Filmed: An Alpha Bad Boy Romance (City Series Book 3) (4 page)

I nodded. “My mom had nothing but good things to say about you.”

She smiled, and I could tell she was genuinely pleased to hear that. “Well, you tell her to stop by and visit some time.”

I stood up to go. “I definitely will. What time should I be here on Monday?”

She pushed her glasses back on, shifted through the papers on her desk, and then pulled out a schedule. “Let me see here...can you do five to ten?”

“Yeah, that’ll be good.”

“Great. We’ll set you up with a more permanent schedule on Monday.”

“Thanks again, Miss Havisham.”

“Okay Linda, have a good day.”

I waved and pushed the door to her office open, feeling good. My mother knew a lot of people in the film world, and I had heard nothing but good things about her. She seemed liked and respected by everyone, and I loved running into old friends of hers. It happened more and more since going to Temple. She had a lot of contacts in Philadelphia, and more seemed to appear every day.

Back in the lobby, it was pretty empty. Chelsea sat behind the glass looking bored, and Mikey and Chuck were throwing popcorn at each other behind the concession stand counter. I swept my gaze over the room then spotted him. Sitting on a small stool by the entrance to the theaters was Noah Carterson, flipping idly through his cellphone. He wore perfectly fitting black jeans and a black theater uniform shirt, which he managed to make look stylish. His hair was shaved short on the sides and it was mussed up and messy on the top. I walked toward him, and my heart started to hammer. I had no idea why. It wasn’t like I’d never spoken to a guy before.

As I got closer, he looked up. Initially his expression was bored contempt, as if the world were constantly a disappointment, but as he looked at me, it changed. His features brightened, and that cocky, self-assured grin appeared.

“Well hey, polka dots,” he said, slipping his phone into his pocket.

“Stop calling me that,” I said.

“Give me a reason to, and maybe I will.”

I sighed. I couldn’t remember why I thought it would be easy to have a normal conversation with him.

“Look, I have a weird question for you.”

“Yes, I will go down on you in the bathroom.”

I blushed, and the image of his lips pressed between my legs jumped unbidden into my mind. My eyes ran over his muscled chest.

What a dick.

“Can you be serious for one second?”

He struggled to make his face into a mask of blank seriousness. “Okay then. How may I help you, Linda?”

I sighed. I guessed that was the best I’d get. “Okay so, my mom is this film critic named Marilyn Lewis. I was talking to her on the phone, and I mentioned getting a job here. When your dad came up, she got all weird about it. Any clue why?”

He looked thoughtful for a second. “Honestly, polka dots? I have no clue.”

“Have you ever heard her name before?”

He shook his head. “No, I haven’t. But I’m not exactly close with daddy dearest.”

Great. Back to square one, then. I briefly wondered what he meant by “not close,” but I put it out of my mind. I didn’t need his spoiled asshole drama on top of my own.

“Thanks anyway,” I said.

His serious expression was replaced by a small smirk. “So, you were telling your mom about me? A little soon, don’t you think?”

I let out a sigh of exasperation and rolled my eyes. “Are you always this self-involved?”

His grin intensified as he stood up and took a few steps closer. His body filled the space between us, and my breath caught in my chest. He moved with a surprising grace for someone so large. I had the insane impulse to reach out and trace the contours of his ripped chest, but resisted.

“Only when girls like you can’t keep away from me.”

I snorted. “You don’t even know me.” I considered adding, “and you’re a total asshole,” but decided not to.

“Want to get out of here and remedy that, then?”

Based on the tone he was using, I had a feeling he didn’t mean a nice, chaste conversation over coffee. I briefly considered agreeing, and had another imagine of him taking me back to his apartment and slowly pulling my panties down my goose bump covered skin. That was crazy, though. Before I could answer, maybe tell him he could go learn about himself, an incredibly high-pitched voice cut across the lobby.

“Noah!” We both looked over, and I instantly recognized Stripper Barbie from our film history class standing by the staircase and looking impatient.

“Looks like your stripper girlfriend is calling,” I said. I thought he was done with her, and a pang of jealousy ran through me, which was crazy. From everything I’d learned about Noah Carterson, it was clear that he was a player and a manwhore. Why did one more blonde chick matter to me?

I didn’t even like him.

