“I’m familiar with the gesture, thank you.” Art glared. With one sausage-link finger he stabbed the cover of The Gossiper on the table between us. “I meant, why are you so blatantly giving our director the middle finger on the cover of the nation’s biggest tabloid magazine?”
“If I may,” Kole intervened. “It’s a gesture that requires blatant usage. It needs to be strong and recognizable or you risk confusion. For example,” he demonstrated by letting his own bird soar, “the meaning here is clear. But if it’s weak or languid the message could be misconstrued.” His primary digit bent, the fingers beside it curling up to shield it. “See? Am I a boy scout saluting? You can’t tell. There’s no clarity.”
“You are adults behaving as children!” Art exploded, spit raining down on the table.
“She drove a car through my movie set!”
“He turned my Russian, Cuban!” Kole and I argued to be heard over each other.
Art flopped down and wiped one hand over his sweat-covered brow, his high-backed leather chair screeching under his weight. “Do you not hear how insane you sound?” he asked, his tone heavy, as if the question physically pained him.
Tentatively, I raised one hand. “Actually, I just did and I’m not proud.”
“Good, at least one of you has a lick of common sense. Now, let’s talk about a few other things that are utterly ridiculous.” Sliding forward a stack of magazines, Art flipped through them one by one. He read each headline out loud before casting the magazine aside for the next. “True Love Director Proclaims Author his Arch Nemesis.”
“My arch nemesis?” Kole parroted, laughter dripping from his tone. “I’m not sure I’m ready to make that kind of commitment. That label has to be earned. There’s this one teller at my bank … Uh, I hate that guy.”
“True Love Author Declares; Kole Camden Will Not Ruin My Movie,” Art continued, ignoring Kole’s barb.
“I did say that,” I clarified, “but it was in the women’s restroom and I swore the bathroom attendant to complete secrecy.”
Kole dipped his head my way, the warmth of his breath tickling my cheek. “We don’t have any bathroom attendants on set.”
“Ugh!” My nose crinkled at the thought of the intimate moments I shared with the mystery woman. “I tipped her!
Art abruptly pivoted in our direction, the palms of his hands slapping against the table. “This isn’t funny, damn it! It could crush this project!”
Shifting in his seat with a calming breath, Kole leaned forward and rested his forearms against the edge of the table. “Art, this isn’t your first day on the job. You know as well as I do that there really is no such thing as bad press. These tabloids might as well be selling tickets for us.”
Cocking one caterpillar eyebrow and running his tongue over his top teeth, Art tossed the last magazine at us.
Catching it before it frisbeed off the table, I read the bold headline, “Insiders Admit Rift between Director and Author is Ruining True Love. Predict a Guaranteed Flop.”
That earned a grimace from Kole, a lock of ebony hair falling across his forehead as he sucked air through his teeth.
“That one got your attention. Good. You’re not a complete moron,” Art griped to Kole, before turning his bulging eyes my way. “In case you didn’t get the implication, Ms. Evans, our film being declared a flop before the release is a very bad sign.”
“I picked up on that,” I stammered, feeling thoroughly chastised.
Art mirrored Kole’s posture, his stare lobbing from me to Kole and back again. “I don’t give a tiny rat’s ass what issues the two of you are having. From now on you are teammates that will play nice and cheer each other on toward the common goal of making this movie a success. Otherwise, I’ll call you both back in here with every producer on the film filling these chairs and I will publically scrap this entire project. Are we clear?”
My lifelong dream was at risk of evaporating before my eyes. What other choice did I have then to dutifully nod? A knot of dread tightened in my gut as I realized True Love wasn’t as important to Kole as it was to me. There was the chance he could kill this project just to spite me. The silence that followed dragged on long enough for me to fear that was his exact intention. Then, to my surprise, Kole muttered something inaudible under his breath and nodded his agreement.
A quick trip to the ladies room later and I found my way out of Raven’s Claw’s plush offices. Bursting out into the beaming afternoon sun, I pulled up short to prevent slamming into the golf cart parked on the sidewalk.
“Need a ride?” Kole asked with a half-grin, his eyes shielded behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses. One T-shirt clad arm was draped over the seat beside him. His tanned and toned legs, displayed beneath the hem of his khaki shorts, were casually stretched out before him.
With my brow furrowed, I inspected the golf cart with a cursory glance. I half expected one of those flashing neon It’s a Trap signs from an Acme cartoon to spring out from the side of the it.
“There’s no eject button that will send you rocketing into space, I promise.” He chuckled, reading my expression with surprising accuracy.
“I wasn’t worried about that,” I corrected, flipping a lock of hair from my eyes. “I just assumed this was going to be one of those hazing rituals where I end up locked in a porta-potty for twelve hours, or some stupid brand of torture like that.”
“You came up with that example pretty quick. Did that really happen to you?” Barely concealed laughter fluttered through his tone.
“Sorority girls can be real bitches. I don’t want to talk about it.” I waved the horrible memory away before the remnant stench that went along with it could singe my nostrils.
“That’s a shame, because hearing that story just got added to my bucket list.” Removing his arm from the back of the seat, he waved me over. “Come on. We’re supposed to play nice, and I think the fifteen minute ride back is our perfect chance to start. If we don’t kill each other, we can consider today a win.”
