by Mel Curtis
He shouldn’t have been surprised that she knew about Dave. The only secret left in Hollywood seemed to be the name of the Avenger’s playboy. “He says you’re crazy.”
The little poodle growled again.
Maddy elbowed him out of the way and picked up Mr. J, tantalizing Blue with the scent of wildflowers and glimpses of soft, lightly tanned skin that beckoned to be stroked.
He really needed to get laid.
Blue reminded himself that he wasn’t interested in a relationship with anyone, much less Maddy, even as he imagined kissing the column of her throat.
He bit back a curse.
Mr. J snuggled into her arms, blinking triumphantly at Blue. He didn’t usually warm to strangers.
“Crazy, I’m not. But I am loyal.” Maddy scratched behind the poodle’s ears where the gray had started growing back in. “Can’t say the same about you. Or Dave. He’d sell his mother for some exposure.”
Foreboding planted its right foot in Blue’s gut and shook things up, hokey-pokey style. Blue tried to laugh, but all that came out was a pathetic guffaw.
“I wouldn’t joke. Lyle Lincoln showed up at the bar where I work last night and knew all about your documentary with Dave. He even showed me a picture of you in tights.” There was something hooded about her eyes, something that telegraphed she wasn’t telling him everything.
But he couldn’t concentrate on that. Foreboding morphed into the stirrings of anger, which tried to edge aside the stubborn stirrings of desire Maddy always seemed to elicit in him. And failing.
“And if Lyle has a picture, you know he’s not going to forget about it. He’s going to publish it in his column.”
She was right. But the human interest story behind the tights was worth it. “Dave knows what he’s doing.”
With a rueful laugh, Maddy showed him her slender back. “Is Dave’s knife still in my shoulder?” She faced Blue. “He’s a savant about camera angles, framing, and lighting. You’ll look great on camera, even in tights. But just remember – Dave isn’t doing this for you. He’s doing it for himself. And he loves to operate in those gray areas not detailed in a contract. Did you add a clause about owning all the film?”
“I…uh…It looked like the same contract you gave me.” Stupid-stupid-stupid.
“Best case, you bring in your lawyer and buy the film back. Now. Today.” The urgency in her voice was so believable, Blue actually felt nervous. “Whatever reason he gave you for filming was most likely a lie. He’s got an agenda. He loves to film social experiments.”
She was laying it on thick now. Blue rediscovered his balls. “We’re filming at a halfway house today.”
Her eyes widened. She named the street he was going to. “Last time I filmed there…” She digested the disbelieving expression on his face. “Never mind.” She handed him Mr. J. “His pink is growing out. A couple more weeks and you won’t even know he was punked.”
Blue, who was used to high-strung women making demands he had no intention of meeting, stared at Maddy in wonder. “What? No ultimatum? You aren’t going to insist on tagging along?”
“No. No-no. You’ll find out the truth soon enough.” She tucked her short, dark hair behind her ears, but the wind promptly teased it free again. “I’m here to remind you we have a deal. I’ll be back on Tuesday. In the meantime, get someone to watch your back. This little guy isn’t enough.” She rubbed Mr. J’s neck one more time, her fingers brushing Blue’s arm, creating a buzz of electricity he should have expected, but certainly didn’t want.
“You’re over-reacting.”
“Am I?” The disappointment in her gaze slashed at something in his chest, making it hard to breathe. “Someone’s leaking information about you. How do the Avengers know where you’re going to be? How did Lyle know where I worked? And that I was doing something with the Foundation? How did he get the details of your gig as the Flash mascot? You have a serious leak. Wake up, Blue. Who do you trust?”
It was odd. In a town where you shouldn’t trust anyone, he could have sworn he trusted her. But not enough to stand Dave up.
“Why is there a halfway house in this neighborhood?” Blue stood outside a rundown two story in East L.A., decidedly uneasy.
