by Julie Wright
“I did.”
Ben’s fingers tapped at the counter. The familiar pattern of three quick, two slow meant he was processing. “I’m imagining the studio is in some sort of damage-control mode, right?”
I nodded. “They’re afraid you’ll claim ownership of the intellectual property rights.”
His fingers stopped tapping, and he rolled his eyes. “Of course I’m not claiming ownership. All I did was watch it and make a few suggestions. It’s basically what every single person who ever watches a movie does: they watch it and comment on it. This isn’t earth-shattering here. Why would I assume that meant ownership?”
I smiled at him, feeling comfort just being in his presence. “I told them you were an honorable guy and wouldn’t make a claim for anything, but let’s be honest, Ben. You did more than just make suggestions. You pressed the buttons, used the sliders—you did the work.”
His eyes went wide, and he straightened from his slouch. “Did you tell them that?”
“No, but there are cameras in all the suites.” I set the Kylo Ren glass in the sink.
Ben took hold of my wrist and pulled me into an embrace. “Let’s go sit down, and you can tell me everything.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead.
I leaned into him and rose up on my tiptoes to drop a quick kiss on his cheek. He turned fast enough to make certain that the tail end of the kiss caught his mouth, too.
Sneaky Ben.
Sweet, smooth, sneaky Ben.
Sneaky Ben turned out to be worth knowing as well.
Ben settled on the couch, and I sat next to him. We turned so we could face each other and talk more easily. It was hard not to think about how I’d fallen asleep on that exact couch, or that my picture was back on his fridge. It was hard not to think of how incredibly safe I felt with Ben. I forced myself to put all of that out of my mind and told him everything that had happened with Portal Pictures.
He listened with full attention, not showing any signs of emotion, the way he did when he reviewed a new film project. When I was done, he tightened his lips together for a fraction of a second before saying, “Best film editor, huh? The execs were there because they think you’re going to get an Academy Award? That’s some high praise, Silvia! I’m really proud of you.”
“Seriously, Ben? That’s what you got out of this conversation? We’re in a lot of trouble here. Both of us, and it’s all my fault.”
“It’s not your fault. I’m an adult. I make my own choices. And I don’t think we’re in that much trouble. I’ll assure them that I have no intentions of seeking redress for intellectual property rights. I’ll sign papers that say they own their own intellectual property, and it’ll be over. Easy.”
“Easy?” I repeated. I needed reassurance because my life that had been going so well now felt like a train wreck.
His fingers tapped out his thinking rhythm. When they stopped, he said, “Yes. It’s easy. Sure, it seems like it’s a big deal to them right now, but once they look at the entire situation, they’ll calm down, and everything will be fine. You’ll see.”
I hoped he was right.
He made me dinner, and we played Zombicide, a board game where it was us against zombies. The zombies won. Ben pulled out his pocket watch and tsked when he saw the time. He walked me to my car to give me a “proper kiss good night.”
“I love it when you call things proper,” I said.
He leaned against my car, neither of us in any hurry to say goodbye and mean it.
His eyes stayed steadily on mine, sincere, intense, a fire burning in them. “I love you.” He lowered his forehead to mine. “You cannot know what a relief it is to say the words out loud.”
I didn’t give him a chance to say them again. I pushed up on my toes and pressed my lips firmly against his. His arm curled around my waist, and he hooked a finger into my belt loop to tug me up higher, closing the distance between us.
His other hand was at the nape of my neck, his fingers twined in my hair. I was grateful he had such a strong hold on me because I was caught somewhere between collapsing to the ground with weak-kneed love sickness and floating off from the sheer exhilaration of joy. His lips traced over my cheekbone and to my ear where he whispered, “We need to say good night for real. We both work early tomorrow.”
Work.
That word had never sounded like such a foul obscenity before.
“We could both quit,” I said, but conceded the point and backed away.
“Given the current climate of your company, that actually doesn’t sound half bad. Too bad we’re both responsible adults.”
I groaned softly. “Well, when you put it like that . . . Good night, Ben.”
“Good night, Silvia.”
He kissed me again, a gentle featherlight press of his lips before he stepped aside so I could get into my car.
I hated driving away.
My phone rang just as I turned onto the Five and caught up to freeway speeds. “Hello?” I said after pushing the answer button on my steering wheel.
Ben’s voice called to me, a slow seductive siren call through my car speakers. “Oh, Silvia?”
He’d hit the right tone.
“Yes, Mickey?” I answered.
“How do you call your lover boy?”
I smiled and bit my lip. Chills up my spine forced a shudder from me before I answered, “Come here, lover boy!” in the huskiest impersonation of the real Silvia Vanderpool that I could get.
“And if he doesn’t answer?” Ben asked.
“Oh, lover boy . . .” I crooned.
“And if he still doesn’t answer?”
We sang the whole song together as I drove back to my house. He told me he wouldn’t hang up until I was safely in my house with my dead bolt locked because he didn’t want me messing with the odds.
“What are the odds?” I asked.
