AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She was still topless, and when he settled into his mark half holding her against him, he couldn’t help licking his lips. Quietly he said, “You really do look good, Jill.” Adding, hoping to make her laugh, “Good enough to eat. I have syrup in my trailer.”
She just groaned and rolled her eyes at him. Then said, “Three days of this, and I might let you.”
But the next two days were the distressing ones and she’d gone home to her own house to decompress from the first big day. Now, it was carefully choreographed, angry sex, and then a hate fuck for the books. By the end of the third day, she couldn’t even look him in the eye. Granted, he could barely look himself in the mirror. He’d never played a character like this before, and it scared him a little how easily he’d slipped into the anger and abuse, how cathartic it had felt to call her those names and make all those threats. He wanted to talk to her, but she was clearly avoiding him after they’d been released, so he let her escape to her trailer, and he went to his.
He was just collecting his things to go home after a shower, when he heard a knock. “It’s open,” he called, and Jill popped her head in the door. She was squeaky clean, her hair still damp as she clambered up inside. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi. I wanted to check on you. Those scenes were always really hard on Doyle, but he got to die every night, so he could be reborn after the curtain. You okay?”
“Fuck,” he sat down hard, overwhelmed with a sudden gratitude and relief. He realized he’d been afraid she would never look at him again. “That was–that was hard.”
She nodded, shutting the door behind her and sitting down next to him on the little couch. “You’re not a mean man. You’re not a bad man.” He felt his eyes welling up with tears and she grabbed his hands and squeezed them. “That character is not who you are, and I know it was really hard for you to be him. I know you would never hurt me like that. Okay?”
He took in a deep, shuddering breath, trying to get hold of himself. “Yeah. Thank you.”
“Really, it was really hard for Doyle, too. As a play, you get to do it in chronological order and it’s a full ride. There’s a beginning, middle, end, and curtain. You get the scene done and roll to the next until it’s done. This is so different. I was worried about you.”
“I was worried about you. I should have come and–”
“No, you did right. You let me get out of the character, remember who I am, remember who you are, and clean up.” Her eyes searched his face until she found whatever it was she was looking for. “Want to go grab dinner? Do you want to come back to my place? Do you need some space before you have to go be ‘Dad’ again?”
Another sucker punch of relief nearly took his breath away. “Yeah. I think that would be good.”
“Call Delia. I’ll drive.”
“Oh hell no. I’ll call Delia, but I’m driving.”
“Fine,” she laughed, wiping a stray tear from his cheek. “By the by, your American accent is really good.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’m impressed.”
She chatted him back down to earth like he was a stray dog, he thought, but he didn’t mind. Her stream of consciousness kept him focused through the drive, and helped ground him back in reality as she went about pouring wine and putting the personal-chef-prepped meals on plates.
“I should be taking care of you,” he finally said, watching her clean up their dessert dishes. Dessert was a clever take on berries in cream that wouldn’t go straight to his waist.
“I’ve done this hundreds of times. Been Devon, I mean. I’ve been through those moments with her before. You’ve never been Andrew before. Honestly, I’ll let you take care of me after Devon murders him. That’s the hardest part for me. It’s such an abrupt ending. Besides, you already took care of helping me make it through that first day. That was so much more vulnerable for me! More wine?”
“Thanks. How many carbs are in this?”
“Too many.” She refilled his glass and then hers, leaning against the kitchen island, watching him. “This is nice. Just sitting here talking about the craft.”
“It is,” he agreed. “It really is.”
“Remember when you went on that Chekov kick? And how we spent so much time trying to dissemble The Seagull so you could give it something new?”
He laughed outright. “I was so young!”
“And so serious about giving them something they hadn’t seen before. If anyone could do it, though, it was you.”
“I’m not sure I like who Hollywood has made me,” he said after a beat, swirling his wine.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve done some shitty things to get ahead.”
“So, stop.” She shrugged. “You can’t change what you’ve already done, but you don’t have to do those things again.”