Graffiti tags. Bars on every window. Cars were either old and run down, or spanking new with shiny rims and glossy paint jobs. No birds sang. No dogs barked. No one was out on the street.
Dave shrugged, replacing a battery in his portable microphone. “You want it in your neighborhood?”
Dave was right. Everything was fine. They were doing charity work. Maddy had fucked with his brain. He’d much rather she fucked him.
The front window drapes moved almost imperceptibly, as if someone was watching them. No one opened the door in welcome.
That feeling of foreboding returned, this time doing a bloodthirsty march down his spine. “What kind of people live in this place?”
“Women. Former gang members. Violent offenders.” Dave might just as casually have said grandmothers with too many parking tickets. “But mostly those just out of rehab.”
“They’re not dangerous, are they?”
Dave threw him a disparaging glance. “They’re women.”
Add misogynist to Dave’s list of defects.
“Leave your dog in the car. It’s not hot yet, so he’ll be fine. I want just you, the groceries, and the women in the shot.”
Considering Blue had to juggle eight full paper grocery bags up the front stairs and ring the doorbell, it was probably best that he didn’t carry Mr. J, too. Blue cracked his windows and put Mr. Jiggles in the driver’s seat. “Just for a few minutes, dude.”
The poodle growled at him as if in warning. Blue ignored him, just as he’d ignored Maddy earlier. He walked back to Dave’s Prius. There weren’t even any ants on the sidewalk. This neighborhood was as empty as a graveyard, except for the halfway house. The drapes trembled again.
Dave clipped the microphone to Blue’s collar. “I’m going to film from the sidewalk.”
“Why? I thought I was going inside.” Blue took the groceries out of the back of Dave’s car, making a mental note to reimburse him.
“No. The only men allowed inside that house are policemen and social workers.” Dave slid his headphones from his neck on to his ears.
Blue clutched the bags tighter. He heard something suspiciously like eggs cracking. “I thought I was supposed to give them food, listen to their stories, and offer positive reinforcement.”
“That works, too. If you get inside.” The filmmaker rested his camera on his shoulders. “Action.”
Blue hesitated, trying to remember what Dave had told him when he’d agreed to this.
“Go on. I’m rolling.”
The bags were starting to feel heavy.
“I already said action.”
He was here. The groceries were here. The camera’s red light was on. He was probably overreacting, which was probably exactly what Maddy wanted.
“Fuck it.” Blue strode purposefully to the front walk, up the stairs, and knocked on the door with his elbow.
The white paint on the door was chipped. The wood cracked about waist high, as if someone had tried to kick it in. He could hear chains removed, deadbolts released, the click of a lock.
The door flew open. A big brown hand snaked toward his shoulder, clamped down, and yanked him inside.
The groceries broke his fall, crushing beneath him when someone sat on his back. A heavy someone.
“You a cop?” A woman’s voice, Spanish accent, near the back of his head.
“Dinora, let him go.” Another woman, another Spanish accent.
“He’s wearing a wire. I saw him put it on.”
Blue angled his head to see the second woman’s shoes – gray canvas, stained, near his face. Something wet and slimy seeped onto his cheek, most likely the eggs. “I brought groceries?”
“Groceries?” Dinora grabbed his shoulders and shook, banging his face into more egg g
oo. “Don’t you mean drugs?”
If he got out of this alive, he was going to kill Dave.
Footfalls sounded on the steps behind them.
The butt planted in the small of his back shifted. “What is he doing here?”
“They are filming, Dinora. They brought food. Please, let the nice man go.”
“He’s the man who brought me drugs in groceries last time – to tempt my sobriety. He’s the reason I went back to prison.” The weight was lifted off Blue’s back. “Vete a la verga!”
He stood in time to see Dinora make a flying tackle. She and Dave tumbled down the stairs and onto the sidewalk. Dave’s camera tumbled one way, he and Dinora another.
“Stop! Dinora, stop!” The rational woman tugged on Blue’s arm. “Please stop her. She doesn’t need any more trouble.”
