Kate

Tokyo had been nothing if not utterly exhausting. The studio schedule had our now oversized group moving at such a breakneck pace to press engagements, appearances, and even a smallish local premiere that there had barely been an opportunity to acknowledge our own inevitable jetlag. It had felt like there was no time to sleep, not to mention the fact that I had fallen in love with the energy of Tokyo and felt so driven to see and experience everything it had to offer within the short period of time that I had to spend there. Sadly, two-and-a-half days wasn’t nearly enough to even make a dent, but I had managed to sneak away with Lizzy and Evander during a break in interviews for an afternoon of shopping in Harajuku. We had been lucky thus far in terms of not attracting fans and press outside of Cam’s appearances but imagined that the “sexiest man alive” would have drawn quite a crowd in the youth culture mecca of Japan, so we left him behind at the hotel, at Tony’s request.

It was funny; despite our rocky beginnings, I had somehow come to actually enjoy Cam’s company and found that his absence gnawed at me a bit. I had begun to love our weird little adventures together and felt a twinge of disappointment when Lizzy, Evander, and I came across a hedgehog café in Harajuku. It disappointed me not to have an opportunity to see Cam roll his eyes at the three of us as we played with the prickly little creatures while sipping on odd cans of iced coffee.

Nonetheless, with all of the activity in Japan, the flight from Tokyo to Beijing found most of the group fully reclining their seats into makeshift beds for the three-hour journey. Not surprisingly, James and Amber had called dibs on the queen bed in the stateroom without a single thought to the fact that out of all of us, they had worked the least during the tour stop in Tokyo.

I, however, had found that I couldn’t sleep. My body clearly had no idea what time zone we were in at this point and simply wouldn’t allow me to relax until it figured out that fact. Rendered horribly jealous of my co-travelers snoring away in their seats, I opted to simply curl up with a good book and hoped that I’d be able to catch some z’s when we finally landed in Beijing.

I had thought that I was the lone passenger awake in the cabin until I caught a glimpse through the crack between the two seats in front of me and spied Cam, who was also doing some reading in the dimmed cabin. Our eyes locked for a moment as we exchanged polite smiles, but each resumed our reading. Now, my reading had become a conscious effort to try and ignore the ridiculously hot guy in my line of sight. A few more minutes passed before our eyes locked once again. This time, Cam stuck his tongue out at me and then quietly resumed his reading. I laughed to myself as I tried for the life of me to remember where the hell I had left off in my story before my beautiful distraction. A few minutes more passed, and I could feel Cam’s eyes on me once again. I stifled a grin and simply gave him the finger without looking up.

“Miss Prescott!” he whispered in dismay. “That’s very rude.”

I laughed outright as Cam finally decided to break the insanity and walked over to my quadrant of seats and sat on the seat arm diagonal from me.

“Can’t sleep?”

“Not even a little, which seems crazy because I’m thoroughly exhausted.”

“Are you worried that you might have another naughty dream about me, then?”

“No,” I said, trying desperately to hide my embarrassment.

“You know, if you want I could tuck you in and read you a nice bedtime story,” he said lasciviously and wagged his brow like a dirty old man. “I bet you’d have all kinds of hot dreams then.”

“Cam, you are literally the worst.”

“Am I, though? I actually find myself to be quite entertaining.”

“I’m sure you do.”

We shared a goofy grin just before I began to regard him thoughtfully and allowed the wheels to turn in my head.

“You know what? On second thought…sit.”

Cam furrowed his brow but nonetheless did as I asked and took the seat that I had tapped next to me.

“A bedtime story actually sounds perfect.” I handed him my Kindle.

He stared at me incredulously as he began to examine the contents of my e-reader and then frowned as he regarded me. “You can’t be serious.”

I had been reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for about the two hundred and fiftieth time. I was a closet Potterhead.

“I’ve wanted to buy the audible books forever, but they’re like thirty bucks a pop, and it’s just occurred to me that I can have a super British, Golden Globe-nominated actor read them to me for free. This is a total win.”

“For you, perhaps, but what do I get out of this deal?” he asked, crossing his arms in front of himself defiantly.

“I’ll share my blanket,” I said, spreading the soft cashmere throw over both of our legs.

“That’s a fucking terrible deal. My agent would crucify me,” he said with a grin.

“Pleeease.” I whined giving him puppy dog eyes and a pouty lip that I knew he’d never be able to resist.

He sighed as though I was putting him out royally, but nevertheless proceeded to recline both of our seats at the push of a button in the arm console and began reading where I had left off, taking care to do unique voices for each character. And when he did an absolutely perfect Hagrid voice, I nestled in a bit closer to him with a contented grin. When Cam looked down at me, there was such a look of amusement in his own eyes that it was clear to me he actually derived genuine pleasure in simply making me smile. One thing was for sure, it was getting harder and harder to keep my distance from this man, but for tonight I had decided that that was a problem for another day.