“There are too many variables on violent crimes. A lot has to do with location and what activities you’ve engaged in. Right now your odds of becoming a victim are low. But hanging out on your porch in the dark waiting for trouble to come find you could definitely raise those chances. So go inside and bolt your door.”
I did as told, and he hung up. I missed him immediately.
I texted Emma, “I think you’d approve . . .”
She texted back after a moment when she must have realized I was waiting for her to respond. “Tell me it’s Ben.”
“Take all the fun out of it by guessing right away.”
“Squeals over here! He is such a nice guy!”
“Yes, he is.” I both texted this and said it aloud. No matter what happened at work, I had Ben.
“I’m here to make a simple delivery and find myself being pillaged and plundered.”
—Jo Stockton, played by Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face
The next morning, Nathaniel had gate duty. As I flashed my badge at him, he smiled, waited until I’d opened my window, then offered me some fatherly advice. “If you want to keep that badge of yours working at this particular gate, you need to make sure you keep your nose clean. The execs are going crazy with what they’re supposed to do with you.”
Maybe Ben wasn’t right, after all. “What have you heard?”
Nathaniel shook his head. “I haven’t heard anything, not anything that would be useful, anyway. Just don’t be bringing anybody else on the property, at least not for a while. And you showing up here early to work certainly doesn’t hurt your case. You should keep that up.”
I usually came in early, but this time, I’d definitely done it by design to prove my value to the company. Nathaniel let me through the gate, and the sound of the Dodgers game blasting from his booth faded into background static. No memorandums littered my desk or filled my inbox. No security guard waited at my door to watch me pack up my things and escort me from the premises
. No executive or lawyer or HR representative stood in my office with their arms folded over their chests and their toes tapping impatiently for me to show up so they could give me bad news.
At every turn, I expected something. But nothing happened.
Maybe Ben was right. Maybe this wasn’t a big deal after all. Maybe he could just sign a paper saying he relinquished any claim to intellectual property and the whole thing would be over and done with.
I answered my emails, and then opened my door to head to the editing suite. That was when the thing-I-was-expecting finally happened. Only not exactly, because instead of a lawyer or a timid HR rep, Dean Thomas stood outside my door. He’d apparently been waiting for me to come out of my office rather than knocking on my door like a grown-up.
Dean pressed his palm against my door and slowly swung it open wider. He took agonizingly deliberate steps into my office.
Once he was inside, he closed the door behind him so that we were alone and unwatchable. Not that we were really watchable anyway. I had come in early enough that few other employees had shown up yet.
“I spent a whole day wondering if you’d been planning the incident yesterday all along in an attempt to get me in trouble.” He appeared unsteady. Unsteady but calm in the craziest way possible.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I thought about the sorts of doodles he drew in his notebook. Shooters and stabbers. I sidestepped away from him. “I wasn’t planning anything. I’m not the one who told. I had no intentions of ever mentioning anything to anyone.”
My legs felt like they’d turned to water. I moved behind my desk, anxious to keep something between us in case he lunged for me. My purse was within reach. What would he do if I made a grab for it and ran?
“I wondered how you got Adam to agree. Did you pay him to bring it up if he didn’t get what he wanted with the audition? Was it some sort of bribery situation? Or maybe it was something else. You two have been awfully chummy lately. Maybe you two were just really good friends and decided to turn against me at the same time—a company mutiny.”
His words made me furious. Didn’t he realize that Adam’s words had hurt me and my reputation the most? Dean might look bad, but I was the one the lawsuit would name. I was ready to tell him he was a lot nicer drunk than hungover, but I stopped and tilted my head and really looked at him.
The emotions coming from him were anger, sure, but also . . . pain. Hurt. He was hurt. He didn’t come in here to actually accuse me of any of that. He’d come in to explain his thoughts over the last twenty-four hours. I swallowed my insult and closed my mouth, prepared to see all of this from his point of view.
He took a step forward and breathed a heavy, deep sigh. He sat in one of the chairs across from my desk.
Even with my determination to give him the benefit of the doubt, I still slid my purse off the desk as if clearing the space so we could talk. I reached into the side pocket and palmed the pepper spray before tucking the purse into the bottom drawer of my desk. Being reasonable didn’t mean I had to be stupid. I sat down because I realized my legs weren’t going to hold me up for very much longer. I really needed chocolate, a good movie, some popcorn, probably some donuts, and my best friend. I settled for the sturdiness of a solid chair.
With both of us sitting and me armed, I said, “What did they say to you?”
He ran a shaky hand over his haggard, unshaven face. “They didn’t fire me, if that’s what you’re asking. I guess you’ll have to wait a while longer for any promotions. Of course, the chances of you getting fired are just as good as the chances of me getting fired, so there’s that.”
“What did they say?” I asked again.
He shook his head. “They asked me where I was when you needed help. If you expected me to take the blame for you being stupid enough to go to another studio for help, then I really haven’t taught you anything. I told them you were an independent woman who liked your space and who liked working alone. I told them I gave you a lot of leash because I thought you could handle it creatively and because you didn’t take creative direction well. They said I’d hung myself on the extra length of leash I’d given you.”
Sucker punch.
