Page 35 of His Girl Hollywood
Arlene felt her cheeks pink at his line of inquiry. “No, I–I didn’t end up stopping by. You seemed otherwise engaged.” She didn’t want to say the name. It left a sour taste in her mouth.
Don rolled his eyes. “Eleanor.”
“Yes, well, I thought it best to leave you to your…dance partner. Hoped it might help you work out some of your nervous energy.”
Don gave her quizzical look. “Eleanor isn’t exactly the ideal partner for working out nervous energy. She tends to generate it, more like. Anyway, I really did try to convince Eddie to go somewhere else. I didn’t want to bother you or your friends.”
He looked over her shoulder and nodded in the direction of her party, still seated at the bar and completely oblivious to the fact that she’d walked straight into an awkward situation in the hall. “But he seems to have this idea in his head that I’m attracted to you, so I didn’t want to tell him you’d be here or it would’ve only made him more insufferable.”
“So, you’re not attracted to me?” she blurted out. God, what was she doing? Why was she asking him this? Had the gin gone toher head that quickly?
“No, I… No, sorry, I didn’t… No…” She hated to admit it was kind of adorable watching him stumble over his words. He’d always seemed so cocksure that it bordered on arrogance. It was fun seeing him fumbling for the right words for once. Particularly after her sticking her foot in her mouth talking about the hotel. “I didn’t mean that. You’re beautiful, Arlene. Any man would be a fool not to notice it. It’s just, well, you’ve made it clear we’re to keep things strictly professional. And Eddie can be a little obnoxious when it comes to matchmaking.”
Arlene blushed, hearing Don call her beautiful. How many sleepless nights had she imagined him saying those words? Not once had she ever imagined it happening in a dark hallway next to a noisy kitchen. But then again, life was not a movie. She darted her eyes to Joan and Dash. “I’m familiar with friends and that problem.”
Don laughed. “Anyway, sorry. Eddie and I will have one drink and we’ll go. I can’t afford to eat here anyway.”
Arlene scrunched her face in confusion. “The studio isn’t paying you enough to go out for a nice dinner?”
“Uh, no, they are. It’s complicated, that’s all. Ignore me. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
She wanted to push, to know more. Like why he was staying in a dive of a hotel when the studio tended to put their stars up at the Roosevelt or the Chateau Marmont or even the Beverly Hills Hotel until actors found a more permanent living situation. Why was Don living hand to mouth like a starving artist? Instead of a man who’d recently starred in a Broadway hit and who was receiving a weekly salary from Evets Studios. She was dying to ask him, but she honored his request to ignore him. “Well, you and Eddie should stay as long as you like. It’s a public restaurant.”
“No, I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable. This wassupposed to be your night to unwind with your friends.”
Arlene started to protest again, but just then, Joan slipped into the hall and tapped her on the shoulder. “Dash wants to go home, so we’re leaving.” Joan looked meaningfully at Don. “But you should stay.”
Arlene sincerely hoped that she had been more subtle last year when she’d been trying to get Joan to realize she was in love with Dash. “Can’t you stay until we finish this round? Then we can all go.”
Joan made a show of waggling her eyebrows. “I really can’t wait to get home. It’s an emergency—a female emergency,” she hissed, casting her voice to a sotto voce register that wasn’t a whisper so much as a waving red flag.
Arlene rolled her eyes. “Fine, all right, let me use the ladies’ and I’ll go with you.”
But Joan was already walking away, calling over her shoulder, “No, darling, I don’t want to spoil your evening. Stay.” In the distance, Arlene could hear muttering that sounded distinctly like Flynn Banks complaining about being separated from his favorite bar.
She knew when she’d been beaten. She had two options. She could go home, throw the world’s most pathetic pity party, and turn in before most of Hollywood had even really started their night. Or she could stay. Here. With Don. Who had already spent part of his evening dancing with the woman he’d been dating for the last several years.
She wasn’t sure which was the worse idea. But she didn’t feel like going home and tucking herself beneath her chenille bedspread before eleven o’clock. She’d had one and a half cocktails, and she was weary of her responsible, sensible, career-first lifestyle. Tomorrow, she could be pragmatic Arlene again. But tonight, maybe she could have some fun.
She had to be careful with Don; she could never risk losing herheart to him again, not least because he was already spoken for. But they were working together, whether she liked it or not. And if she was honest with herself, her sense of self-preservation had made her unreasonable. Some might even say unduly harsh.
She hadn’t trusted Don and his eager insistence on dancing back into her life. But he seemed to genuinely want to get to know her as she was now. Not pick up where he’d left off with the girl she had been. She might as well let him. Hell, it would make directing the picture smoother and easier in the long run if she didn’t perpetually feel the need to hold him at arm’s length.
She cast one last look at her friends, resisting the urge to laugh as Dash practically grabbed Flynn by the neck to steer him toward the exit. Joan looked over her shoulder and gave Arlene a knowing wink, which she was dead certain Don also saw. She shook her head and smirked at Don. “What was it you were saying about meddling, obnoxious matchmaking friends?”
He laughed. “They always think they know better, don’t they?”
And then she surprised even herself, asking, “You want to grab a booth and a bite to eat? My treat. I’ll put it on the studio’s tab.”
Chapter 14
Don could scarcely believe it. Had Arlene really asked him to sit down and eat with her? Since he’d arrived in Hollywood, she’d treated him like a fruit fly in her kitchen. Ultimately harmless, but annoying all the same. But he couldn’t take advantage of her hospitality.
Besides, he was frankly exhausted. Doing ten- to twelve-hour days on set followed by gigs at the Clover Club was taking a lot out of him. Frankie had claimed he booked the week of shows to try to get Don and Eleanor more exposure and opportunities on the West Coast. But Don feared it was more about Frankie having an inkling that something was not kosher. That it was a way to punish Don. Get him to let his guard down. Maybe even fail at the picture so that he couldn’t afford to buy out his contract. Brute force, not manipulative stealth was Frankie’s modus operandi, but maybe from afar he preferred to wear Don down to a nub until he was too tired to do anything but what Frankie told him. Well, Don wasn’t going to let that happen. He’d go eat the cheapest thing on the menu with Eddie and go home and straight to bed. “No, I can’t expect you to buy me dinner.”
Arlene blushed. “Iwouldn’t be buying you dinner. Consider it per diem from Harry Evets.”
“When you put it that way, it’s hard to argue with you.” He wasstarving, if he was being honest. Trying to save every penny, he’d only been eating a large lunch at the studio commissary, skipping breakfast and dinner.