Louisa George - Hot Docs On Call - Hollywood Heartthrobs

But he kept on shaking his head. ‘No. God, me married? No way. Really, no. But I’m always open to making new friends and would like some company for dinner. I can apologise again for being an idiot earlier. You can tell me about your story. Then I can show you how to manipulate chopsticks for awake brain surgery research. And you can B-I-T-C-H about your boss in safety, because I’m absolutely bound by confidentiality, and if you told me anything you’d have to kill me or sue me.’

‘Oh...I wouldn’t do that. Kill you, I mean. Well, not immediately. And everyone needs a friend, right?’ And it was all in the name of research and nothing else, so why not? ‘That’s an offer I definitely can’t refuse. To be honest, I’m starving. Lead on.’

So she got into her car and followed the lights of his expensive-looking sedan. Followed him from the dark studio warehouses back to the bright lights of the city, then through a maze of back streets that she knew she would never find her way out of on her own. And for the first time in a long time she felt as if things were looking up. It would be good to have a new friend in this strange but wonderful place.

If only she could stop thinking about kissing him.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE RESTAURANT WAS nothing like she’d imagined. It had basic melamine tables, white plastic chairs that she’d seen in her local two-dollar shop, and a fog of steam fragranced with seriously delicious smells of garlic and sesame oil and fish sauce.

Multicoloured paper lanterns hung from the ceiling, giving off a rosy red-orange glow, and squished in at each table were crowds of people Lola thought must be Thai nationals all chattering and laughing away in a language she didn’t understand. An oddly incongruous but perfectly quirky soundtrack of heavy rock pierced the air. Who’d have imagined a place like this? It was like being back in Bangkok.

‘Like it? This place is like a second home to me now,’ Jake said, as he squashed in next to her at a shared table. There was no room for embarrassment here, it was a case of either sitting close or closer. And she wasn’t sure if it was the cloying heat in the room or just being next to him, but she needed a cooling drink. Fast. He ran a finger down the pictures on the menu. ‘I recommend the Pad Thai or the house cashew chicken. Perfection. The best Thai food on the West Coast. Fancy a beer? Wine?’ He beckoned to a male server who came over, smiled and welcomed him like an old friend.

‘Mr Jake. Nice to see you again. Your usual?’

‘Hi, Panit, yes, please. And some...?’ He looked over at Lola.

Her mouth watering, she scoured the menu for her favourite. ‘Oh, yes. A beer, pork larb and a green papaya salad, please.’

Jake leaned back and looked at her, laughing. ‘There was me thinking I was going to wow you with unusual flavours and yet you know more about it than me.’

‘I travelled around Asia in my uni holidays...vacations. Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.’ It had taken her days to convince her parents to let her take time off. They’d had jobs lined up for her, but she didn’t do them. Her first strike for freedom. ‘It was brilliant. Madly busy but brilliant. And I learnt so much about the food. We even had cooking lessons over there. I came back ten pounds heavier.’ She patted her hips where the noodles and rice still clung in lumps and bumps. Her dad had gone mad about that too. You can never be too thin, he always said.

‘You look great to me.’ Jake’s eyes wandered to her hands, then slowly up her body until blood rushed to her cheeks just at the moment his gaze hit hers, and there it lingered for just long enough that she felt unsettled. There was something happening—and she knew it wasn’t the magical lighting or the steamy atmosphere, and it certainly wasn’t the beer because she hadn’t had any yet—but there was definitely something scary and weird happening inside her. And if it was just happening to her then she was going to feel like an idiot if it continued.

Jake took a slug of the beer that Panit brought over and broke the connection. ‘I’d love to travel more. I just haven’t gotten round to anywhere that far away.’

‘You’ve been focusing on work?’

‘You bet. My plan is to get to the top of my field and then take a little time to smell the roses... But, first, no rest for the wicked, right? You’ve got to push, push, push. I get the feeling you’ve got the same kind of drive.’ Confidence oozed from him, particularly in his smile. She wondered how it would be if this were a real date rather than a non-date. How it would feel to have those hands touch her... And suddenly she wanted them on her.

Was this chemistry real?

No. It couldn’t be. She shoved such fanciful ideas to the back of her mind. He’d made his intentions very clear and she was perfectly fine with that. She didn’t have time in her life for anything more intimate than this sort of dinner.

The food arrived so quickly she was surprised when the server returned with steaming plates of mains and bowls of rice. Jake picked up his two chopsticks, and one of hers, and held them aloft in front of him. ‘So, here we go...brain surgery one-oh-one. Basically you need one head, three probes...’

‘You’re not really going to...?’ She squeezed her eyes half-shut and shuddered.

‘And a drill...’ He made a drilling sound. Then stopped as she screwed her eyes up even tighter. ‘You okay? You’ve gone a bit green.’

‘Please. No. That is so gross.’

‘And I thought you had guts, Lola Bennett.’

Did he? How? Why? ‘Well, you’re going to see them in a minute if you don’t stop.’ But she was laughing and not really grossed out at all. Although she wouldn’t be queueing up to see him in action for real.

He winked. ‘Another day, then. Seriously, if you decide to incorporate some medical scenes into your story I’ll be happy to help with the technical details.’

‘Who knows? I may just take you up on that. I do have a few medical scenes in there. Perhaps you could write them for me and I can just edit them peering from behind my fingers?’

He smiled. ‘The trick, I imagine, is to just give a few spare details and not a lot of gore—unless you’re writing a horror movie, in which case the more gore, the better. Everywhere.’

‘Especially in the scene where it’s night-time and someone hears a noise in the cellar. But no one has a torch...and they go down anyway...while we’re all screaming, “No, don’t do it!”’

‘Aw, no? Lola, I never realised they did that—but now you mention it...every horror movie. Ever. Now you’re analysing it and spoiling it for me too.’ Laughing, he tucked into the food and she followed suit. It was delicious, totally authentic and quite spicy. The cold beer washed everything down well. They ate in companiable silence until he put his chopsticks down and looked at her. ‘So, give me a synopsis of your story.’

‘Oh. Okay. Right. Well, I’ve been practising my elevator pitch—basically that’s for when I’m caught in an elevator with a famous director and I have two minutes to tell them about my script before they get out.’

‘You get caught in elevators with directors often?’

‘Not often enough. Well, never...but I’m prepared anyway in case I do. So...listen up...’ No point being nervous. He wasn’t going to poke fun at her. He wouldn’t criticise it. He was a...friend. She tested how that felt, and it felt good. He was funny and attentive and knew great authentic places to eat and was... Did it matter whether friends were gorgeous to look at? Just looking at him was putting her off her stride, never mind about the scary fluttery thing happening inside her. ‘Right... Oh, this is too hard.’