by Hazel Parker
His plan had backfired, however, when Nora had shown up out of the blue. While he shaved, he checked his phone (an ill-advised practice, but one which was essential to his morning routine) and found that she had, of course, indeed emailed him about her arrival—unsurprising, since if Nora told him she’d done something, it had been done. He must’ve been having too much fun with Jessica the day before to even check his phone which, since he often referred to it as a staple in his life comparable to oxygen, was rare but not beyond the scope of his imagination. He could definitely imagine himself becoming so intoxicated by Jessica’s presence that if breathing required thought, he might just forget entirely. She had a certain intensity about her without coming across as intense at all, an alluring quality to which he was becoming slowly addicted. The worst part was that of all the people in his life, those who knew of their charms and strengths and used them to get whatever they wanted, Jessica had no idea of the effect she had on people. She didn’t want anything from him in the moments that they spent together and he was still working out the specifics on why, then, she’d want to spend moments with him at all.
There had always been a part of him that assumed he’d end up an unmarried artist, one who would give his best years to his work and nothing else. Just to get through those thoughts, he told himself that it didn’t bother him, that every single one of the “greats” had done the same, that true dedication to his craft would require being a near hermit. That’s why he pushed people away—he didn’t need them, and if he allowed them to get close, he risked either breaking their hearts when he chose his own career over them every time, or getting his own heart broken when each person he loved individually decided that they could no longer stand having to compete for his attention and left him.
He’d already watched it happen to every relationship he’d ever had, be they romantic or platonic. His sister never called him anymore because of all the things in her life that he missed in favor of keeping to his strict regime of public appearances and acting gigs that never seemed to even get him closer to what he wanted to do. Though he rarely even got into serious relationships, when he did, they were always pretty short for similar reasons.
So he couldn’t stand to think about waking up next to Jessica that morning because it made him think about what it might be like to wake up next to Jessica every morning. She’d never stay. Even with the contract in place, she was already itching to get out, reading for loopholes that might set her free early so that she could get back to her life, the one in which she got all the things that made her happy, and none of them were Jace. There was no way that he could change that, of course. However, maybe he could make the time that she was stuck with him just a little easier, even if that was just a selfish attempt on his part to make the band-aid sting a little less when he ripped it off in another month, and they never saw one another again.
Jessica gave him an amused, quizzical look in the mirror—he realized he’d left the bathroom door open while he shaved his face and that he’d been staring straight ahead in a daze for quite a while. “Are you feeling alright?” she asked concernedly. “You’re pretty spaced out there.”
Jace rushed through the last few swipes of his shaving cream and rinsed it off his chin, patting it dry and exiting their shared bathroom. “All yours,” he dodged. She didn’t ask another question but nodded at him like she thought he was crazy, which she very well might have. “Hurry up and get dressed,” he called through the door to hopefully keep her from thinking too far into his silence. “Nora doesn’t like to wait.” That much, at least, was true.
Chapter Eleven: Jessica
Nora was indeed waiting for them down in the lobby. In her embarrassed haze, Jessica hadn’t really gotten a good look at her, but she took the opportunity now to study her: a petite young Asian woman, probably only a few years older than Jessica herself but certainly not much older than Jace, with long black hair and an expensive sense of fashion. Everything she was wearing, from her shoes to her bag to the frames of her glasses, was designer. Her present outfit probably cost more money than Jessica made in a year. Nora looked at the two of them together and sighed.
“You couldn’t have tried to match?” she asked exasperatedly, forcing Jessica’s attention to the fact that the colors she’d selected clashed with Jace’s shirt and shoes.
“I didn’t know we were supposed to,” she defended.
Nora shook her head dismissively, looking not entirely pleased but also not terribly angry. “It can’t be helped,” she shrugged. “When you go out to events, though, please try to make an effort to look like you actually communicate with one another.” The scolding didn’t seem to bother Jace, who was probably used to it from years of working with her, but it embarrassed Jessica enough that she didn’t feel much like talking anymore.
“Alright, alright,” Jace huffed, rolling his eyes. “Relax. Normal people don’t coordinate outfits, anyway.” Nora actually broke her stoic demeanor to smile.
“How would you have any idea what normal people do?”
“Easy, I just look at you and assume the opposite.”
Their easy banter brought a different character out of not only Nora, whom Jessica didn’t know very well and therefore couldn’t be too surprised about, but from Jace, which did shock her a little. She’d been around him for weeks and still had to practically twist his arm to get him to say two words to her, but with Nora, he was cracking jokes and teasing. Even the other people in his life, like his co-stars and the others on the set, didn’t seem to have any kind of rapport with him, at least nothing like Nora’s. Their dynamic was pleasant and easy. What was so special about her that she could get him to open up so easily? And even more perplexing to Jessica: why did she care?
