Young Adulting

by Christina Benjamin

  Being caught kissing the leading man for my script had been enough to turn the other interns against me, but being Colin’s prized pupil...?

  Even Tommy was giving me the cold shoulder these days.

  Colin stopped beside my desk, leaning a hip against the edge. “Hey beautiful, you up for lunch today?”

  I shifted in my seat, the glares pricking at my skin as I mumbled that I was too busy.

  He’d been doing this to me more and more lately. Ever since the tabloid fallout. Asking me to lunch, to stay late for private meetings…

  I glanced up and then quickly looked away. It was this expression I hated most about the change in Colin’s behavior. Sure, he’d been friendly before. Maybe even a little inappropriate in the way he’d singled me out—despite what he’d said before the premiere party about rewarding all the interns with special events, I’d never once heard of anyone else getting invited to swanky parties or networking events, which made me wonder if that had all been a lie.

  But these days, when he talked to me one-on-one like this, it was the look in his eyes that made me feel like a snake was slithering around in my gut. His eyes held a glint of knowing, his smile felt smug.

  Ever since that meeting when he’d basically given me the okay to seduce my way to the top—just so long as I wasn’t obvious about it—he’d been treating me like we were some sort of conspiratorial team.

  As I glanced up at him now, it was safe to say this was a team I didn't want to be on.

  I was glad he was so enthusiastic about my script, but I couldn’t shake the fact that his sudden interest grew a millionfold after he’d learned about Henry’s involvement.

  “What are you working on?” He leaned over my chair, his shoulder brushing against mine. He didn’t wait for an answer, just looked at the spreadsheet I was updating—a tedious chore that I’d inherited from Taylor last week when she’d decided to ‘delegate’ this task to a junior intern.

  Collin laughed as he straightened. “I’m sure this is something one of the others could do.”

  He turned to survey the other interns but I reached out for his arm to stop him. They already hated me enough without Colin blatantly giving me preferential treatment. “No, really,” I said quickly. “It’s fine. I’m almost done.”

  He eyed me oddly, but then his smirk was back. “Fine. Have it your way. But before I go, I need to grab Leo Lang’s phone number from you.”

  I blinked up at him in surprise, alarm bells ringing in the back of my mind as the contents of my stomach curdled making me feel sick. “Leo?” I repeated stupidly. “Um...why?”

  His smirk morphed into a more familiar smile. The one I used to find comforting. “I just got out of a meeting with development, and while it’s not official yet...not until next week’s pitch meeting,” he added with a wink, “they’re eager to get this ball rolling.”

  The silence behind me could be cut with a knife. I could practically hear Taylor’s jaw grinding as I tried to process this. Did that mean… Had I already won?

  The thought should have made me giddy with excitement, but that slithering snake was still making a home in my gut. I didn’t want to cut the line. I didn’t want preferential treatment.

  The whole point of ending things with Henry and keeping things professional with Leo was to win this competition fair and square.

  Fair and square. Listen to me. I sounded like the country bumpkin Taylor and her friends accused me of being. I swallowed down the sick feeling and tried to ignore the warning bells. This was business, right? This was how it worked. I should be happy right now.

  “That’s great news,” I said stiffly.

  “Isn’t it?” Colin beamed down at me with something like pride. Like we were in this together.

  But if we were in this together...why wasn’t I in that development meeting?

  That was the question that kept racing through my mind as Colin started in again about grabbing Leo’s number from me, although he still hadn’t said why he’d need his number.

  “I don’t have it,” I said. “I’ve only been communicating with him through email.”

  “Huh. Really?” He looked confused. “His number should be in the system, it’s a requirement when uploading a script.”

  I blinked at him again. Oh. Well, color me stupid.

  He slapped a hand against the side of my cubicle. “No worries. I’ll have my assistant look it up.”

  He said this as he walked away and I studiously avoided looking around me. I didn’t need to look to know everyone was glaring at me. I could feel their daggers in my back just fine, thank you.

