Perfect Summer by Kailin Gow Page A

budget to afford this for a
small acting school like ours?
                “Yes,
the one Astor Fairway had contracted for his next film. Cold Desert Studios.”
                “So
Astor Fairway hired you to be here?” I asked.
                “Well,
it was a friend of his who got a hold of us, told us the contract was ours for
the rest of the year for film releases if we can make this one work, last
minute. We only had an hour to get this all done, believe it or not. Luckily,
our restaurant is a couple of blocks away, and we had all this ready to go.
Just needed heating up.”
                “It
wasn’t Astor who hired you?” I asked. “Then who?”
                “I
did,” a familiar male voice came from the doorway. I looked up into the
ceiling, unable to believe that it was Drew who arranged all this.
                “Drew?”
Nat said, incredulously. “How did you figure we’d probably need something like
this?”
                Drew’s
eyes burned into mine, the intensity of his desire for me clearly on his face.
The memory of his hands rubbing lotion on my body, and then the heated hunger
in his eyes as he watched me with Nat; made my face flushed with desire. I
looked down, not wanting to betray how I felt, in front of Nat and the
caterers.
                Drew’s
eyes didn’t falter from looking at me. “When you called me to remind me of my
promise to help out at the Academy and told me I had to be here today for the
Open House and class, I went ahead and arranged all this…thanks to the help of
Astor, who seemed to know a lot of people in town.”
                I
couldn’t help smiling to myself, a little surprised but happy with how well
Astor had started getting along with the boys…now that he no longer dated me.
                “Well,
good thinking, Drew,” I said, walking up to him and patting him on the
shoulder. “This…is incredible!”
                Drew’s
gaze drank me in from head to toe. “It’s the least I could do, Summer.” He
winced as he tried to smile.
                I
reached out to touch his bruised cheek, and instantly felt horrible. “I’m sorry
I slapped you,” I said. “I should never have resort to that. It’s not in my
nature to be violent.”
                Drew
looked pained and said softly, “I probably had it coming, Summer.” He laughed.
“Not the slap, but the anger.”
                “I
don’t even want to revisit why I felt the anger, Drew, not right now or I’d
lose it. I’m still not quite over everything you said to me.”
                “Summer,”
Drew’s eyes looked so sad at the moment. “I wished I can take back what I said.
“But it’s already out there, and this is a way to make it back to you.”
                “Drew…”
                “So,
how’s the food?” another familiar voice said from the doorway.
                I
turned and saw Astor standing there, his arms crossed casually around his
chest. He was wearing a USC t-shirt and loose black jeans that fell down to
black combat boots.
                The
two caterers looked from Astor, Drew, and Nat to me, and exchanged looks. “Some
people get all the luck,” one of them muttered as they headed out with their
trays stacked high with food.
                I
rushed over to Astor and hugged him, welcoming him into the kitchen where he
immediately headed to the table for some food. “Is the food alright?” he asked
again.
                “Haven’t
tried it,” I said. I took one of the stuffed mushrooms and popped it into my
mouth. It was good, decent as you would expect it to be, but not earth-shattering
good. “What do you think?” I popped one of the mushrooms into Astor’s mouth
while Drew and Nat busied themselves with sampling some of the food,