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“Hey, freedom of speech, right?”
“And Gary has the freedom to fire, so you should probably keep your free speech to a minimum,” Ashlyn recommended, once again burying her face in her camera. If she let herself be distracted by Javon, she knew that she would get hurt. It was better to focus on her first love, filming.
Gary started waving his arms, and people were moving before the words had even left his mouth. “We are working on scene three, folks. Let’s get moving!”
People scurried around, and Ashlyn hurried back to her camera. She was ready. She knew her place and didn’t need further direction. To her surprise, Javon followed her back to her camera.
“Shouldn’t you be going onset?” she asked, wanting to tell him what to do but not knowing his place.
Javon shook his head. “No, I’m not in this scene. I’m done for today.”
“Oh, then I guess I’ll see you later,” Ashlyn absentmindedly answered as she adjusted the lens.
“I thought I’d stay and watch you do your thing,” Javon said. “It’s not as though I have any other pressing appointments for today.”
Ashlyn turned and studied Javon for a minute. “I’d prefer you don’t do that,” she tried to say it as politely as she could.
Javon shrugged and bit his lower lip. “I would prefer to. Go ahead. Work. I won’t say anything.”
Ashlyn pursed her lips and turned back to her camera, frustration already building up. She didn’t feel comfortable knowing that he was behind her watching her. Ashlyn tried to focus solely on her camera, but her thoughts kept turning back to what Javon was thinking or doing or if he was looking at her.
After half an hour of silence from Javon, he decided he should start a conversation in the middle of filming. Maybe he really didn’t know what he was doing, but it seemed like he was trying to get her fired.
“Have you always been into film?” he asked.
Ashlyn waved her hand at him, trying to tell him to be quiet without saying anything herself. He was quiet for a few minutes. The actors had just started doing the scene again when Javon spoke again.
“Do you have a favorite movie?” Ashlyn turned and gave him a dirty look. He was going to ruin her shot!
Gary walked into the middle of the shot and looked over at the spread of cameras. “Five minutes’ break! Cameras, I hear someone talking during a shot. You better shut up or you’ll be fired. Absolutely no talking.”
Ashlyn turned on Gary. “Are you trying to get me fired? Shut up, will you? I’m not going to have my job ruined because you’re too stupid to know to shut your mouth on set.”
“Hey,” Javon said, standing up and using his tall frame against her. “You need to calm down.” He placed one hand on each of Ashlyn’s arms, but she wrestled herself free.
“No, I don’t! You need to leave! You don’t have a reason to be here anymore. Just go!”
Javon’s face showed that he was not going to put up with her yelling at him. “Ashlyn,” he spoke her name in a way that seemed to take command of the situation. “Don’t speak to me like that. If you don’t want me to talk, you need to say that.”
“Fine, don’t talk. Or better yet, leave! Please! This job is really important to me!” Ashlyn knew she was pleading, but she didn’t know what else to do. This job was the most important thing to her in the world. Her hands were in balls at her side, and she was scared that Javon would refuse.
“Calm down,” Javon said. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll leave you to work completely alone and quiet if you agree to go to dinner with me.”
Ashlyn’s fury seemed to melt in a moment. What was he trying to do? Did this count as manipulation? Whatever. If it meant that he would leave her alone, it was worth it. She didn’t even care if it would be good food or not, but looking at Javon, he probably always went to restaurants with good food.
“Fine, whatever,” Ashlyn said. “If you promise to always leave me alone. Just let me film.”
“Great, I’ll see you at the Red Lobster as seven o’clock tonight. Deal?”
“Yeah, sure,” Ashlyn said, turning away from Javon. Things were much quieter, and she saw that one of the other cameramen was staring at her. Ashlyn stared him down. He finally looked away sheepishly. Ashlyn turned back and saw that Javon was already halfway toward the parking lot. Good riddance. Now, she could focus on filming.
Chapter Three
Ashlyn finished her filming when the sun started coming in at the wrong side of the set, around four in the afternoon. Ashlyn was exhausted, and she rode with the crew back to their hotel. They had a block of rooms where they were staying for the ten days they were filming here. Ashlyn wanted to shower and fall into her bed. Going to bed at seven o’clock wasn’t too early, was it?
Ashlyn suddenly remembered her date with Javon. She backpedaled. It wasn’t a date. It was just a bribe. She was going to follow through on it, because she didn’t want Javon making trouble for her the next day. They had nine more jam packed days of filming, and she didn’t need to be distracted on any one of those. She would pay up now and receive the benefits of being able to work.
“Can I shower first?” Ashlyn asked her roommate Pamela.
