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She rolls over to face me, her eyes closed. “Mmm…” She looks cute when she’s sleeping, so peaceful and happy.
I shake her shoulder. “Get up, sleepyhead.”
Willow rolls onto her back, looking over at me with one eye open. She groans and then blinks a few times before she sits up.
She rubs her eyes and yawns. “What’s going on?”
“You tell me. I woke up with you in my bed.”
“Nothing happened.”
“How did we end up here?”
“Do you remember anything from last night?”
I shake my head.
She sighs. “Look, we need to talk.”
“Those are the last words any man wants to hear in the morning.”
Willow brushes her hair behind her ears and chuckles. “That’s why we came upstairs. I wanted to tell you about the meeting with Firehouse Films, but you fell asleep.”
I narrow my eyes, thinking over last night. Glimpses flash into my mind. “It’s for War of the Gods, right?”
“Yeah. The studio is expecting us at one o’clock.”
Panicked, I glance over at the clock on my bedside table and slide off the bed like it’s on fire. “Well, what are you doing? Get ready.”
She crawls across my bed, on her knees in front of me. “Calm down, Nico. We have plenty of time.”
“I know, but…” I tug at the end of my shirt and groan. “I look like shit. I smell like a brewery.”
She slips her fingers between mine, surprising me by the sudden contact. “Let me help you. I will get you through this. Remember, you got this. And I got you, okay?”
There’s so much power behind her words that a tremor rocks through my body. Everywhere our skin meets sends a volt of electricity up my arms.
“Take a shower,” she says with laughter in her tone. “You stink.”
* * *
My hands stick to the steering wheel as I drive onto the Firehouse Films lot. It’s been awhile since my last meeting with a studio head. No one wants to work with the bad boy of Hollywood, though I’m not as bad as the picture they paint in the media. I’ll admit the TMZ videos showed me at my lowest point. But since then, I have stayed out of the spotlight.
“No matter what happens,” Willow says. “This is just the first of many meetings. If you don’t get this role, I have hundreds of scripts to read.” I can feel her eyes on me as she moves her arm to the console between us. “I will find you a job even if it kills me.”
“How are you so confident?”
“Because I know you can turn your life around. You were one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood, and you can do it again.”
“You don’t even know me,” I challenge. “How do you know I won’t disappoint you like I did Vinnie?”
She shrugs against the leather seat. “That’s why they call it a leap of faith.”
“You’re putting your faith in the wrong person,” I assure her.
“I tied your future to mine when you signed the contract.”
She points to the left. “Over there. His office in building K.”
I turn toward the gray one-story building with a giant K scrawled on the side in white paint. “What did you mean, you tied your future to mine?”
She bites the inside of her cheek and turns her head to stare out the window. “I told Burke he could fire me if I’m not successful.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I believe in you. And if I can’t take a once successful star and turn his career around, what could I do for a new actor?”
“You’re crazy, woman.” I shake my head as I park in front of the building. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
She turns to look at me. “Why not?”
“No offense, but if Vinnie couldn’t get me a job, what chance do you have?”
“I got you this meeting,” she points out. “Vinnie couldn’t even get you that, not even with all of his connections.”
She has a good point.
After Flashbang wrapped, I thought I was at the top of my game. But as the months passed, and Vinnie grew more irritated with me, I let all the comments online get to my head. I spent hours, sometimes days, consuming articles and social media posts. This business requires a certain mental toughness no one tells you about before deciding to follow your passion across the country. At one time, I had the confidence to take on the world. But now, it’s as if the scared method actor from Rochester, New York, resurfaces with each failure.
Willow claps her fingers around my wrist, a determined expression on her face. “You can do this, Nico.”
No one has believed in me this much in a long time.
My friends look at me with pity. Even my family feels sorry for me, though I know my cousins talk shit about my back to make a few bucks. Willow is the only person who’s not here out of loyalty or service.
