Page 25 of The Publicity Stunt

It’s too late. Picking her up in a hug, I twirl us around. April keeps yelling, and I don’t stop laughing. After two and half rounds, enough to make both of us a little dizzy, I set her down, my arms still wrapped around her back.

“Very uncalled for.” Her tone is stern, but I see the softness in her eyes.

“So was you wanting to kiss me.”

Gaping, April punches my arm and I feign injury. “You didn’t force me, Moore,” I say. “And not fun? Are you kidding me? That was the funnest kiss of my whole entire life.”

She snickers and rolls her eyes. “You’ve had one.”

“You set the bar pretty high.”

April’s smile widens and she shakes her head, resting it back down against my chest. The song stopped playing a while ago. I set my chin against her head and shut my eyes.

We keep swaying and I pull her closer. This will pass. A few days, months, years—I don’t care when, and I don’t care how, but it’ll pass. It has to. What do I think is even going to fucking happen if I kiss her again? She literally used the word “disappointing.” I cannot kiss her again. I will not.

“Parker?” April says and I pull back to look down, not wanting to let go. Not yet.

“Yeah?”

“Can we not watchGhost Rider?”

They are simple words, yet they make me smile. Magic words.

I step back, grab her hand, and start pulling her back toward my house. “You stole my first kiss, April Moore. That gives me movie-picking rights for life.”

ChapterSeven

Present Day

APRIL

Sebastian Kripke.

Tony Martin’s manager, and the guy I just almost punched square in the face.

“Shit, I’m so sorry.” I clutch my chest and turn around. “But you really shouldn’t have crept up behind me like that.”

Kripke doesn’t move a muscle. His wrinkly face is set in stone.

Clearing my throat, I straighten up and extend my hand. “I’m April from Paramore PR. Zawe must’ve told you.”

With his face pointed right at me, his eyes flick down, then back up.

No handshake.

“Let’s head inside, shall we?” he remarks, his voice cold and apathetic, like a modern-day Robocop. It seems fitting. He’s already wearing an all-black suit and his peppered hair is combed back with way too much hair gel for a man in his late fifties.

Kripke proceeds to walk through the rusted metal gates toward the set base camp—the place where all the costume and cast trailers reside. “Miss Cooper assured me you know what you’re doing.”

“I do.” I try to catch up in my four-inch stilettos and he spins around, his lifeless grey eyes penetrating through my bones.

“But I was not assured.” He turns his back on me and starts walking again. “Take notes, Miss Moore. I won’t repeat myself.”

Ideally, publicists and managers should be on somewhat of an equal footing, but since when is my life ideal? If publicists and managers are the divorced couple, then the actor is the eight-year-old wreaking havoc at hisGQinterview.

“First things first,” Kripke says. “Mr. Martin gets here every morning at ten a.m. You were expected to get here an hour earlier.”

I check my phone. It’s nine thirty. Good job, April.