He looked at me, and I didn’t recognize the expression that flashed across his face for a brief moment. It was quickly replaced by his confident smile, but I was left wondering what it had meant.

“See you later, polka dots,” he said, then started to walk off toward the stairs. “Hey, Chuck, cover my shift?” Noah called out as he passed by the stand. Chuck gave him a nod and a wave. I couldn’t believe he was skipping out on work and asking someone to cover for him, but I guessed being the benefactor’s son had its perks. Chuck seemed agreeable enough, at least.

I watched as he approached blondie, and they had a short, whispered conversation, and then started up the stairs together. They didn’t hold hands or hook arms or anything, but I knew that was a childish gauge of their relationship. You didn’t need to show public affection for someone to bang their brains out, which I guessed wasn’t hard with Stripper Barbie, since there wasn’t much there to bang out to begin with.

Once they were out of sight, I started back toward the stairs. I felt oddly frustrated; Noah hadn’t been any help with trying to decode my mom’s strange behavior on the phone, but worse than that, he had me imagining running my fingers along the tattoo on his chest I had glimpsed the other day. There was nothing I wanted less than to get hung up on Noah Carterson, total asshole and manslut, but there I was, running through a million scenarios in my head, and wondering why he was leaving with Stripper Barbie instead of me.

What a messed up afternoon.

A
s much as I hated it, Noah and Stripper Barbie were stuck in my head. Chris was a saint, and sat out on the stoop for an hour with me, talking through the interaction. I knew it wouldn’t help, but I couldn’t stop myself from obsessing over every little detail. I hated that I had let him bore his way into my brain, but he was tunneled deep in there like those alien worms from the movie Tremors.

Unfortunately, thinking about Tremors made me compare Noah’s ass to Kevin Bacon’s, which made me miss what Chris was saying.

“I’m sorry, what?” I said, snapping out of my fantasy.

“I said, he wanted to get to know you better?” she asked again.

“Yeah, but he was being an asshole.”

She looked serious. “Are you sure about that?”

I thought back to his comment, and it definitely felt like sexual innuendo at the time. “I’m pretty sure.”

“Maybe the girl is just his friend?”

“Why would he leave work if she’s not putting out?”

Chris laughed. “I don’t know, Lindy. Maybe he really is the biggest asshole in the world.”

“I didn’t say that.” I felt a little defensive for some reason, although inwardly I had been referring to him as King Dick for the past half hour.

“No you didn’t, but he has the reputation,” she said.

“And he’s not exactly a gentleman to me, either.”

Chris gave me a look. “Come on, isn’t that a little outdated?”

“Chivalry lives!”

She laughed and leaned against my shoulder. “Maybe in your old movies.”

“Why are you defending him?”

“I’m honestly not. But I can tell you have a thing for this guy, and I don’t want you to write it off before you’re sure about him.”

“I don’t know. Do I want to get involved with the campus player?”

I felt her shrug. “Maybe it’s all just a rumor. Remember when people said that I had herpes?”

I laughed softly, although it was only funny in retrospect. Back in high school, some guy that Chris had turned down decided it would be a great idea to tell all his friends that she had herpes as revenge. It was all over the school the next day, and Chris had to combat the rumor for the rest of her time there. I figured that was part of why she swore off guys, but I never asked about it. She had gotten over the whole thing, but it was still an unpleasant time in her life.

“Yeah, that could be true. Just lies from his jilted lovers,” I said.

“Or just boring chicks with boring lives.”

I felt a little bad after that. Noah was definitely cocky, and he had a good time at my expense with his little nickname, but he had never been outright rude to me. Maybe I wasn’t giving him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe Chris was right, and I had to get to know him before I wrote him off completely. I was way too willing to believe the rumors about him, and too quick to dismiss him completely. I really hadn’t had a real conversation with him yet.

I was grateful to Chris, and she even managed to keep the jokes to a minimum. I had a weird hate-crush, which was totally unlike me, and I was still barely working the whole thing out. She may have sworn off boys, but she was still pretty good to talk to. Eventually, it started to get dark, and we climbed the steps back into our tiny apartment.

I resolved to give Noah a shot.

Or at least I wouldn’t completely dismiss him.