“Can’t take direction?” I asked, feeling angry heat surge to all my extremities.
“I know. I know. You can’t take what you weren’t given.”
The unexpected admission silenced me.
“I came in here because this incident isn’t your fault.”
The lawyer must have gotten ahold of him if Dean was referring to what happened as the incident.
He leaned in, resting his hand on my desk. “Up until yesterday morning, they were calling this film the next Academy Award–winning best picture. You did that. Not me. Not the kid from the other studio. You. They’ll try to take that away from you now, but I wanted you to know that even if they manage to legalese it out of your grasp, it still belongs to you. You earned it. The only thing that’s your fault here is the creation of a great film, and that’s something to be proud of.”
Dean complimenting me on anything had not been on the list of things I’d imagined to be possible.
He shook his head. “I told myself I never should have hired you. Every time I saw you, I thought to myself that I should have hired a man. Hired a man who was hungry and desperate for work. Not some idealistic female.”
“Why did you hire me?” I’d asked him the question before, but he’d never given me a proper answer.
He lumbered to his feet; it appeared he wasn’t going to give me a proper answer now, either. He walked to the door and opened it, but before he stepped over the threshold, he turned and said, “I came in here to let you know that this is Hollywood. Not the starry-eyed Hollywood, but the steel-and-flint kind. Steel and flint make fire. The next question you’ve gotta ask yourself is important: Is that fire going to burn you up, or is it going to light up the dark? Also, be careful who you trust. Even your little friend from the other studio might not be what you think he is. Smart people in this business don’t trust anybody. Are you a smart person, Silvia?”
I didn’t know how to answer that.
He left without another word. That man was a mystery; it was impossible for me to know how to feel about him. I stayed at my desk long enough to get my bearings and bring my heart rate back to normal. Then I headed to the editing suite. Once there, I tried to shake off the general feeling of unease that came from the drama of my actions.
I worked through lunch and into the afternoon, only getting up for a bathroom break and a walk around the building to get my blood moving again. I lingered over the walk, allowing the sun to soak into my skin and warm me up. The editing suite was kept cold to protect the equipment, but there was very little to protect the poor soul who had to deal with that cold. When I reentered the building, I went back to work.
Ben had been right. Aside from Dean’s weird visit, nothing else really happened. People whispered more than usual and avoided me even more than that, but a little whispering never hurt anyone, and people avoiding me meant I had more time to get work done.
Ben and I spent time together nearly every night that week, aside from Wednesday night when he’d gone to hang out with Walt for a guys’ night out. I had a girls’ night with Emma and Grandma where we got pedicures and smoothies. Grandma got tired halfway through our night, so Emma and I took her home and played a round of Scrabble with her. I tried not to let the gray pallor of her skin or her raspy breathing make me nervous. She’d tell me if something was really wrong.
Ben and I met after work on Thursday at El Matador to go snorkeling. The drive up the Pacific Coast Highway was a much-needed mental break. Glad for the good weather, I waited patiently for a parking place to pop up in the paid lot at El Matador, and I let my arm dangle out my window to soak up the sun. Ben’s text message popped up on my phone. “I’m standing in a vacant
parking spot at the far end. I’m saving it for you!”
I put my car in gear and raced to get the spot.
Once we were parked and situated with fold-up camp chairs and a full-on cooler backpack strapped over Ben’s shoulders, we began the trek down the stairs to the shore.
Because it was a Thursday evening, the beach was pretty vacant, with only a few families and couples scattered by the shore. A bride with her photography crew staked a claim along the sand.
Ben and I moved closer to the rock formations and set up our chairs so we could watch the sunset once we were done snorkeling. Ben made sure the chairs were placed as close to each other as physics permitted while allowing them to remain functional.
Ben pulled out a snorkel mask from his bag. “Ready?”
I answered by stripping down to my swimsuit and shimmying into a shorty wet suit. I put on the new mask my mom had sent to me and snapped a selfie of me in it to send to her. He put on fins, but I left my feet bare. When Ben looked at my feet, he smirked at me. “I thought you said all feet grossed you out.”
“Not my own because I’m OCD about proper hygiene.”
“Is there proper hygiene on a beach?”
I shrugged. “When in Rome and all that.”
He offered the fins a second time with a pointed look. “When in Rome?”
I shook my head. “You know my irrational fear of crowds because they make me feel trapped? Well, I have an irrational fear of fins as well. They make me feel like my feet are trapped. I don’t swim as fast without them, but speed is an acceptable loss to me.”
“Completely understood.” He slid his mask over his face. He really did understand all my irrational fears: my fear of cancer, my fear of crowds, my loathing of feet, my fear of fins, and so much more. It was quite a list of things to put up with.
My stomach fluttered while holding his gaze. Even if he did look absurd in his mask, he also looked pretty amazing even with his bare feet, which I made a point to keep out of my line of vision entirely. I should have tried to keep all of him out of my line of vision, but as much I tried not to stare, it was hard not to notice that Ben had been hiding some seriously sculpted muscles underneath all those punny, nerdy T-shirts. Who knew?
