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“I’m not being frugal. I’d prefer water.”
I bought their drinks as well as mine: a flavored martini that had been my signature drink ever since someone on the internet said it made me look like a bona fide movie star.
We chose a booth next to the window where we had a view of parked cars and waited for our drinks to be delivered.
“So…” Wyatt said. “You and Brooke…”
“She’s my girlfriend.” I hoped that keeping my answers brief would steer them away from the subject. “Haven’t you seen the headlines?”
The official story was that we’d met on the set of a movie we’d both starred in,Blind Attraction, fell in love, and lived happily ever after. Of course, it was a story invented by Tonia: the truth was, we’d met on set and hated each other. Instantly. But my reputation was in tatters, and so was Brooke’s. We both needed this.
“What can I get you?” the waitress asked as she delivered our drinks, providing a welcome distraction. She was plump and grandmotherly, and looked like she’d been working here since the place was first built. She had taken our order at the bar, too, and I could only see a couple of other people through the kitchen door, so I suspected it was a family-run business.
Wyatt ordered ribs and Isaac ordered steak, so I ordered steak, too. They seemed to forget about Brooke entirely until Isaac leaned back in his chair and chewed an ice cube that had already half-melted.
“You’re braver than I am. I don’t think I could ever get involved with a co-star,” he said. “There’s so much that can go wrong.”
I sloshed my drink around in its glass as the uneasy feeling returned. Agreeing with him wouldn’t give my secret away, would it? A drop of condensation ran over my finger and I ignored it.
“You have no idea.”
8
ISAAC
I’d spent my entire life on film sets, and I could always tell when a movie was going to be a disaster. Sometimes the script was awful, sometimes the director let his ego get in the way, and sometimes everything just went wrong.
By the third day of filming,Pushing Daisyhad the full trifecta.
Even with a pillow over my head, I could hear Dean and Brooke arguing through our shared wall.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Brooke shouted. Her voice was loud and had a pitch that I instantly recognized from experience: she was drunk. I rolled over and looked at the time on my phone: seven a.m. She must have been drinking all night.
Dean’s voice was softer, but still audible.
“If you’ve lost your script again, Preston’s going to kill you.”
“I didn’tloseit.” There was a loud thump, and it sounded like someone had fallen on the carpet. “It wasstolen.” I pulled the pillow tighter over my ears, but it didn’t help. I felt like I was back in high school, living with my parents before their divorce.
“Why did you leave it in anightclub?”
Angry footsteps, then silence.
“Someone asked me to dance.”
“If you’d bothered to learn your lines like everyone else did, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“That damn thing’s got two hundred pages. How can you expect…” Their voices faded, and I pulled the pillow down to my chest, hoping it was over, but I still caught the occasional word:star,fired,breach of contract.
I shoved the pillow back under my head and lay still, waiting to see what would happen next. A door slammed and then there was silence.
But just when it seemed like it was safe to sleep again, my alarm went off.
I hauled myself out of bed and stared at my reflection in the mirror as I brushed my teeth. My normally wavy chin-length hair was a mess of curls. Two days’ worth of stubble made my chin and jaw look darker than usual. And my eyes looked more hooded than they usually did.
Thank God our makeup artists were magicians with their kits, I thought. I could walk in with mud in my hair and my eyebrows shaved off, and they’d still be able to make me look great on camera. Hell, they even madeBrookelook great on camera, despite her all-night drinking binges. I showered, made myself a black coffee using the motel’s kettle and combed my hair until it looked at least half presentable.
My reflection still looked tired, but it would have to do.