Dinora sat atop Dave trying to get her hands around his neck.
Blue stumbled down the stairs, egg dripping down his face. He and the rational woman managed to pull Dinora off Dave. A slender man in a wife-beater tee watched from a porch across the street, grinning.
A few minutes later, Blue was safely on the sidewalk. He held Dave’s camera as the filmmaker sat on the curb, catching his breath. “You knew she’d be in there.” Maddy was right. Dave was a dick.
“I hoped she’d accept a peace offering. It would have been great.”
“And you gave Lyle Lincoln shots from the Make a Dream work we did the other day.”
Dave glanced up at him, a smile on his stupid face. “We’re going to need press. I gave him a teaser.”
He’d entered into the agreement with Dave because he thought he’d have control. He’d been played. He wanted to smash Dave’s camera onto the pavement, but that probably wouldn’t damage the data card inside. Instead, he confiscated it.
“I should have listened to you, buddy,” Blue said to Mr. Jiggles as he drove off, Dave’s shouts of protest a fading, bad memory. He called Maddy. “The dick screwed me. Can you meet me at noon at the office?”
He needed someone who knew about film agreements and how to destroy whatever film Dave had captured.
But first, he needed to get the egg off his face.
“You were lucky,” Maddy said after working the playback on Dave’s camera, which had fallen to the wayside at the halfway house, but continued filming Dave’s downfall, proving to Maddy there was justice in the world.
And then there was Blue, one hot mess, who warmed her heart without so much as a shirtless pirate swagger. Yes, he’d gone behind her back with Dave. But he’d called her in for damage control, which had to mean something. Although Maddy wasn’t sure what that something was.
She smiled across his desk at him. “Dave has been working on a social experiment for years where he tempts those just out of rehab with a bag of drugs on their doorstep. The one time he convinced me to ride along she came after us with a knife.” Chasing Dave five blocks before giving up.
“I notified Mr. Niles that if he will surrender all copies of the previous film taken at the Flash facility as well as the film of today’s venture, we won’t file suit for malicious intent.” Blue’s lawyer, Franklin Kremer, had years of Hollywood legal wrangling beneath his 1970s psychedelic tie. His skill made up for his lousy comb-over. “After some discussion, Mr. Niles agreed, providing you return his camera to him. And still pay him his fee.”
“Were there drugs in the groceries Dave bought?” Blue was so angry, if he’d been a cartoon character, Maddy was convinced smoke would have been coming out his ears.
“He claims not,” Franklin said.
Blue’s scowl was a thing of beauty, promising flesh pummeling retribution. Maddy could almost picture the scene – a dark night, a blind alley, Dave trapped as Blue stalked him. Add the soundtrack of an oncoming siren for increased tension.
“Maddy?” Blue interrupted her screenplay. “The examples of film rights?”
Get a grip, Maddy.
She pulled papers out of her bag. “I brought a couple so you can see how the clauses are worded. This one has a really painful penalty clause.” She pointed it out to Franklin.
He flipped through the pages. “This will do. May I have Gemma make copies?”
“Certainly.”
The lawyer exited.
Blue turned his chair to stare broodingly out the window.
Maddy resisted the urge to point Dave’s camera at him and press record. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Only because my demise would destroy your project.”
“You can’t think that.”
But he could. He didn’t answer.
“My grandfather used to say skinned knees are easier to fix than a broken heart.” She gave him a soft smile when he looked at her. “There’s nothing broken here.”
“Except, once more, my pride.”
“I’ll never tell.” She surprised herself at how softly her words were spoken. She brushed a lock of hair behind one ear.
His gaze followed her movements, coming to rest at her eyes. “Are you offering producer-talent privilege? Like I have with my attorney?” The volume of his words matched hers – soft, low, intimate.
Her heart had no reason to beat so urgently. She and Blue stared at each other in silence. For the life of her, Maddy couldn’t figure out why she couldn’t seem to say a word.
