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Before Millicent could get to another high note that Leo was sure would either blow out his eardrums or send him into a deep depression, he stood up from his seat, raised a hand to stop the pianist in the corner from continuing, and cleared his throat. “Uh, thank you for… that. We’ll let you know if you got the part by the end of the week.”
Millicent gave a bright smile and walked confidently off the stage, probably thinking that she had nailed it, but Leo would rather gouge his own eyes out than listen to her sing on repeat. Someone should really let the poor girl know that she couldn’t even sing “Old McDonald Had a Farm,” let alone a Tony Award-winning song. Despite what Piper thought, however, he wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t his job to tell Millie that she sucked. It was his job to find the people who didn’t suck. He waited until he knew Millicent was out of earshot before turning to Moreno, now standing and looking irritated.
“I’ll find someone else,” Leo sighed.
“We’re out of time, Diaz. Do I need to step in? Ninety percent of directing is casting. You know that. I don’t have to tell you that if you can’t find someone, the assistant director’s position will be off the table,” Moreno warned. Alejandro was strict, but he wasn’t an asshole—Leo knew that. “I’m trusting you on this.”
“Yes, sir.” Leo bobbed his head. Moreno was right: if Leo couldn’t find someone to be the next Sarah Brown soon, he didn’t deserve to direct at all.
“What’s your plan?” Moreno’s eyebrows lifted in expectation. The only plan Leo could think of was one he knew wouldn’t go over well. Not with Moreno, of course—he usually agreed with Leo’s choices—but with the talent herself.
“I have someone. She’s perfect for the part.” Leo blinked slowly, trying to come to terms with it. Sam was going to have a field day.
“Well, why the hell isn’t she here, then?” Moreno motioned to the stage. “If you have the perfect solution, why do my ears feel violated right now?”
“Because,” Leo pounded his palm against his forehead. “She despises me, sir. Like nuclear-level hatred.”
“What’d you do? Sleep with her?” Moreno asked. “And, for the love of God, stop calling me ‘sir.’ I am not that old.”
“I didn’t sleep with her!” Leo practically shouted. “And why do you assume I’m the one that did something? We’re just fundamentally different. She fights me on everything.”
Moreno’s mouth parted in surprise before the corner of his mouth tipped up. “Ah, okay. So you want to sleep with her, then.”
“I—what? No.” Leo tried to school his expression away from what he assumed was the very guilty-looking one on his face.
“Listen, I don’t give a single fuck what you do in your spare time. I used to say that sleeping with the actors or staff is a terrible idea, and I still think it’s a terrible idea, but I’m self-aware enough to know that I’m a hypocrite. If you can keep everything professional, then I don’t care.”
The torrid love affair between Moreno and his wife had been big celebrity news back in the day. They were still, to this day, one of Hollywood’s favorite It couples, even two kids and eight years later. They had met on the set of Moreno’s Regency era box-office hit The Promenade. Leo really couldn’t blame Moreno for sleeping with or falling in love with the lead actress, Quinn German. He had seen the movie… and her tits. The famous nude scene where the duke and the daughter of his father’s enemy, played by German, had sex in the library was probably the only reason that most of the guys from Leo’s high school and Fletcher had seen it. Maybe, at some point, Leo would grow a pair and ask the question he had been dying to know since he started shadowing Moreno: what was it like to direct a scene like that? Was it better or worse when you already knew someone’s body well? But today was not that day as he stared back at Moreno, whose eyes were narrowed at him like he could tell Leo was thinking about his wife’s tits.
“I don’t want to sleep with Piper.” The statement soured in Leo’s mouth like the lie it was. Saying he didn’t want to see Piper naked was like saying he didn’t repeatedly watch the sex scene from The Promenade for… research purposes.
“If you’re going to direct actors, you should probably get better at acting.” Moreno scoffed. “I assume you can both get over your vendettas enough to be professional?” Leo nodded. “Perfect, then figure it out. Get her to take the role. Beg. I don’t care.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I thought working with college kids would make me young and hip again, but you all still call me ‘sir’ like I’m your grandpa,” Moreno grumbled as he turned to walk down the aisle, looking over his shoulder. “And Leo?”
“Yeah?” Leo called back as he sat down in one of the cloth director’s chairs facing the stage.
“Stop thinking about my wife’s breasts.”
It was a good thing Leo wasn’t a blusher. His face was hot with embarrassment as he fumbled out a response. “No, I-I wasn’t—”
“I’m just fucking with you,” Moreno called back in a singsong voice, pushing the crash bar and leaving Leo to sit alone with his mortification.
“Dios mío,” Leo groaned and massaged his temples. Quinn German’s rack aside, he had a serious problem on his hands.
Piper was never going to agree to this, but he would have to get her to. If she wanted his left arm, he’d have to chop it off for her. Giving up the opportunity to assistant-direct alongside Alejandro Moreno was not an option.
Nine
LEO
It was never hard to find Piper in class. All one really had to do was clock the nearest straight man, follow his line of sight, and bingo. If that failed, she could always be found sitting at the very front of the classroom, meticulously rearranging her notepad, pens, and highlighters like the eager good girl she was. The space next to her was usually open because no one wanted to be a target for Professor Hornbill, and today was no different. Piper was bent over a notebook, writing a header at the top in neat calligraphic script. Leo would never understand the type of person that made their notes an entire art project. His notes were shoved into a binder that was falling apart at the seams. Not as pretty, but it got the job done and didn’t require tens of thousands of dollars in fancy pens he couldn’t afford.
After waving to Emma Planter, the other female headliner of the musical, who was seated where he usually sat in the back of the class, Leo wandered to the front, hyping himself up for what would no doubt be the battle of his life.
“Where’s your quill and ink?” Leo asked as he dropped into the seat next to Piper, who was still carefully scrawling out the date with perfect penmanship. Her head swiveled to him in a way that made him think it might just keep spinning, The Exorcist-style, all the way around her pretty little neck. She glared at him for only a second before turning back to her art project.
