Breaking Free

by Cara Dee

  "Beautiful," he murmured. He kissed her cheeks, feeling the heat of her faint blush, then backed off. "What kind of detour would that be?"

  "You'll see the day after tomorrow." Her eyes lit up in excitement. "When are you due back to work?"

  Unable to help himself, Tennyson's gaze dropped lower to take in the sight of her body. "Twenty minutes or so?"

  Sophie grinned salaciously and walked backward to the bedroom. "I can work with twenty minutes. Can you?"

  Tennyson was up for a challenge. "I can work you in twenty minutes."

  *

  That night, Tennyson opened up the office so Sophie, Claire, and Chris could watch the raw footage of what led up to the film's key scene. Afterward, Tennyson could see a shift in Sophie.

  She was already trying to sink into the right mind-set, and Tennyson would never stand in the way of an actor working, so he spent that night in his trailer—alone.

  When morning came, the set was quieter. Noah and the second unit were gone, and everyone respected the atmosphere those involved in the scene required.

  Tennyson was just as focused on work because this was the scene he had the highest expectations of. He estimated it would hit around the fifty-minute mark when all was said and done, and it would be the moment the self-destruction took a break so they could go after a family member.

  With Noah in Denver, Steph became Tennyson's right-hand person, and she flitted back and forth to get everything ready while Tennyson spoke quietly to the script supervisor.

  "I'm having four cameras capturing them—one for the whole living room." Tennyson jotted down notes on the script. "Here" —he pointed at a line— "we'll cut later so Chris can go off the set." In the film, it'd be like he was still there, but he wasn’t on camera throughout the interaction between Claire and Sophie.

  "So you're not going with a master shot for Claire and Sophie?" the script supervisor asked.

  Tennyson shook his head. A master shot that flipped between the two actresses had been planned at first, which meant each woman would run all her lines and the other would feed lines behind the camera. But both Sophie and Claire would benefit from being there for each other.

  "Mainly a two-shot," he said, "but I want a bigger frame too, so we'll do both."

  "Understood, and what liberties do they have with the script?"

  Under normal circumstances, Tennyson didn’t give a lot of wiggle room, but for emotional scenes, each word delivered had to feel natural for the actor.

  "They know what to say," he responded absently, watching the actors walking over to the living room set. There was a flurry of activity with the people who surrounded them. Hair, makeup, assistants… "If they change a few words, we'll see if it works."

  Tennyson returned to his director's chair and studied each actor, sensing the buzz that flowed between them. It was a heady feeling, one that lifted the entire crew. It was also a feeling that made everyone involved think about award season.

  Tennyson wouldn’t go that far, but he did want to get back on the grid. He'd always enjoy solitude, but he knew now he'd taken it too far.

  "Everyone's ready, boss," Steph said, walking over with her clipboard.

  "Good. Thank you." Tennyson sat back as Steph yelled out orders.

  Sophie rolled her shoulders and walked out through the door that led to the kitchen set, which had been broken down already. Claire took her seat on the couch with a blanket around her and Chris sat forward in his chair. Elbows on his thighs, a glass of tea—standing in for scotch—in his hands, his head bowed.

  The assistant with the clapboard announced the stats and Steph called for cameras rolling.

  "Action!" Tennyson adjusted his headphones.

  It was silent for several seconds before Claire spoke up quietly.

  "Anna might know where she is."

  Chris stiffened visibly but didn’t look up. "And if she doesn’t? She'll hate our guts."

  Claire smiled vacantly, her eyes dead. "That ship sailed a long time ago."

  A beat later, Sophie emerged from the kitchen, a backpack thrown over her shoulder. She was typing on her phone, her shoulders stiff. She had no intention of speaking to her parents.

  She was halfway to the door when Claire's voice stopped her.

  "Where're you going?"

  Sophie paused, and Tennyson focused on her frame on the screen.

  "Well, the plan was to grab something to eat in the kitchen." Sophie threw Claire a bored look, and the corners of her mouth twisted up in a hateful smile. "Guess how much food we have, though?"

