And then he was pulling her inside with at least as much excitement as the eight-year-olds who were hopped up on Slushies and sugar sticks. Her stomach growled at the smell of hot dogs and french fries and she’d been beyond pleased when Smith ordered the fast food meal-deal for both of them. Junk food was just what the doctor ordered after the long day they’d both had.
The kid working the register was doing okay until it finally hit him who was standing in front of him. “Oh man, you’re Smith Sullivan.”
“Nice to meet you, Mark,” Smith said, making it a point to look at the kid’s name tag on his bright blue shirt.
“My friends are going to freak out when they hear you’re here! The best movie we saw last year was Forces of Destruction.”
Mark was reaching for his phone when Smith said, “Can I ask you for a special favor?”
The kid nodded. “Sure. Anything, dude.”
Smith lowered his voice and acted like she couldn’t hear him say, “I’m on a pretty important first date and I’m really afraid of blowing it with her. I was hoping to keep things low key tonight so I could make a good impression.”
The kid’s eyes were huge as he finally registered Valentina standing next to Smith at the counter. After a few seconds where he studied her like she was a bug under a microscope, he leaned toward Smith and said in a stage whisper, “Dude, she’s hot.”
In the same voice, Smith said, “I know. Seriously hot.” Buddies now, he said, “So are we cool?”
“Sure,” the boy said. “No problem.”
“Thanks. And if you want to come by the set sometime, why don’t you give me your number and I’ll call you to set it up.”
“Seriously?” The kid scrawled his number on a napkin, then said, “I’ll make sure no one bothers you tonight.”
After he grabbed their food and they sat down, despite how hungry Valentina was, she knew she wouldn’t be able to eat a thing. Not yet.
“There’s not one single thing you could do to blow our first date.”
Smith didn’t reach for his food either. “You sure about that?”
The look in his eyes suddenly reminded her of the way he’d gazed at her when they’d been making love—as though he couldn’t imagine living without her.
Maybe before tonight she would have lied to him, would have told him that she was fine. But after what they’d shared with each other, after how close she’d felt to him, she had to tell him the truth.
“No, I’m not completely sure, but—” She paused and stared into his eyes. “—I want to be. So, so badly.”
She knew it wasn’t what he wanted, that it wasn’t nearly enough. It wasn’t enough for her, either. But he simply picked up the mustard and ketchup and made two straight yellow and red lines along either side of her hot dog, just the way she liked it on the rare occasions craft services had brought in hot dogs to the set.
As she took it from him, she had to wonder how he could possibly have had a chance to notice the way she ate hot dogs? But then, was that really such a stretch from his noticing her at all in the first place?
Gravity, she’d only just started to realize, didn’t care if one of them was a movie star made to be in front of bright lights, when the other only knew how to be comfortable in the shadows.
Smith grabbed one of her fries and popped it into his mouth. “So, what should we make the stakes?”
She raised an eyebrow. “You want to turn a friendly game of miniature golf into a bet?”
“I’m a guy. It’s what we do,” he said, his dark eyes sizzling with wicked intent.
She rolled her eyes. “At least you recognize how ridiculous you are, acting so competitive about a fun game.”
“Do you really mean to tell me you and Tatiana aren’t the least bit competitive with each other? Or that you haven’t tried to rig the windmill hole to close at least once before her ball could get in?”
She laughed at his far-too-insightful question. “Well, maybe there was that one time she ‘accidentally’ slipped on a ball in front of my shot that was sure to be a winning hole in one.”
He shook his head. “Little sisters are a pain in the butt, aren’t they? But then again, I’m sure you got her back for that, didn’t you?”
She gave him her most innocent look, before saying, “Who knew putting Vaseline on a golf ball would make it nearly impossible to hit it straight?”
“Now that I know how much the win means to you,” he said through his laughter, “I may have to do a full body search for any hidden jars of Vaseline before we start playing.”
Valentina was struck yet again that it didn’t matter where they were, on the set, in a conference room, in his living room doing a puzzle, or sitting in the middle of a golf ’n’ games arcade that hadn’t been updated—or cleaned—since the early seventies: she wanted him.
And she liked him very, very much.
“If I win,” he said in a low voice that sent shivers running over her already too-sensitive skin, “you have to hold my hand for the rest of the night.”
Tatiana’s advice from earlier came fast and furious at Valentina: What if you gave Smith a chance to love you the way you deserve to be loved? Don’t you think there’s a chance that he could be up to the challenge? And that you could be, too?
So even though Valentina’s hand was starting to shake on her lap beneath the sticky Formica tabletop, she made herself raise it. With her heart hammering so hard she wouldn’t have been surprised to see it actually pop through her ribs and skin, she reached across the table for his hand.
Valentina thought she heard Smith’s breath catch as she slowly slid her palm against his, before interlacing their fingers.
The heat of his touch immediately melted the ice that was trying to close her heart back in.
“You don’t need to win a bet to have that.”
* * *
After their game of miniature golf had ended in a perfect tie, and Valentina and Smith walked into her rental house hand in hand, they found Tatiana lying on the couch reading a book.
She smiled at them over the top of her paperback. “Are Marcus and Nicola spending the night at your house again, Smith?”
He grinned back at her. “Nope.”
Valentina had never had a man stay over before. She’d told herself it was because she hadn’t wanted to make her sister feel uncomfortable. But the truth was, she’d never wanted to give away enough of herself to a man for the intimacy of waking up together.