3RD PERSON POV
Lisa was stupid. She should have never gone there. She should have sent Jimin or Don or some other lackey. She certainly shouldn't have showered and put on fuckin' cologne, like she was a teenager heading on a first date.
Shw hadn't expected Jennie to be outside, and certainly hadn't expected her to be working. Really working, her shirt sticking to her, chest heaving, arms dirty and strong and beautiful. And she had been beautiful, her hair wild, barely contained in a ponytail—her shorts showing off the full length of those legs. It was all he could do, when picking her up and putting her on that tailgate, not to crush his lips to hers, to pull off her shorts and wrap her legs around Lisa's waist.
And that was the problem. Lisa wanted Jennie. In some primal way that didn't make sense. She'd never been tempted—not in the years with Mina—to look at another woman. Had spent the two weeks before Quincy sampling every type of woman out there. None had reduced the sting of Mina's actions. Now she'd spent a handful of moments with Jennie, in the one situation where she shouldn't touch anyone, should be behaving and celibate and focused on work, and she couldn't stop thinking about her. Figured it would happen with a woman who didn't seem the slightest bit interested in her. Worse, who seemed to dislike her.
It was ridiculous. The whole situation, from start to finish. Lisa took the curve out of Jennie's driveway too hard and the truck bounced, Cocky squawking from the back, Lisa's head hitting the window with a smack. She glanced back at Cocky and slowed down, pushing thoughts of Jennie away as she reached for her phone and for a distraction.
"Don," she spoke into the phone. "Where are you at?"
JENNIE
If Media Training was my first hint at what being an actress was all about, I was toast. Toast charred past the point of edibility, brittle and crumbly on a plate destined for the trash.
Brecken Nichols came down from Atlanta, her blue suit strolling through the humidity like she had all the time in the world though, by my watch, she was already fifteen minutes late. I waited, impatiently, next to Jimin, watching her approach and summing up everything I needed to know about the woman.
She had one of those monogrammed bags slung over one arm – the big floppy kind, packed with enough items to keep me alive in the desert for weeks. Bright red lipstick, the kind Jimin would have shot me dead over, her dark hair up in one of those poufed ponytails that Heidi Klum pulled off but I looked ridiculous wearing. Brecken didn't look ridiculous. She looked pulled together. Perfect. Her brows, one which raised critically as she approached, were thick, her eyes sharp and well framed in makeup that must have taken her all morning to apply. This was not a woman who hit the snooze button and picked up after her pets. This was a woman who lunched in fancy restaurants, filtered suitors based on their bank balances, and who looked at women like me as snacks. I slid one hand in the back pocket of my new jeans, and felt, before she even opened her mouth, the scorn.
"God please tell me Wardrobe didn't dress you in that." The words huffed out of her as she stopped before me, her head slowly tilting down as her eyes trailed from my head to my shoes, a long moment passing as she scrutinized my sneakers. They were Nikes. Brand new. She didn't seem impressed.
"I dressed myself." I offered the obvious fact in a friendly tone, while my inner thoughts imagined an additional dozen cruder responses. "I'm Jennie Kim." I stuck out my hand, and she stared at it.
