Page 18 of Doc Hollywood

“Shall we eat in the kitchen? Or do you want to eat in front of the TV?” He glanced into the living room.

Clara was slow to follow him as she tried to get her heart rate and breathing back under control. “Whichever you want,” she called after him, giving herself another moment to calm her flaming cheeks.

She entered her living room to find him setting up a feast on her coffee table.

“I didn’t know what you liked, so I grabbed some Thai, Chinese, Indian, and Italian. I hope that’s okay?” He laid out container after container of food, removing lids and arranging things to his liking. “Can you grab plates and some cutlery?”

“Sure.”

Clara paused in the doorway and stared at the movie star pottering around her living room. She then debated getting a jumper to cover up the pyjamas but dismissed it, as the worst had already been done.

She was collecting plates and sorting out drinks when Taylor appeared in the doorway with four tubs of ice cream in his hands, all from different brands.

“I didn’t know what you’d like, so I hedged my bets.” He strode over to her freezer and opened it.

Clara hoped he didn’t comment on her lack of food in the freezer, but thankfully, he said nothing, deposited the ice cream, and then headed back across to help her.

“I can offer you water, tea or coffee. Sorry, I don’t have much in the house.” She flushed in embarrassment at the meagre supplies she had.

“Water’s fine.” He picked up the glass she offered and headed back to the living room, sitting down in the armchair next to Clara’s sofa.

They spent a few minutes in silence loading up their plates with food and, in Clara’s case, trying to stop herself from inhaling the delicious-smelling meal at high speed.

When they had both taken a few mouthfuls, Taylor leaned forward and grabbed the remote off the coffee table. “What are we watching?”

Clara’s eyes bulged. Unfortunately, her mouth was too full of food to say anything, and she couldn’t snatch the remote back without dropping the plate in her hand. So she took the only road available: she shut her eyes tightly and pretended this wasn’t about to happen to her.

The sound of the movie started again, and she kept her eyes closed, waiting for the ground to swallow her as Taylor’s voice boomed from her television speakers.

Finally, after what felt like forever, she opened one eye and slowly turned her head to look at the man who was flying across her screen as he saved the world, sitting on her sofa and staring at her with a massive grin on his face.

“We’re watching Superman?” Taylor raised an eyebrow at her.

Clara opened her other eye, shrugged and tried to sound nonchalant, but it came out squeaky. “Yeah.”

“I think I know how this one ends.” He gestured to the screen.

“Yeah.” Clara’s face flamed red, and she wished she could run away.

However, there was nowhere to go. Not when the real Taylor freaking Anderson was sitting on her sofa while the television continued to blare obnoxiously loudly.

Finally, a few of Clara’s brain cells began to function, and she spoke in a rush, “I’d never seen it before, and well, I ummm, I guess I was thinking about it after our conversation this morning. And now I want the sofa to swallow me so I don’t have to sit here and be as embarrassed as I am.” She wanted to fan her face as her cheeks were so flushed.

“Nah. It’s all good. It’s a good movie. I know I’m biased, but I’m not ashamed of it.” He put the remote down on the coffee table and shovelled more food into his mouth while he stared at the screen.

Clara snatched it off the table, pressed pause and swivelled to face him.

“I keep embarrassing myself in front of you, so I’m going to need a list of the movies you’re ashamed of, to make me feel better.” She dropped the remote and grabbed her phone, where she opened Google, ready to look them up.

“Nope.” He shook his head and lunged for the remote, but she snatched it away and sat on it.

“You won’t tell me, so I’ll pull up a list of movies, and we can go through them one by one.” She tapped her phone screen until she found a list of his movies; scanning down, her eyebrows shot up nearly to her hairline. “You were in Cats? The one with the CGI cat butts? How did I not know this!”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “I try and keep it quiet. My old manager told me it was a good project to be involved in andwould elevate my career. Surprisingly, prancing around dressed as a cat while singing, which, by the way, I hate, was not a great experience.”

“Did it bring you attention?” She desperately tried to keep her face straight.

He waggled his eyebrows. “Oh yes. Lots of attention. Although, thankfully, most of my part ended up on the cutting room floor.”

---