  "I'm sorry. I-I'll go to the store later," Claire said.

  Sophie snorted. "I wouldn’t want you to get lost on the way, Mom. Knowing you, you'd either end up in a bar or trip over some guy's dick."

  Tennyson grinned. The original line had been "trip over some random guy you could fuck for money," but this was better.

  Claire looked like her daughter's words had been a slap in the face, and she peered over at Chris—for help or just…something.

  But she wasn’t getting shit from Chris. "What're you looking at me for? It's a valid concern."

  Tennyson eyed the cameraman moving in close.

  "Oh, yeah. Because you're better, Dad," Sophie said dryly with an eye-roll. "You guys are un-fucking-believable. I'm outta here."

  As she reached for the door, Claire called out. "Wait! Anna, wait. Your sister—"

  "Tina," Chris warned Claire.

  "We have to find her!" Claire snapped.

  Throughout their short argument, Sophie had gone from confused to pissed and worried.

  "Tell me," Sophie demanded.

  Chris shook his head grimly, but Claire ignored it and grabbed Sophie's hands in hers.

  "We don’t know where Jo is."

  Sophie's anger faded, as did any other emotion, leaving nothing but emptiness. "What?" she asked in an eerily quiet voice.

  Tennyson made a rolling motion to keep going, despite that there was a break here. He didn’t want to interrupt what Claire and Sophie had going on.

  "Her… Her boyfriend came by the day before yesterday." Claire swallowed hard. "He said he hasn’t seen Jo in a week."

  Sophie recoiled from her mom's touch and stared at her parents in disbelief. "You've known about this for two days? She's my sister—your own flesh and blood—and you don’t care she's disappeared?"

  Tennyson rubbed a hand over his jaw and mouth, ready to see Sophie bring it. He knew she had it in her.

  Come on, baby. This is yours.

  Chris clenched his jaw, emotionally drained from his misery of a life.

  Claire's eyes welled up. "Of course we care—"

  "You don’t fucking act like it!" Sophie shrieked. Her outburst brought the set to a new level of silence. "If you'd cared—" She paused and hung her head, palming her forehead in frustration. "If you'd cared, you would've gone to the police the second Jo's guy came here. If you cared," she gritted out and lifted her furious gaze, "you wouldn’t have just sat here waiting for a miracle you don’t even give a shit about!"

  Tennyson made his rolling motion again. Under no circumstances were they pausing to switch angles.

  Claire wiped tears from her cheeks. "We can find her, Anna." She tried to touch her daughter's arm, but Sophie wrenched away.

  "Don’t touch me," she whispered. She was doing an amazing job of looking like someone who was desperate to keep her emotions at bay. Someone who was sickened by the two people who were always supposed to be there.

  This wasn’t about making a dramatic sequence that would be shown at award shows where she was nominated. It was about a teenager who had given up all the faith she'd ever had in her parents, and she didn’t want them to see her vulnerable.

  "Anna, please…" Claire's face crumpled, and she threw a hand over her mouth as tears rolled down from her eyes. "I'm so sorry. I know we haven't been there for you—"

  A muffled sob broke free from Sophie, and she shook her head and backed
farther away from her mother. "You two are really horrible people." She whimpered. "We used to be happy—before you lost your jobs." Getting herself worked up, Sophie began to pace closer. "Do you even know how much you've ruined?" Turning to her mother, she stared hard and jabbed a finger at Claire's temple. "Do you think before you screw your friends' husbands? Huh?"

  Claire flinched and started weeping in her hands.

  "Is the money good?" Sophie was on a roll, livid and broken. "Do you enjoy being the neighborhood whore?" She fumed, and Tennyson watched—entranced—as she closed the distance and grabbed on to Claire's shoulder and shook her. It wasn’t in the script, but it was fucking perfect, and Claire reacted just as perfectly. "Answer me!" Sophie looked murderous, while Claire's eyes were filled with fear and shame. "Do you get off on being a homewrecker?"

  "Please, Anna!" Claire wailed.

  "You don’t care," Sophie spat out and eased away. "As long as you can afford to buy more booze, you don't give a flying fuck."

