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“You can’t come here, Dame.” I push the hair away from her face as she swallows and nods. “I love you.”
“Remember the rules,” I remind her, before I lean in and take her lips.
ACT 2
“The actor becomes an emotional athlete. The process is painful—my personal life suffers.”—Al Pacino
Lucas
THREE MONTHS AGO
The next morning, Gabriela calls out to me from the sidewalk. “Lucas, how are you?”
I wave at her with a forced smile as she enters the restaurant where I sit at a table on the other side of an open partition. I had no choice but to meet her at the place of her choosing because she’d told Nova she had a hectic schedule. It’s bullshit, and we both know it. She doesn’t want a private meeting due to fear of getting ambushed in hostile territory. She’s testing the waters. It’s a smart move on her part because she knows I can’t publicly react to whatever she’s willing to reveal. I have to play it just right to get answers. She walks up, and I stand to greet her. “Gabriela, it’s been a long time.”
She kisses me on the cheek, her perfume filling my nostrils and I force myself not to cringe at the pungent smell. It’s always been hard for me to gauge Gabriela as a person. She’s guarded, but direct, and that’s what worries me. You don’t want to have any skeletal stories with her as your narrator. She’s worn a blatant chip on her shoulder due to the way her career nose-dived after we filmed our second movie, Dissident, the follow-up to Misfits. Blake and I got more offers, she didn’t. Her audience has substantially faded, and ears no longer perk up at the mention of her name unless she drags other names in, like Blake’s. I can’t help but think her vague interviews are a ploy for short-lived attention. This type of shit is the reason I keep my circle tight.
“How have you been, Lucas?” she asks, taking the seat across from me.
“Good, getting back to work.”
“Anything I’d know about?”
“Doing a flick with Wes.”
She lifts a tattooed eyebrow. “Silver Ghost?”
I nod.
“Wow, congrats.”
“Thank you.”
“You deserve it.” She grabs the water I ordered before she arrived and sips it. It’s then I see the cracks beneath the makeup. Half of her is injected collagen and scalpel at this point. Mere years ago, she looked fantastic, but she’s refusing to age gracefully. From my side of things women really don’t win that battle by spending thousands in procedures. I can’t deny aging actresses have it rough, I feel for them, but it seems as if it’s a trend now to look like a blow-up doll. She speaks up under my scrutiny. “I have a meeting in an hour, so I can’t stay long.”
“I won’t keep you.”
“When do you start filming?”
“Soon.”
“You’ll be great,” she assures me.
“Hope so,” I say.
“Any idea what angle you’re going to take?”
“I’m working on it.”
“Ah,” she says with a grin, “look at us, all grown up.” Her eyes shine with sincerity. “It seems like yesterday we were getting stoned between takes and trailer hopping.” She gives me a wink, and I hide my shudder. In those days sexual favors were a regular occurrence, but I brush off the ill feeling because I know I’ve never fucked her. My dick was a liability back then, but I’m thankful I had more sense than to sleep with her.
“We’ve both come a long way,” I say, avoiding the implication in her voice and scanning the menu knowing I’m not going to eat.
“How is Mila?”
“Perfect,” I answer without hesitation.
“Lucas,” she laughs, “you don’t have to worry. Our secrets are safe.”
