Beyond Repair by Charlotte Stein Page B

killer spiders…great, that should have given you
a wonderful impression of my ability to fail at acting. Man you’ve got quite a
few here you…”
    He neither came to an abrupt stop nor trailed off, yet both
said the same thing pretty clearly. The burning light of realization was upon
him, so hot it was melting her at the same time. Why had she brought him down
here? Why? Why?
    This was probably the worst way to explain what he then
grasped.
    “You seem to have a section of my movies.” He hesitated,
waiting for clarification that she was never going to give. If it was going to
be done, he had to do it himself. He had to do it himself in this really weird
hollow voice that made her heart sink about three feet. “Do you have a crush on
me, Alice?”
    Oh God, he’d used the word crush .
    He couldn’t have made her feel more like a teenager if he’d
tried.
    “That isn’t exactly how I would put it.”
    “Then how would you put it? You got all these little
collections of actors you have the hots for and then here’s my filmography…”
    “It’s not exactly like that.”
    “Think you could attempt to turn it into words?”
    “It’s already taking a lot of effort just to say these
ones.”
    “Try harder then for the love of God,” he said, in a way
that panicked her far more than she had ever really thought possible. He
sounded so angry and accusatory, as though she really was obsessed and insane.
She’d arranged all of this somehow because of her crazed desire for more Holden
Stark—like Misery only with pills she’d magically made him eat and
almost-kisses she’d persuaded him to give.
    And then she dared to glance up, and felt kind of stupid.
    He didn’t look angry and accusatory.
    He looked intense and desperate. He was smoldering so much
his eyes were practically on fire. She would have feared death by immolation if
there hadn’t been a bookcase between them, but even then it was a close thing.
Somehow the films framing his face seemed to make the moment more charged, not less. They deepened the shadows between them and turned his gaze
into molten lava.
    She still didn’t know how to answer, however.
    The best she could manage was okay maybe I do a little
bit , but she had to say it fast and frantic and with both fists clenched
tightly by her sides. Mainly because of the concept, but also because he was
still staring at her in that overwhelming way. In fact, the overwhelming way
had gotten worse in the meantime.
    Now it had this faint note of disbelief.
    And a massive note of potentially explosive passion.
    “If you have a crush on me what was all that weirdness in
the bathroom about?”
    “I don’t…know what…weirdness you’re referring to.”
    “Hey, I’ve been good. I haven’t brought it up because I
didn’t want to scare you. I don’t want to scare you. But you know that I
have to bring it up now, right?”
    “You don’t have to. We could just carry on like this.”
    “Even though you maybe have a thing for me?”
    “I don’t have a thing for you. I have a thing for the people
you play.”
    “And that’s completely different.”
    “You know it’s different.”
    “So you find the real me repellant?”
    “What? No, God, no, no that’s not…it’s the opposite of that it—”
    “It didn’t seem like the opposite of that when you flung
yourself across the bathroom floor just to get away from me.”
    “The flinging wasn’t about…you being repellant! Jesus, I
can’t even believe you’re using that word with a straight face. I called you
handsome the first day we met.”
    “Accepting general handsomeness and finding someone
attractive are not the same thing. Come on—you know that.”
    “Your handsomeness is pretty far from general, Holden.”
    He went very quiet after that. So quiet she wanted to glance
at him and check if he was okay. She’d managed to inch her gaze away during
this conversation from hell, but really what good did that do her? Without