Part one of Is This Seat Taken? was originally in the debut issue of The Samhellion newsletter. If you already read the story there, you can jump straight ahead to part two of the ongoing serial.

Two best friends, Delaney and Kendall, are attending the Dexy Awards as seatfillers. Anything can happen when you’re playing the musical chairs game of seatfilling; you never know who you’re going to end up sitting next to or what’s going to happen when the cameras are rolling…

Delaney

 

For the umpteenth time, Delaney Squires slid the flimsy strap of her frou-frou purple-sequined dress back onto her shoulder. She shifted her weight, raising one matching purple-sequined-strappy-sandal-covered foot and amusedly wondered if the bloody blisters on her heel clashed with her outfit.

“You know,” Delaney said to her BFF and partner-in-seatfilling crime, Kendall, “this job is misleading.”

Kendall arched a dark eyebrow in question. Delaney noticed a single brow hair sticking out in strict disobedience of the dress code, licked her finger and smashed it back into place. Kendall didn’t even flinch.

“Well, it’s called seatfilling, right?” Delaney continued her earlier observation. “Yet we’ve been here four hours and my fancily dressed ass has yet to make contact with a chair.”

Kendall laughed. “That’s because you don’t have a Hollywood ass, Laney dear. Our underappreciated posteriors get to stand here in this lovely back hallway until all the famous, multimillion dollar celebrity asses find their seats. Then all of us”—she gestured to the couple hundred seatfilling hopefuls dressed to the nines in designer knockoffs—“get to start the musical chairs game.”

“What does the winner get?” Delaney mused.

Kendall opened her mouth to answer when a harried-looking woman holding a clipboard stormed through the crowd, looked Kendall up and down, nodded and said, “You. Come with me,” then continued down her path, clearly expecting Kendall to follow without question.

Eyes wide, the friends looked at each other. “See you inside,” Delaney offered.

“I hope.” With a shrug, Kendall darted after the frazzled lady as fast as her four-inch stiletto boots would allow.

Laney didn’t have much time to wonder what was to happen to her friend. Within a couple minutes of Kendall’s departure, a man dressed in a tux, also carrying a clipboard, shouted from the front of the line, “Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go! Ten minutes to show time and we have seats to fill, people. Move it!”

Feeling strangely like a sheep, Delaney followed the herd into the brightly lit pavilion. Was that Julia Roberts talking to Harrison Ford? She couldn’t tell for sure through the chaos of celebrities and seatfillers all clamoring for seats.

“You, purple-sequin girl. This way,” a radio-wearing woman called and gestured for Delaney to shuttle down the first of the three main aisles. “Sit here.” And then the woman was off and running, grabbing another seatfiller and shoving her toward an empty chair.

Fifth row back, second seat in. Not bad. She had a good view of the stage. Who knew how long she’d be here though. When she and Kendall had first arrived, they’d been given the spiel from the woman at check-in. Their job was to fill an empty seat. Simple. When the person the seat belonged to returned, the seatfiller had to discreetly abandon the seat and search for another available one. All this was supposed to occur during commercial breaks, but if the ticket holder showed up a mere ten seconds before the break ended, the seatfiller had to haul ass, either out of the pavilion, or if lucky, another empty chair—all before the cameras went live.

Another seatfiller plopped into the open aisle seat to the left of her. Laney gave the newcomer a smile then, stomach a mass of nervous and excited butterflies, studied her surroundings.

Yup, there was Julia and Harrison, deep in conversation several rows away. Tobey Maguire walked by, shook hands with Orlando Bloom and continued toward his seat. Laney tried to keep her eyes from bugging out of her head. This was too cool. It made the waxing, plucking and uncomfortable underwire push-up bra so worth it. And to think, this was only the start of awards season. She’d be in celeb-watching heaven for the next several months.

As she scanned the crowd, hoping to catch a glimpse of Kendall, the girl next to her shrieked, “Ohmigod, that’s Jaden Kingsley!” and began bouncing up and down in her seat.

Jaden Kingsley? Laney gave herself whiplash looking in the direction the girl had gestured, but didn’t see him in the crowd. Jaden had disappeared from the limelight a few years ago when the band he’d fronted had broken up. Why would he be here? Now? And if he was, he better get his ass where Laney could see him because she’d give up chocolate and sex (not that she’d been getting any lately) for the next year to see that man up-close-and-sexy-personal.

“I don’t see him,” said another woman sitting behind shrieking girl. “And besides, why would he be here? He’s so five years ago.”

No. That lady was insane. A man as sexy as Jaden never went out of style.

“No, it was him,” said shrieking girl. “He’s got a solo album coming out in a few months, and one of his songs is on the soundtrack for—” She broke off with a squeal, sounding a bit like a whinnying horse. “IiiEeeeee, Jaden, Jaden, I love you!”

The eyes of half the crowd nearby turned their way as the girl continued her fits and squeals. Okay, this was so not fair. Why could freaky fan girl see Jaden, and Laney couldn’t? And why hadn’t she heard about Jaden’s solo album sooner? And really, was this girl trying to get her ass booted out of the show? Rule number one: don’t harass the celebrities.

Laney leaned as far away from crazy girl as possible without leaving her seat, hoping no one would think they’d come to this thing together. And that’s when she saw him. Jaden so-friggin’-hot-he’s-nuclear Kingsley. Sitting ten chairs away. Looking right at her.