  Shaking her head, she closed off her emotions and rubbed at her eyes.

  "I can't turn into you guys," she whispered to herself. "It makes me sick."

  Chris sat to the side, watching stoically. He'd already given up.

  "We have to find her," Sophie said, sniffling. "Mom…Dad…if you ever loved me and Jo, you'll help me with this."

  Claire was there in an instant. "Anything, baby. We'll find her—"

  "Stop touching me, damn it!" Sophie screamed.

  "Okay, okay—I'm sorry." Claire backed off, shaky in her movements.

  They were brilliant together.

  "Dad?" Sophie spat out.

  Chris simply stood up from his chair and walked over to grab his car keys. "I'll go file a missing person's report." He remained a shell of a man, as if he had a view of the future and knew his life had already been wasted.

  "We should try to find Jo's boyfriend." Claire still held out hope that her daughters would forgive her. "We'll look for clues, okay? We'll find her."

  The emotional arc of the scene had passed, so Tennyson chose to cut it there. Next up were retakes from different angles, but he knew he had the best footage already.

  Sophie had raised the bar with her performance, and Tennyson was incredibly proud of her. Fuck, he wanted to go over to her and hug her tightly, praise her, but that would have to wait.

  Instead, he watched her and Claire hug. They beamed at each other, both happy with the scene. And when Sophie glanced over at Tennyson, he sent her a warm smile, one she returned.

  Chapter 14

  In the middle of the night, Sophie stepped out of her trailer and plopped down right on the pavement.

  She would've loved to say it was peaceful and dark around her, but the crew was working through the night to prepare the motel room they'd use in several upcoming scenes. Some fifty feet away, spotlights shone from the entrance to the set. She could hear drilling, walls tumbling down, and orders being yelled.

  The fresh night air helped though, and her trailer was outside the reach of the nearest streetlamp. Wearing only a pair of panties and Tennyson's T-shirt, she drew the fabric over her legs and rested her cheek on her knee. Her eyes closed, and she hugged her legs closer to her body as she tried to let go of today.

  She was completely raw, turned inside out. After they'd wrapped today…God, she'd been triumphant and thrilled. She was so happy it had gone well, and she'd felt it in her bones. She'd nailed it, but it hadn't come without an emotional setback. The script hit too close to home, and she'd been unable to stay away from drawing parallels between fiction and her own life.

  Soon, she would be telling her dad to fuck off. He'd hurt her too much, and she wouldn’t be some puppet anymore. But despite the hurt he'd inflicted, it still saddened her.

  Sophie had already lost her mom. She had a new family in the Valley now, and after Sophie's partying, Mom had told her not to come around anymore.

  Sophie had never really processed that fully. It was what alcohol and more partying had been for—blocking that hurt. She'd kept busy, constantly being on the move.

  The aftershocks of the scene today had caused Sophie to burst into tears as soon as she'd been in the comfort of her trailer. Daniel had given her privacy; Tennyson hadn't. He'd insisted on being there for her, though he hadn't questioned her about anything. He'd let her weep while holding her silently, stroking her hair, and kissing away her tears.

  He was asleep in her bed right now, and part of Sophie wanted to snuggle close and tell him every little thing.

  The other part held her back because her feelings were already too strong. Besides, Tennyson knew the gist of her issues already. He knew she was starting over and trying to get away from her old life.

  "Fuck." She released a breath, wondering if she'd ever felt this conflicted and uprooted before. Same went for the odd combination of relief and loss.

  For once in her life, she had her priorities in order, and there were no ifs or buts. She didn’t even care that much about luxury anymore, as long as she'd be independent and have her own place.

  Just thinking about that brought her a sense of ease, particularly after acing today's scene. But then there was the loss. No family. Barely any friends. She'd be starting over almost from scratch. Tennyson—saying goodbye to him would fucking suck. She could already feel it tearing at her.

  At times—when he was being all sweet and doting—it would be so easy to ask for more. Something lasting, something real. But how would she ever be able to stand on her own two feet, then? She'd never learn how to be her own person if she went from one man's clutches to another's.