  I sat there and stewed under their stares for another minute before jumping up out of my seat.

  I needed air. I was suffocating in this place.

  “I’m just gonna, um…” I pointed toward the door and tried to ignore the fact that I was facing a sea of death stares. “I’m gonna grab a coffee. Anyone want one?”

  Silence.

  It seemed my fellow interns had finally bonded...against me.

  “Okay then,” I muttered as I headed toward the door.

  The sunshine helped, as did all the “countdown to your bday!” texts I’d been getting from Fallon.

  It wasn’t often that my birthday overlapped with Thanksgiving and I couldn’t decide if it was a blessing or a curse this year. On one hand, it was supremely depressing to be away from my family and friends for the holiday and my birthday. But on the other hand, at least I was getting through both at once. One day of homesick loneliness I could handle, right?

  I shuffled forward in the coffee cart line as I opened an email from my mom that was filled with crying emojis before she finally got to the part I’d requested—her famous sweet potato pie recipe.

  The silver lining here was that my roommates were also stuck in town, away from their families for Thanksgiving so I wouldn’t be totally alone. We’d all be cooking and having a feast...albeit a sad one.

  Carolina was the only one who wasn’t moping over the fact that she couldn’t go home, and that was only because she and her family didn’t celebrate the American holiday.

  Even so, she was on pie duty.

  I glanced up as the person in line in front of me moved forward and then shot my mom a note back saying thanks. Only then did I open my texts and read the crazy messages from my BFF. Against all odds, I was actually smiling by the time I got through them all, and decided to give her a quick call since the line was still absurdly long.

  “It’s the birthday girl!” She greeted me with a shout that made me laugh.

  “Hey Fallon.”

  “What are you doing to celebrate?” Fallon asked over the din of voices I could hear in the background.

  “At the moment? I’m working, but I’m having a Thanksgiving feast with my roommates tomorrow so...that’ll be nice,” I ended lamely.

  Someone shouted something on Fallon’s end and I heard my name.

  “Alison says hi,” Fallon said.

  With a jolt I remembered—Fallon was home from college for Thanksgiving break. They all were.

  My throat grew thick and I swallowed hard to keep the sudden urge to cry at bay.

  I closed my eyes instead and took a deep, steadying breath. “I miss you guys.”

  “Oh babe, we miss you too. You know if I had the money I’d have had you on the next flight out of that crappy town,” Fallon said.

  I managed a wobbly smile even though she couldn’t see. “Thanks.” My best friend’s enthusiasm for all things Hollywood and Henry Landon had faded fast after everything that had happened.

  She’d even stopped regaling me with the latest Henry news because she knew how much it hurt to hear about him.

  Everything hurt right now.

  Honestly, if someone came along with a one-way ticket back to Iowa...I was pretty sure I’d take it.

  The thought made me want to cry all over again. That wasn’t me. I wasn’t a quitter. I lifted my chin and took another deep breath.


  I was Isabelle Ellis and I wasn’t about to let a few hurdles in the road stop me from achieving my goals.

  Besides, like I’d told Leo in that email. I’d come this far, right? I just had to hang in there a little while longer and then I’d have my dream job.

  “...so we told Mark we’d swing by, obviously. It’s so hard to see everyone over such a short break though, you know?”

  I was only distantly aware that Fallon had been talking this whole time but I managed to mumble an appropriate response.

  “You should get going,” I said, because I heard the commotion going on at Fallon’s house and could just imagine the fun they were having. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Okay, but Izzy…happy birthday!” She screamed it so loudly I had to hold the phone away from my ear.

  “It’s not my birthday yet,” I laughed.

  “I know which is why I plan to call you first thing tomorrow to shout it at you again.”

  “Fair enough. You guys have fun tonight,” I said as I hung up the phone.

  “It’s your birthday?”

