She let out a huff of indignation and then turned her body as far away from me as she possibly could, which was good, since it gave me some breathing room.

He leaned forward and asked, “So what is the plan here?”

“The number one rule is I either have to be in a seat or backstage when the lights come on, and obviously I can’t do either one of those things right now. So I’m . . . here. Until the next commercial break.”

“Which makes you . . . what? Schrödinger’s seat filler?”

Okay, that made me smile. The man could be charming if he wanted to be. “You can’t look at me or talk to me. Just pretend like I’m not here.”

“Gladly,” Hannah said, but it was like Noah hadn’t even heard her. Or really even registered that they were, like, on a date, but I was the one he was talking to.

Why was that thought making my heart flutter?

Then he leaned forward and I wondered how I hadn’t noticed before how good he smelled. Clean and crisp, with some kind of expensive, masculine, woodsy scent. “You know, when I said that thing about women falling at my feet, I didn’t mean for it to be an invitation.”

He said it so flirtatiously I couldn’t even get mad. I just sat there on the floor, feeling extremely stupid. This was one of the most humiliating experiences of my entire life. Easily top five.

But not number one. Nothing could ever be more humiliating than number one.

And at some point a camera operator was going to realize that Noah was chatting with the floor and the jig would be up. “Look, I know I don’t have the right to ask for any kind of favor, but I will get someone I love in trouble if you keep talking to me. You really do have to pretend like I’m not here.”

He studied me for a moment, then gave me a little half smile. “Sure thing. But you owe me one.”

What? I owed him one? What would that even entail? This night just kept getting more and more bizarre.

I heard one of the presenters say, “And the nominees are . . . ,” and almost flew into a blind panic. What if it was Noah’s category? And he won? Then there would be cameras everywhere and they would definitely catch me and Shelby would never speak to me again!

But it wasn’t his category. I let out a sigh of relief.

This floor was gross. It felt sticky underneath me. I was definitely going to have to pay that stain-removal fee to the rental place, and there went my food budget for the next two weeks.