for the slightest moment I think he glances at my lips but then I blink and his eyes are back on mine. I shake my head at the thought. My omega must really need to get laid if she’s seeing invitations that aren’t there.
“We should get back to work,” I say in a panic as I try to pull out of the moment we’re having. “We have the first kiss scene next week in class, and the weddingscene.”
Jett nods, obliging my need to move forward. “Are you nervous about those scenes?” he asks sincerely.
My eyes widen but I speak as indifferently as I can. “No, not at all. Why would you ask that?”
Jett lets out a playful laugh. “For starters, your eyes are like flying saucers right now. Jeez, did you have too much Cherry Coke today?”
His eyes flash when my gaze flies to him.What did he just say?
“Did you just say Cherry Coke?”
“No,” he lies.
“That’s a very specific thing to say.” I’m mind-blown. How did he know about my favorite drink?
“It just popped into my head,” he responds kind of defensively.
I let out a tiny unbelieving laugh. “That’s such bullshit.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