  The chipper voice behind me had me turning around to find myself face-to-face with Henry’s assistant. Admitting the truth to someone some close to him might be a mistake, but her big dopey smile was so disarming the words just came tumbling out of me.

  “Oh, um...tomorrow,” I said.

  She grinned wider. “Well, happy birthday.”

  I smiled back, the gesture genuine because for the first time all day, maybe all week...someone on this lot was being nice to me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Henry

  “Because I don’t want to,” I muttered into the phone, hating how much I sounded like a petulant child.

  “Wouldn’t the world be a glorious place if we all got to do what we wanted all of the time? But that’s just not practical, Henry.”

  I groaned, but really, I couldn’t even be upset by my father’s patronizing response. I’d basically asked for it with my childish attitude.

  We’d been doing nothing but fighting about his upcoming film for the past two weeks. We were still locked in a stalemate. Him wanting me to take the part, me wanting to pass so I was available for Beyond Sunset.

  Of course, I couldn’t tell him about that without the possibility of Izzy finding out that I’d written the script, not the fictional Leo she was so fond of. I knew that would only tear the rift between us further. And that was not something I wanted to happen.

  I’d been doing everything possible to repair the damage done by that stupid paparazzi photo. The best my publicist had been able to do was threaten the tabloids with a lawsuit that kept any more photos from being leaked, but the damage had already been done. And thanks to that disaster, I hadn’t had an opportunity to come clean about Leo’s true identity.

  It was something that kept me up at night.

  I didn’t know how to dig myself out of this hole, but I knew if anyone was going to tell Izzy the truth, I wanted it to be me.

  Which meant I still couldn’t tell my father about Beyond Sunset, which meant I had no good reason for turning down his offer. In his eyes, I was just behaving like another spoiled child actor who didn’t want to star in another of Daddy’s movies. Which totally made me a walking cliché.

  Shoot me.

  My father’s deep sigh hissed through the phone. “Listen, I’ll be back from Malta next week. I expect a decision by then. I can’t hold this part forever.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Dad. I don’t want the part!”

  The silence on the other end of the phone alerted me that my father had already hung up, probably before hearing my childish rebuttal.

  Swearing under my breath I threw my phone onto the cluttered counter of my set trailer and sunk down onto the black leather couch. My shoulders hunched and I let my head sink into my hands, my entire body reflecting my mood.

  How had I let things get so bad?

  Actually, I knew the answer to the question. Izzy.

  It had been radio silence for almost two weeks now.

  Yes, I’d heard from her in her emails to Leo, but that wasn’t the same. I missed her vibrant smile, her laugh, the way she held me accountable, completely unwilling to give me a celebrity pass, unlike the rest of the world. But more than that, I missed feeling understood.

  Izzy was the first person to make me feel comfortable in my own skin. And without her, the loneliness had returned, tenfold.

  I now understood the sentiment of absence making the heart grow fonder.

  If I’d thought I might be crushing on Isabelle Ellis before, now there was no question. My crush had morphed into a full-blown unrelenting heartache.

  I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, and I certainly couldn’t act. We were supposed to wrap Hermosa Beach yesterday but Scott had told me to go home, ordering me to get some sleep, because I quote, ‘even the entire makeup team can’t erase the team-lift sized bags under your eyes.’

  Honestly, he wasn’t wrong. I was a wreck, but I didn’t know what to do about it.

  Izzy had been clear when she asked for professionalism and space, but the problem was, I felt the longer I let the silence go on between us, the worse things were getting.

  I knew she was struggling too and I hated that it was my fault.

  From her emails to Leo it seemed things were a bit tense at the studio with the impending final pitch and accelerated workload. I knew our alleged involvement couldn’t be making things easy on her either. From her distant tone I imagined her coworkers were giving her the cold shoulder.

  I told myself it wouldn’t go on forever, but I could feel the storm brewing.

  If things kept moving forward with my script, sooner or later Izzy was going to find out that I was Leo. And then I’d lose her for good.