Those sensual chocolate brown eyes that had wooed millions of women while he sang his low, throaty love songs were watching her.

Don’t be ridiculous, Laney. This room is full of people. Just because he’s gazing in your general direction does not mean he’s looking at you.

Yeah, well, she argued with herself, it doesn’t mean he’s not looking at me either.

Laney forced her lips into a smile—at least she hoped it was a smile, she’d lost control of basic body function the moment she saw Jaden’s eyes. Her lips must have been cooperating because he smiled in return.

Oh my God, he’s really looking at me. Me! Laney Squires.

Freaky fan girl took that moment to scream something unintelligible, the only understood words “Jaden” “marry me” “children”. Ears aching from the girl’s high-pitched howlings, Laney flinched.

Jaden turned away.

With one last look at the back of Jaden’s sexy neck—how could a neck be sexy? But, yeah, it was—Laney settled back into her seat as an announcer counted down the last few seconds until the cameras would roll.

As the show began, Laney only half listened as Adam Sandler got up and gave his opening monologue. The crowd laughed uproariously as Adam verbally sparred with Cooper Tynesdale—who was apparently somewhere on the other side of the pavilion. Laney couldn’t actually see him from where she was seated. Kendall was probably dancing in her seat that Cooper was here—she’d had a crush on the man since junior high—and if Laney knew her best friend, she was trying to figure a way to get a seat close to the man so she could accidentally brush up against him during a commercial break.

As the first award was handed out, Laney replayed the quick moment of shared looks and smiles with Jaden. It had been totally worth giving up sex and chocolate for.

Except…

If she was going to give up sex and chocolate for an entire year, shouldn’t she get to steal a few more glances at him? That would make it a fairer tradeoff, right?

Totally proud of her reasoning, Laney ever-so-casually leaned forward in her seat. Oh my… Her heart fluttered as she studied his handsome profile. He was wearing a long-sleeved, dark burgundy button-down shirt untucked over black slacks. His dark brown hair brushed the collar of his shirt.

He began clapping as the award winner for best makeup was announced. Laney joined in, throwing a quick glance forward to watch as the woman accepted her award. As the winner stepped from the stage, Laney shifted focus back to Jaden.

This time, he was leaning forward, his forearms on his knees, his head tilted her way.

Holy hell, he was looking at her again! He grinned and winked, and Laney panicked. Why was he looking at her? Had her boob fallen out of her dress? Was her hair sticking straight up?

No. And no.

Then why?

Vaguely, Laney realized that it must be a commercial break because people were crowding the aisles, seatfillers on the prowl for a piece of celeb property, while celebs mingled or were directed backstage for their part of the show. However, Laney’s ass remained planted on the edge of her seat, her gaze locked on Jaden’s bedroom eyes. He mouthed the word, “Hey.”

She mouthed a “hi” back.

Then freaky fan girl interrupted their scintillating conversation with a shouted, “Jaaadennnn!”

Laney rolled her eyes and shook her head, and Jaden laughed. Was he laughing because of what she’d done? On fan girl’s next yowl, Laney lifted a finger to her head and subtly did the universal sign for crazy, making small circles against her temple.

Jaden laughed harder, his brown eyes crinkling at the corners.

Unable to help herself, Laney burst out in giggles as well. This was crazy. Insane. She was sharing a laugh with one of the sexiest men alive, while he sat ten seats away from her. Kendall would never believe this.

As the commercial break came to an end, Laney thanked her maker that she hadn’t been booted from her seat. It meant she had at least ten more minutes to flirt with Jaden Kingsley.

And flirt they did, with the only style of communication at their disposal. Body language. Later, if Laney’d had a gun pointed to her head, she couldn’t have told anyone what had happened during the award show for those ten minutes. The only thing she’d be able to share was that Jaden’s eyes sparkled when he laughed, that his grin was slightly crooked, and that with all the deals she’d made with God to let the fun with Jaden continue, she was never going to get to eat chocolate again. (Going without sex was no longer on the bargaining table.)

Seconds after the music swelled, announcing the next commercial break, fan girl let out a loud sob. “No! You can’t make me go.”

Startled, Laney looked toward the girl. Clipboard lady—the one who’d pulled Kendall out of line—leveled a no-nonsense glare at fan girl. “Up. Now.”

As the girl slunk away, flanked by Ms. Clipboard, Laney almost felt sorry for her. Yeah, the girl hadn’t exactly been a model seatfiller, but if it wasn’t for her crazy antics, Jaden probably wouldn’t have ever looked Laney’s way.

She turned back toward Jaden and her stomach dropped. He was gone.

Dammit.

Resigned to be without a flirting partner for the rest of the show, Laney sighed and settled back into her seat. Her tiny beaded purse, holding only her driver’s license, a few dollars and her car keys, slipped from her lap and fell to the floor.

She leaned over to retrieve it and on the upswing saw a pair of legs in dark slacks settling into the seat next to her.

“Is this seat taken?”

Laney’s gaze swept up over black pants and burgundy shirt to meet familiar brown eyes. She smiled. “It is now.”

~*~

Wonder what happened to Kendall? Click here to read part two of Is This Seat Taken?