Page 38 of Script
“You’re an asshole, Chavkin,” I growled, spun on my heel, and rushed to the heavy front door. I knocked once. The locks inside tumbled, and the door opened, as if Finn was just waiting on the other side for me to change my mind. Which I totally had. “Fuck that shit, I’m all yours.” I nudged the door open wider, captured his face between my hands, and kissed the motherfucking daylights out of him. He melted into me, pulling me inside, mouths still sealed, and slamming the door on everything that wasout there. In here, it was only me and Finn. That was more than enough. It was everything.
Chapter13
Finn
Cameron came back.
He was going to leave, and then he came back.
Did that mean something?
He’d left at the ass crack of dawn, but not before more tender kisses and a slap to my ass, and another kiss, and then some groping, and when his car lights vanished into the distance, I headed back inside and didn’t know what to do with myself.
I stared at my script, the words swimming in front of me as I considered the party, his friends, the kids, and Cameron, him coming back. The single conclusion I could reach was that he was spooked, because he’d definitely started to run in the opposite direction, saying that he needed to sleep because he was tired. I could see through his words to the excuses beneath, and for a moment, my heart had cracked.
Stupid heart.
I thought dramatic cracks in the heart only happened in movie scripts and novels, but time stopped between the moment he’d waved me goodbye and when he knocked on the door.
That kiss had been everything.
More than everything—it had been a promise.
Or at least, that is what I was saying in return. I think.
And now, I was back to staring at the script and thinking that maybe I should clean the small fish tank in the kitchen even though I had a service for that. Or maybe I should wash my car? Nope, that had been done two days ago. I could put on some washing. Clean the kitchen floors? I wandered from room to room, convinced I needed to do something that wasn’t the thing I should be doing—reading the script. Procrastination, thy name is Finn Kerrigan, not to mention my thoughts were in full-on squirrel mode, so the doorbell startled me so bad I nearly fell on my ass turning to face the noise. Steadying myself, I headed down the hall—there was no one scheduled to be in the house, but I hoped that it was Cameron coming back again. Then kicked myself because he was long gone, and he doesn’t know my gate code to let himself in.
I stopped then, and sent a quick text to him, debating over adding an x, when the doorbell sounded again.
“The fuck, Finn! I see you standing there!”
Shit. I’d gotten distracted, again.
Atlas sounded pissed, but that was my agent’s default setting, so I wasn’t too worried until I opened the door and saw his thunderous expression.
I let him in, and he grumbled and cursed as he toed off his shoes and stalked past me to the kitchen, then grabbed snacks out of my refrigerator. I watched bemused at his plate piled with everything from pickles and triangle cheese to a pot of yogurt.
“I missed breakfast because of you,” he explained with extreme prejudice, then made himself at home at my counter and spread his bounty before him. His dark eyebrows tangled as he dipped a pickle into the strawberry yogurt and munched down on that before gagging and checking out what he’d done. “Fuck my life and fucking protect me from fucking actors who eat fucking fucked-up pickles,” he added, and shoved the jar away.
“Are actors who eat pickles a big problem? I mean, I don’t actually eat pickles. I think they’re leftover from a party,” I started to ramble as I poured him a coffee, sliding it over to him, but keeping my distance. “I don’t mind a gherkin here and there, and not in a sexual innuendo way, but anyway, morning—”
“Don’t ‘morning’ me!” Atlas shuffled on the stool, close to slipping off one side, which led to another tirade of curses.
“Okay?” I prompted because it was obvious this was about me. “Did I do something?”
“It’s more like what you aren’t doing,” he muttered, and this time stuffed the triangle cheeses into the fruity yogurt which—yuck—but he seemed to enjoy it. The man was heading for an ulcer, and I took some of the guilt for that, because I’d done something else that had caused him to take a step over the fluffy bridge.
I needed to clarify. What was he talking about?
“I didn’t do, or not do, what? Or what? Or do? What?” Were we talking in circles?
He stopped with a cheese triangle halfway to his mouth, then used it to emphasize whatever point he was about to make. “Byrnes-Rose studios have offered you another ten million on top of their current offer, plus a bigger percentage share on turnover,andyour input into the freaking storylines, just to get you to doRapid4,and, get this, they’re throwing in a guaranteedRapid5, and I had to tell them no, so you owe me for not suggesting you do it.” Everything fell out of him in run-on sentences, and it took me a while to parse that.
I blinked at my agent. 4and5? That was… I calculated it in my head; hell, that was a lot of money. Then it hit me that he’d said hewasn’there to convince me to do the movies; hewashere to tell me he turned them down.
“So, you told them no?”
He sighed with such drama, then paced the kitchen, a bag of cherry tomatoes in his hand.