  That thought brought my eternal struggle to the surface again.

  Which could I live without? The girl or the dream?

  Selfishly, I wanted both.

  I’d spent more than a year writing and shopping Beyond Sunset around town only to find the perfect fit with the girl of my dreams. The dilemma? If I continued down the path of letting Izzy develop this film, she’d find out I’d lied to her and want even less to do with me than she did now. But if I took her off the project, she’d never forgive me for destroying her dream of landing a job in Hollywood.

  I couldn’t win.

  The irony was Beyond Sunset was about this very thing. Making the hard choice to follow your heart or your head. I knew how Heath’s story ended, but I wasn’t sure the ending of my story was written yet.

  I kept thinking there had to be something more I could do. Some way to have it all…

  A knock on my trailer door interrupted my spiral into despair. For a split second my heart leapt, like it did each time I hoped Izzy had changed her mind and come to find me, but it was just Shari.

  I groaned and leaned my head back as she walked in.

  “What?” I muttered, knowing my harsh tone was unfair. Shari may not be the best assistant, but she’d been taking the brunt of my surly attitude these days.

  “Um, I was just checking to see if you needed anything before I left for the day.”

  I sat up, glaring at her. “It’s only noon.”

  “But tomorrow’s Thanksgiving.”

  “So?”

  “Uh…so, I have to catch a flight if I’m going to make it home for the holiday.”

  I sighed, massaging my temples. Just because I was alone for Thanksgiving didn’t mean I needed to ruin Shari’s holiday. “Right, sorry. I forgot.”

  “I’ll be back Monday, but I made you a schedule so you don’t miss anything while I’m gone.”

  I took the paper Shari handed me, about to tell her for the millionth time I preferred she put my appointments on the calendar app on my phone instead of her annoyingly girly bullet calendars she loved, when my eyes caught on a note scribbled in bold pink font. Paparazzi Girl’s Bday.

&nbs
p; “What’s this?”

  “Oh yeah. I ran into your tabloid girl at the coffee cart just now. Her birthday’s tomorrow. I thought you might want to know.” My mouth fell open and Shari’s cheeks pinked as she looked down. “Sorry if I was overstepping.”

  “You’re not,” I said quickly. “Do you…before you go could you maybe look up her mailing address in Iowa? I’d like to send her a birthday card.”

  “She’s not going to Iowa.”

  “What? But it’s Thanksgiving.”

  Shari shrugged. “I heard her tell her friend she was staying here. She seemed kind of sad about it.”

  I was on my feet in an instant, sweeping Shari into a hug. Finally, having an assistant that was more interested in gossip than her career had paid off!

  Shari gasped as I swung her around, a nervous laugh escaping. When I put her down she took a few steps back. “What was that for?”

  I was still grinning. “Nothing. Have a good holiday, Shari.”

  “You too.”

  “I will.” Or at least, now I had the potential to.

  My family might be in Malta, but that didn’t mean I had nothing to be thankful for. I was thankful for Izzy, even if she wasn’t in my life at the moment.

  We were both alone on Thanksgiving. That had to be a sign, right?

  Okay, so crashing Izzy’s lonely holiday was the opposite of giving her space, but no one deserved to be alone on their birthday.

  “Dropping off a friendly gift isn’t a violation of our agreement,” I told myself in a quick pep talk from the safety of my car. But if that was true then why the heck was I so nervous to walk up to Izzy’s front door right now?

  I glanced in the rearview mirror, wiping a bead of sweat off my forehead as I reminded myself I wasn’t doing anything wrong. My motives were pure. I wasn’t even going to go inside. I’d just drop the gift and go. Mission accomplished.

  Izzy would know her birthday hadn’t gone unnoticed and I’d have something to be thankful for. Piece of cake.

  Yeah right!

  My palms were sweating like a fifth-grader at a dance. I could see the lights on inside Izzy’s apartment. I knew she was in there, and from the sound of it, so were her roommates.