When Nora had said that the studio was fifteen minutes away from their hotel, she’d apparently meant on foot, because that’s how they arrived. It didn’t seem like many taxis ran through this part of town, and most people who were bustling around were either walking or using things like bicycles and electric scooters.
“I expected it to be much hotter than it is,” Jessica observed, sticking her arms out to soak up the sun. Since she’d thought they were going to drive, she hadn’t put on any sun protection, but she made a mental note that she should from now on. Luckily, her olive-toned skin usually didn’t burn, and even if it did, it was never for more than a day or two before it turned itself into a tan.
“It’s winter,” Nora explained matter-of-factly, making Jessica feel a bit stupid even though she’d known that; she’d just been trying to make conversation, and it had backfired, again. “It’s cooler than it normally would be.” Instead of arguing, Jessica opted to nod and vow to herself to not try to talk to Nora again unless she had to do so. How did Jace seem to like her so much? She didn’t seem very nice.
“Even the winter here is pretty hot,” Jace contributed, sending them spinning off into another infuriatingly casual side conversation that Jessica couldn’t for the life of her insert herself into. After just under twenty minutes of walking and listening, Jessica found herself looking at the door to the studio. Jace opened it for Nora and Jessica to walk through and once inside, Jessica found herself looking at one of the biggest buildings she’d ever seen in her life. She’d been on sets before, of course, but each one had usually been one or two stages set up with a green screen or perhaps a single-room set. This was different. Full restaurants and hotel rooms adorned different areas of the floor, not needing to reserve room for a studio audience, and behind those were a series of offices. They followed Nora past several impressive sets to an office with the name Nani Kahale printed on the door and waited for her to answer when Nora knocked.
“Come in,” a sweet-sounding voice called. Jessica wasn’t quite sure what to expect; after all, of the people in the room, she was the least experienced with this sort of thing. However mixed her feelings about Nora might be, she counted herself lucky that she was there to take complete charge of the situation.
“Ms. Kahale,” she greeted plainly and formally, much more cortical than her own half-naked introduction this morning, “it’s nice to meet you in person. Thanks for squeezing us into your schedule; I know you’re busy.”
Nani, a middle-aged native Hawaiian woman with black hair and dark eyes, smiled at Nora, then waved to Jace and Jessica. “I should be thanking you,” she replied. “I’d panicked when two of our actors had left at the same time. I thank you both for accepting on such short notice.”
Rather than letting Jace reply or allow Jessica to say that she’d never had such a wonderful opportunity offered to her in the first place so she was in no position to decline, Nora shook her head and waved her hand dismissively. “It’s no trouble,” she reassured. An unspoken language between the professionals seemed to occur, in which Nani slid a contract to Nora and she signed it, not bothering to consult either of her clients.
“Do I get to read that contract?” Jessica asked, causing Nora to turn around and glare at her with an intensity that frightened her.
“This part doesn’t concern you,” Nora said. “I’m handling it.” Jessica wondered if this was just what it was like to work with an agent who knew so much about what she was doing. After all, Jace wasn’t complaining, nor had he seemed particularly interested in the contract before she’d rejected Jessica’s desire to look at it. It didn’t sit well with her that she wasn’t allowed to look it over at all, though. Just because Nora knew more about it, did that mean that Jessica had no business in reading a legal document she was agreeing to? Apparently so, she learned, as the contract disappeared into a file folder without any more talk of her having the chance to look it over, and she definitely wasn’t going to make a scene and demand it back from Nani. No wonder Jace was so antisocial, she thought. Nora did everything for him just like a child, and he never had to so much as interact with another human politely.
She put the unease of the movie deal to the back of her mind and watched Nani stand from behind the desk to show them around the set. All three of them followed her out of the office and through the studio.
“That’s the hotel lobby,” Nani explained as she pointed to a large set with cheesy tiki decorations and a front desk. It did look like a full hotel lobby. Had Jessica not been able to see the fact that it only had three walls, she’d never have known the difference. “It’s modeled after some of the cheap tourist hotels around here, so you likely see no resemblance to your resort. I assure you, though, that for most people who have taken a trip to Hawaii, this lobby will be reminiscent of the one in which they checked in.” She walked as she talked, never stopping speaking and never standing still. “Since you two are playing the hotel owners, most of your scenes take place here in the lobby area. Had we been able to cut the few outdoor scenes, we actually wouldn’t have needed to fly you all the way here and make you stay so long. Alas.”
