Better Than Me

Chapter 37

That was a lie. It looked like they were getting ready to clear out, but I just wanted to see her sweat a little.

"Chris."

I looked over at her. "Hmm?"

"Where's my robe?"

"Your robe?" I asked, pretending I had no idea what she was talking about. Damn it. I'd been had.

"If you value your ability to have children in the future, you'll give it back."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, fine." I reached under the bed we were laying on and gave her the fluffy robe she had been using to cover herself up between takes. "It, uh, fell."

She snatched it out of my hands. "Jackass."

She pulled the robe on and, when she realized we were done filming, walked over to Nora, who was sitting in her director's chair. I quickly followed suit because I was a nosy motherfucker.

"Quick question," Sophia said. "Why was this scene added at the last minute? I don't understand."

"Come on," I said. "It wasn't that bad. Though you could've turned the heat up for us or something. It was getting pretty chilly, and no one needs to see my stiff nips."

Nora and Sophia both looked like they were 0.5 seconds away from face-palming or sending me far away from them.

"Though if Sophia hadn't been against using body heat to warm us up, no one would've had to see that..."

Sophia smacked me in the stomach like it was a reflex, but it must have hurt because the next thing I heard was a tiny, "Ow."

"Abs of steel, half-pint. Abs of steel."

"Whatever, Sasquatch."

My smirk disappeared, prompting a wave of laughter from her.

"You see how she treats me?" I asked Nora.

"You knew what you were getting yourself into when you decided to go after me. No take-backs."

I was a little surprised at how casually she had pretty much confirmed we were dating, or at least involved or something, but I wasn't going to complain.

A smile spread across Nora's face. "I knew there was something different about you guys this week. That, and an intern swore she saw you kiss off-set."

Whoops. We'd both thought we were being discreet all week. At least, that had been the goal until we publicly announced the news. I was surprised this intern hadn't told more people. We probably would've heard about this sooner if she had. Discretion wasn't what people on our set were known for.

"This is probably good news for you," I said. "The publicity might just make up for all the shit we pulled. And we didn't even have to fake it."

Nora looked like she was actually considering how this could be a perk to having us as part of the cast. "That's likely true. Although, I do have a confession to make."

"What?" Sophia and I both asked.

"... There was never a sex scene."

"Wait. What?" Sophia asked, eyebrows furrowed. I could almost see the steam building up in her head, ready to pour out of her ears.

"From the beginning it was just an idle thought, and afterwards it was just something I used to scare the two of you into getting the harder scenes done," Nora said.

"Are you..." Sophia paused, taking a shallow breath. "Are you saying we went through that for a literal hour today... for nothing?"

Nora tried to hold in her laughter but failed after not even a few seconds. I had never seen her laugh like that, and I'd worked with her before this. "The... camera... was... never... rolling," she said in between bouts of laughter. Her laughter was so contagious that I couldn't help but laugh, too. It helped that I wasn't the one who thought this was the most embarrassing thing in the world.