Page 31 of Just Like in the Movies
Micah
My heart up in my throat, I walked back to the house and followed Lew inside. I remembered it like it was yesterday, the same cheerful yellow hallway, the same hardwood floor. Lew’s mom had changed the living room, painted it white instead of green, and everything inside it was screamingly loud primary color that should have been obnoxious but instead made the place seem fun and cheerful.
The kitchen was changed too, white cupboards and dark countertops. Lots of red in here. Lew was setting out the chicken on the old round table in the breakfast nook. “Plates are in the same place,” he told me. “You can get a couple down for us.”
I did as I was told, doing my best to be absolutely perfect with this new leaf I’d turned over. I also grabbed forks and a couple of tall glasses, though I had to hunt for those because they weren’t where they used to be when we were in high school.
“Thank you,” Lew said and took his plate and glass. “You want water or something else? There might be beer in there, but we’ll have to replace it. It’s Dad’s.”
“Water’s fine.” If I was going to eat this chicken, I needed to cut out calories where I could.
While he filled our glasses, I started doling out chicken and spicy fries, setting the cake aside for later. Maybe I could get out of eating that somehow.
Lew came to a dead stop at the end of the table, eyeing our plates. “There’s more than enough for both of us in the box.”
“I know better than to come between you and your chicken,” I joked. He had two large breasts on his plate and a chicken wing, plus fries, while I had a smaller breast and a leg and about half as many fries.
“Were you serious about that ten pounds thing?” he said in a doubtful voice.
“I was, but it doesn’t mean I can’t eat with you,” I said seriously. “I just have to make sure I’m burning off an extra five hundred calories a day.” I looked down at my plate. “Damn you, Grandpa, for making such fantastic chicken.”
He snickered, but he was frowning too. “That can’t be healthy.”
“I have a nutritionist. She’s going to shit kittens when she hears about this.” I picked up the longest fry on my plate and stuck the end of it in my mouth with an ecstatic moan. “Damn. L.A. has nothing on this.” I chewed away happily, thinking the only thing better than this was sex with Lew.
“You aren’t fat,” Lew snapped.
I stopped chewing and swallowed, recognizing the signs of Lew on the rampage. “No, I know that. But the camera really does add ten pounds. And if I get this part, I’ll have my shirt off a lot. Gotta make sure it looks good.” I ran my hand over my chest and my belly and hid my hopeful excitement as his eyes followed the movement.
“What’s the movie?” he asked, finally sitting down.
“The Kentucky Boys is the name. Kind of a bro show, two country boys saving the world. Word is they’re probably going to sign Tam Laydon for one of the brothers and my agent says she can get me an audition for the other one.”
Lew froze with the skin from one of the chicken breasts halfway to his mouth. “He’s omega, isn’t he?”
I nodded. Everyone knew about Tam Laydon, the omega who played entirely against type. “He’s good, though. Really good. Like, should have an Oscar good, if he had the right movie script.” I picked up another fry and put it in my mouth. “I met him at a party one night. Nice guy, but he came with one alpha and went home with two others. Crazy wild. Not at all my type.” I took a drink of water and watched Lew from underneath my eyelids.
“Oh,” Lew said and popped the chicken skin into his mouth.
A little jealous, Lew?If he was, that was good. It meant I hadn’t killed off all the feelings there. But I didn’t want him to feel jealous because that would mean he was worried I was going to dump him again. I wasn’t, but he couldn’t know that. And if I wanted him to be a part of my life in L.A., I needed to make sure to shoot down any worries he had whenever that part of my life came up.
I had to be honest with myself—sometimes I was slow to figure things out. But once you hit me with that two-by-four, the lesson generally stayed with me.
“Someone I think you would like is this guy that works training animals for movies and TV,” I told him. “He mostly works with horses, but he handles smaller animals too. He had this little rodent thing, I think it was a chinchilla? Used to ride on his shoulder all the time. Softest thing I’ve ever touched, but really bossy. You could pat, but you had to pay the Chinchilla Price.”
He smiled and put his chin in his hand. “What was that?”
“Usually food.” I grinned. “Jamie was the guy’s name. He hated when we gave her donuts because she’d get greedy and cranky. But she got so excited over them we couldn’t help ourselves.”
Lew laughed and reached for his chicken again. "I never thought about that part of the business."
"Me neither. I used to think it was just actors and directors and the guys running the equipment, but it's a ton of other people too and some of their jobs are really weird." I picked up my chicken leg and bit into it.
"Huh," Lew said, and took a bite of his breast. The juice from the meat ran down his chin and he laughed and hunched over his plate.
I handed him a napkin and ate some more chicken, mentally calculating the calories I was going to have to work off after this.
We talked casually about our lives for the rest of lunch, nothing too stressful, and stayed well away from anything to do with our futures, either together or apart. By the time we'd finished the bread pudding, it had started to feel like old times. We cleaned up the table and put the left-over chicken in the fridge for later snacking. I was trying to figure out if I could find a way to extend the visit, when Lew put a cautious hand on my arm and said, "They're doing a movie marathon of Maddie's shows today on one of the channels. Want to watch a few? I'll have to grab a nap later, though—my schedule is switching to nights tonight."