Cora rushed elegantly into the room. “What happened? Why is my prison guard here? What does Daddy’s lawyer want from us now?”
“It’s nothing.” Blue turned back to the window.
Cora gave him an obstinate stare that made her look like a spoiled teenager about to rain terror on an obtuse store clerk who wouldn’t take her daddy’s credit card.
It was past time Maddy left.
But she took one last look at Blue, meeting his brief glance with a barely repressed sigh.
She didn’t need to see Cora’s disgusted look to know she was making a fool of herself.
She felt it. She felt it in the way her body hummed with unspent sexual energy and in the way her mental viewfinder couldn’t erase the image of Blue lounging in her bed.
She drove straight home, went straight into the shower, and turned the shower massager to its most powerful, mind-wiping, pulse setting. Fifteen minutes later, she would have been one happy camper, if not for the memory of the vulnerable look in Blue’s eyes. And the recognition that, despite his celebrity status, he was just the kind of man she usually dated – one who screwed her and then screwed her over.
Chapter 12
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Some of you have posted comments recommending we back down and move on with our lives. We are moving on. We’re just finishing business along the way.
As casting calls went, this one wasn’t promising to be hot. Maddy looked down the short line of women sitting along the wall of the hallway at the Dooley Foundation. They encompassed one type and one type only: high maintenance.
High heels on well-manicured, spray-tanned feet bounced lazily. Mirrors flashed in the light as additional coats of mascara were applied, bangs were fluffed, necklines adjusted. The competition was assessed. The walls received pouts meant for someone.
And Blue?
The playboy had locked himself in his office first thing, as if afraid to face his past. But he made an entrance when she called, like a true celebrity – immaculate hair, aristocratic carriage, form-fitting gray button down and black slacks. Maddy almost expected him to stop, pivot and pose.
“Ladies.” Blue didn’t look at any of them as he passed. But he did pause, giving his sister a double-take.
She was talking to Portia as if they were best buddies. She stopped talking to give her brother an annoyed look.
Can you say Benedict Arnold?
Maddy wished she had a camera out in the lobby. There was confrontation in the air.
Blue continued down the hall toward Maddy and the interview room, confrontation free.
Mr. Jiggles trot
ted after his master, sniffing at sandals and growling at a few women he probably had more than passing acquaintance with.
Before following Blue inside, she thought about how the women watched Blue, some with contempt, some with hunger, some with mild interest. Dave was no longer a threat. Blue’s exes were living up to their vengeful hype. It was a good day.
The little poodle sniffed Maddy’s shoes once before trotting over to a corner and plopping on his belly as if the trip down the hallway had tired him out.
She closed the door after Blue for a few minutes of privacy. The camera was set up in the corner and trained on the love seat where she planned to have the candidates sit. Blue fingered the pawn shop tag on her tripod and gave Maddy a questioning look. She answered with a bright smile. In all the nervous bustle of the morning, she’d forgotten to take it off.
He did it for her, tossing it on the desk.
“Let’s go over the ground rules before we start,” she said.
“Wait. I didn’t expect to see some of the women out there.” Blue stared at the door, frowning.
“There are some women here you don’t want to see.” Maddy’s conscious panged just a tiny bit. Blue may have been reckless with his love life, but he was still a man, one who didn’t like his pride dragged through the mud. And…well…she felt sorry for him. “It’s okay.”
He blew out a breath and gave her a crooked smile. “Good. For a minute there I thought you were going to bring them all in.”
“I am.”
Blue drew himself up, fumingly magnificent.
Maddy’s breath caught.
Money shot.
She wished the camera was trained on Blue.
She reminded herself to breathe through the initial hit of awareness, patted Blue’s arm like Auntie Maddy would have, and guided him to a chair behind the desk. “Sit down and pull up your big boy pants, because here’s how it’s going to work. Your ex comes in. I’ll ask her a little about herself to break the ice, then ask her how you two met, and let her take it from there. After she leaves, I’ll record your take on her.”