  Sophie doubted Tennyson would control her even in the slightest, but it was important to her that she grew up on her own.

  As it was…she could order drinks and vote, but she didn’t know how to pay a bill online or cook her own dinner.

  "Useless," she whispered to herself. But she would get better, she vowed. She'd fucking learn.

  Behind her, she heard the door open, and she looked up to see Tennyson stepping out. Unf. He looked to die for in only a pair of jeans. His zipper was drawn up, but the button wasn’t closed.

  "There's my little T-shirt thief." He quirked half a smile and sat down on the step to her trailer. "You okay, sweetie?"

  She nodded and wordlessly got up to sit on his lap. If anyone saw, fuck it. She couldn’t bring herself to care right now.

  Call me sweetie some more, please.

  "Hey," Tennyson murmured and wrapped his arms around her. "You know you can talk to me, right?"

  "Yeah." Sophie sighed contentedly, too relaxed to question how much easier it was to breathe when she was with Tennyson. "I'm fine, though." She pecked his bearded jaw. She'd grown weirdly fond of his facial hair. "We should make plans for this weekend."

  It was the Fourth of July, and you could take the American out of America, but you couldn’t take America out of the American.

  "Like, we could all go to the beach or have a barbecue or something." She lifted her head to gauge Tennyson's reaction. "I know Daniel and Tyler are going home for the weekend, but Noah, Steph, and Brooklyn are staying."

  Sophie had a feeling Brooklyn could use the distraction, too. She had a ten-year-old daughter at home—staying with her grandmother—and if Maliah hadn't left for a summer camp yesterday, Brooklyn would've gone home to see her.

  Tennyson smiled and touched her cheek. "The beach sounds good to me. I should probably warn you, though. My brother and parents are flying up."

  Oh, joy.

  Sophie had heard enough to want to meet Asher, but their parents—rather, their mom—seemed extremely intent on setting up her sons with women they could marry.

  She would not like Sophie.

  "They usually do their own thing," Tennyson went on, "but my mother sent me a very elaborate email tonight on why everyone should be together this weekend. Apparently we don’t bond often enough." He smirked wryly. "Ash and I can't wait."

  Sophie gig
gled sleepily and shrugged. "The more, the merrier, I guess." She was looking forward to meeting Tennyson's brother, though.

  Thanks to Daniel, who'd spoken directly to Asher about Fight for Fighters, Sophie would get a visitor tomorrow. She couldn’t even describe how excited she was, and it'd be fun to see Tennyson's expression, too.

  "Wanna go back to bed?" Sophie asked softly.

  "If you come with me." He leaned in and brushed a kiss to her mouth.

  *

  Sophie woke up the next morning, sensing something was different. The sun was shining outside, which meant… Oh shit, she remembered now she had kind of abused Tennyson's phone when the alarm had gone off at four.

  Blinking against the sleep that still clung to her, she reached down to the floor and found his phone. Thankfully, it was still intact. But it was a good thing she'd woken up now because she knew Tennyson had work starting at nine.

  As far as she knew, there were no scenes today. The set was still being built, but there were meetings and phone conferences, according to Tennyson—although it didn’t involve her. Sophie had the day off.

  "Tennyson," she mumbled around a yawn. "I wanna sleepy fuck." She wiggled her butt against his semi, not caring if those words made sense or not. He'd understand.

  Tennyson shifted, waking up way too slowly.

  Taking the matter into her own hands, literally, she slipped a hand behind her back and stroked him teasingly.

  After a while, he let out a quiet groan and moved a hand up her body. "What time is it?"

  "Eight thirty." She lifted her leg and brought his smooth, heavy cock between her thighs. "Sleepy fuck, Tennyson."

  He hummed and cupped her pussy lazily, still half-asleep. "You're insatiable."

  "No," she giggled and pushed her ass against him again. "You're just old."

  "You little shit," he chuckled. "I've had no problems keeping up with you so far, have I?"

  God, no. If anything, he pounced on her as often as she did, but it was fun to tease him.