Jessica couldn’t help but feel a little grateful that they hadn’t cut those scenes, even if it meant that she did have to be so far from home on an island with Jace. The experience of touring the island and feeling so much like a star was, on its own, astounding, and it was well worth having to put up with a few inconveniences: like her fake fiancé, for instance. She tried to match the unenthused expressions of the professionals, Jace and Nora, but she knew that she was grinning even if she didn’t want to be. It was just so overwhelming to be here. Without even thinking about it, she reached for Jace’s hand to grab it—only to find that it was already intertwined with Nora’s. Taken aback, she jerked her hand back and gasped, earning herself a confused stare from Nani and a warning glare from Nora, who’d dropped Jace’s hand so fast that it made her question whether she’d really been holding it at all.
“Sorry,” Jessica said, “I just… tripped over my feet.” Nani nodded and continued while Nora muttered something about being more careful under her breath. Jace looked a little confused himself. Throughout the rest of the tour, Jessica watched the two closely. Now that she was more tuned into it, she felt that she was catching much more of the subtext that seemed so blatant between them. Every time Nora nudged Jace’s arm gently to point something out, when Jace steered Nora in the right direction with a hand on the small of her back, and worst of all, the glances that Nora kept shooting Jace—flirtatious glances that lingered a little longer than they ought to, ones that were filled with longing that had been burning for much, much longer than just the two weeks that she’d been faking courting him. By the time the tour was over, a lot of information that Jessica should definitely remember had been given to her, but she only knew one thing for sure: Nora had a thing for Jace. Now, she decided, she needed to know just what it was. A crush, perhaps, or an infatuation? Maybe she was jealous of Jessica for taking his attention away from her.
She refused to allow herself consider the possibility that it might be love. They’d known one another for years, right? That was a lot of time for a person to develop feelings, even for someone as cold and distant as Jace Oliver. Jessica felt a little dense for not having considered the possibility before and for being so surprised about it now. She’d been so hung up on wondering how Nora had so much as tolerated his presence for so many years that it was shocking for her to think that it might be even more than that.
“So,” Nora’s cool, high-pitched voice dragged her from her thoughts, “what did you two think about everything that Nani told you?”
Jessica honestly hadn’t been listening enough to have an answer, but luckily, Jace had. “It sounds pretty standard,” he shrugged. “A month of filming, eight hours per day. They’ll drive us to any locations that aren’t the studio. That’s all fairly simple.”
Jessica nodded in agreement when Nora looked to her to see if she had a different opinion, knowing that she probably knew that she was bullshitting. After all, for Jessica to say that anything about this process was routine was a blatant lie, since she’d never come anywhere close to this scale of production.
“I think we can handle it,” she added, hoping that her optimism might smooth over some of the skepticism that Nora was sending her way, but she had no such luck.
“I meant more so along the lines of, ‘what did you think about the movie promotion expectations?’” Nora clarified. That, Jessica realized, she hadn’t heard a single word of, and she couldn’t stop herself before she questioned it aloud.
“Promotion expectations?” she echoed. Nora frowned impatiently, and Jessica looked sheepish. “I must’ve zoned out during that part.”
Nora sighed and began to rummage through her large purse for a thin electronic tablet. Powering it on, she clicked through a few folders of documents before selecting one that had been highlighted in red.
“You two have,” she began, scrolling through the document until she found a calendar, “two planned public appearances during the movie’s production, during which you’re to speak about the film in some capacity. Some of those are interviews on talk shows, where you’ll discuss mostly how much fun it is to be doing this with your spouse-to-be, how it’s strengthening and testing your relationship, and so on. It’s to promote the film, so their only real rules are that you can’t say anything bad about the film or spoil any details.” She turned the tablet off once more after sending a copy of the calendar to both Jace and Jessica. “I want it all to be positive for the first few appearances, but after that, you’ll be nearing your breakup. You’ll want to start to reflect that in your interviews.”
“How are we supposed to do that if we’re not… I don’t know, saying bad things about each other?” she asked. Jace smirked.
“Haven’t you ever just broken up with someone like a mature adult?” he asked, sounding both patient and amused. Jessica hadn’t wanted to admit it to him before, but this was one of the only “serious” relationships she’d ever had, even if it wasn’t real. She’d never had to play this part before because none of her previous relationships had ever advanced much beyond the fetal stages of development. Of course,
she’d gone on dates before; she’d even dated a few guys. The “girlfriend” title was nothing terribly new to her. However, each relationship had ended after a month or two, and her longest ever had only been nine weeks long, a high school sweetheart that had left her to go to college in a different state. Her face must’ve given away her answer to his question because he softened.
“Jessica, I’m not your first boyfriend, am I?” he asked, and she laughed coldly.
“Of course not,” she replied, rolling her eyes at how arrogant he could sometimes be. “It’s just the… breakup part that’s kind of new to me.”