––––––––

T
he next day I sat up front again in my film history class. I had been falling behind on my studies, maybe because a certain someone distracted me, and so I decided to buckle down and take good notes. As Professor Johnson was about to start his lecture, Noah came in, late as usual, but without Stripper Barbie. I hadn’t seen her in class since the first day, and was beginning to wonder if she had dropped it. Before I could delve too deeply into that, Noah did something surprising: he sat down next to me.

As he unpacked his books, he grinned at me. “Hey, polka dots.”

“Quit calling me that, Noah,” I hissed back. Inwardly, my stomach was doing somersaults.

His grin got bigger. “Whatever you say.”

“Don’t you usually sit in the back?”

“I told you that I wanted to get to know you.” His eyes looked back at me intensely.

I was taken aback momentarily by his earnest response, but my reply was cut off by Professor Johnson’s lecture. The entire class was spent trying to ignore Noah next to me. Instead, the only thing I could pay attention to was his smell, his heat, and his nearness. We sat at a long, shared table, and our knees were inches apart. He diligently took notes, which surprised me. I had assumed he was a bad student, but he clearly cared about the material, and was paying attention. I struggled to keep up, simultaneously interested in early film technique and wholly distracted by Noah’s perfectly chiseled jawline.

I had a lot of assumptions about him, but no real information.

What did he mean, he wanted to get to know me? He hadn’t expressed much interest in me at all yet, other than my underwear and maybe my body. When I tried to talk to him about his dad and my mom, he more or less blew me off. Suddenly, he wanted to sit next to me and get to know me? It was bizarre. Noah had never been serious with me, either. So far, he was mostly one long string of pushy jokes and crude remarks, all wrapped up in a fantastic smile and amazing body. He was definitely confident, but he also didn’t seem interested in actually knowing me. In fact, from what I’d heard about him, he didn’t seem interested in knowing anyone.

Apparently, he had only a few close friends. I did some more Facebook stalking after talking with Chris on our stoop the day before, and even went so far as to ask Selena more questions. Fortunately, Selena was a pretty clueless person, and always eager to dish gossip. According to her, Noah had few close friends, though plenty of girlfriends. Back in the day, his dorm was more or less a revolving door of one skank after another, which grossed me out. She said he spent most of his time hanging out, drinking too much, and going out to bars, which disappointed me. Still, he was in the honors college, which meant that he had to be a pretty decent student. He was on some rec league sports teams, and he was a peer student teacher for a film class on Stanley Kubrick. Basically, he seemed like the model collegiate student, except that he wasn’t. He drank and smoked pot and slept with whatever girls he wanted to, and he was a complete asshole.

I couldn’t seem to figure him out. Sitting next to him during Professor Johnson’s lecture, his weird comment rolling around in my head, didn’t help at all. Part of me wanted to interrupt everything and ask Noah exactly what he meant, but that was insane. Instead, I sat quietly, dutifully taking notes, or at least taking some semblance of notes.

Eventually, the period ended, and Professor Johnson wrapped up his lecture. Noah turned to me as soon as everyone started packing up.

“So, polka dots, what are you doing now?”

I looked at him, surprised. “Nothing really. Why?”

He grinned. “Don’t be so shocked. Want to go for a walk or something?”

I stared for half a beat. Was I stuck in some parallel universe where a guy like Noah Carterson wanted to spend time with me? I mean, I wasn’t exactly unattractive, but I wasn’t winning any beauty contests, either. I didn’t think I was remotely his type, and I definitely wasn’t putting out anytime soon. So why was he suddenly interested?

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” I managed to get out.

“Cool,” he grunted, as we packed our things.

My head was swimming with questions, totally unsure about why Noah wanted to go for a walk, or what he even meant by going for a walk. I realized I was spinning in circles when I started to analyze what “going for a walk” really meant, and concentrated on getting myself together instead.

We went out into the hall together, the last to leave the room, and headed down the hall, toward the stairs. We chatted idly about Professor Johnson, making jokes about how spacey and weird he was. It was actually pretty normal and nice; Noah didn’t once make a sexual innuendo at my expense. He kept calling me “polka dots,” though, which annoyed me, but not enough to ruin the good mood. We climbed down the stairs together then headed outside. We walked toward the bell tower, moving slowly. It was sunny out and warm, and everyone was sitting on benches or in the grass. The campus seemed more alive than usual, and I guessed it was the weather.