“It’s that lingering if that has me nervous,” I admitted with a tight smile and reluctantly slid into the seat beside him.
We road in awkward silence for a few minutes, exchanging those polite, yet meaningless, smiles that strangers in an elevator would exchange. I kept my knees tight together, my hands folded on top of them. The reason for my uptight posture? Kole’s thigh, positioned millimeters from my own, brushed against my leg every time we hit a bump. Sad as it was, that was the most intimate contact I’d had in quite some time.
Up ahead I saw my favorite landmarks I’d come to recognize of the movie set; namely the coffee cart and Craft Service table. Yet before we reached it, Kole whipped the golf cart in a sharp right turn between two soundstages.
I gripped the bar on the edge of the roof, the cart bumping and rocking beneath us. “Where are we going?”
A fleeting appearance made by Kole’s dimple acted as the only visible sign he’d heard me at all.
Another abrupt turn, to the left this time, took us well off the boundaries of the paved roads and walkways. The golf cart shuddered and shimmied over what appeared to be a gravel walking trail.
“Not the best place to dump a body, if that’s what you’re thinking,” I laughed, nerves making the sound come out high-pitched and forced.
Without warning, Kole slammed on the brakes, rocks spraying from beneath the wheels. Pushing his sunglass up on his head, he pivoted in his seat to face me. His cobalt stare searched my face. For what? I had no idea. At that point my biggest concern was my deep desire not to be taken out Black Dahlia style.
“What we have here is a very real problem,” he stated, his usual humor noticeably absent from his suddenly sober tone.
“Nope, no problem at all.” I glanced back over my shoulder, hoping to find we weren’t quite as isolated as I feared. No such luck; there were no signs of life anywhere to be seen. “A quick right, and then a left, and we’re right back where we started from. Heck, I bet we coul
d even pick this cart up and spin her right around if she doesn’t corner well.”
“Not that.” Kole caught my hand in his, prompting an involuntary recoil on my part. The situation ventured from weird to Twilight Zone territory as the index finger of his free hand began tracing small circles over my skin. With a storm of intensity raging behind his eyes, he bowed his head and brushed his lips over the curve of my wrist. His gaze didn’t waver from mine for even an instant. “I meant the undeniable chemistry between us.”
I was known for writing dialogue that made women swoon. However, in that moment the best I could come up with was, “The huh?” Despite my more sound judgments, my body responded to his touch. Warm, creeping fingers of longing awoke and tiptoed their way up my thighs.
“This connection between us,” he murmured, his voice a low, throaty whisper. “I’ve never felt anything like it before.”
“I thought it was contempt,” I said with a nervous hint of laughter as I tried to extract my suddenly sweaty palm from his grip. “And I most definitely have felt that before.”
Kole dragged my hand over his jawline, scraping my skin with the stubble of his beard. As my reddened flesh neared his mouth, he soothed it with a hot breath blown through parted lips. “Not contempt, passion. In the purest, most animalistic sense. And from where I’m sitting I see only one way for us to … handle this.”
Inching to the edge of my seat, I prayed my jelly legs would hold me when I abruptly bolted from the cart. Which I planned to do … any minute now. “Shake hands and part as unlikely friends who respect the laws of basic social conduct?”
“Oh, no,” he practically growled and swung one arm over the back of the seat to fish out a grocery bag filled with God only knew what. “We’re going to act out chapter fourteen of your book.”
“Chapter fourteen?” My eyebrows drew in, my mind ticking through each section of True Love until the realization jolted through me like a downed power line. “Whoa! That’s … intimate. Look, Kole, I don’t know exactly what’s happening here—”
“I couldn’t find the whip cream and feather tickler on such short notice,” if he could hear me over the bag rattling as he dug through it, he didn’t let on, “but I scored us a feather duster and a half-full gallon of milk.”
My brain tried, and failed, to grasp what exactly was unfolding there as he pulled both items from the bag.
“I think we can definitely make some shit happen with these.” Kole leered, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.
My jaw swung slack, a very unfeminine, stupefied noise escaping my gaping mouth.
Kole wet his lips, fighting off a persistent smile. “I’m sorry,” he erupted, “I can’t keep this up. I’m totally fucking with you. I was going to offer you a ride back to the set, you took a while getting out of the bathroom, and for some stupid reason I thought this would be funny.” Dropping the feather duster, he combed his hand through his hair. His cheeks blooming a bright cherry red. “I had the bright idea that if I could make you laugh, we could start over and try the friend thing.”
He peered at me sheepishly from under his brow, waiting for me to say something. Unfortunately for him, coherent thought had tumbled right out of my head. My brain whirred and clicked like an empty DVD player attempting to load a nonexistent disc.
“I’m sorry.” His face crumbled in a heartfelt grimace. “I do these things that I think will be funny, only normal people don’t really think they are, and I end up looking like a complete tool. Be that as it may, the next time one of these stupid ideas pop into my head, do you think I ignore it? Hell, no! Because I don’t learn. Nope, I just jump right in and further alienate myself from people in general. At this point I would pay you a thousand dollars to interrupt me.”
“It was a joke?” I breathlessly asked, relief sagging my shoulders.
Kole’s full lips disappeared in a thin white line of self-loathing. “Yep, a really bad one.”
The first bark of laughter came out at a sharp decibel that made him wince beside me, the second took the form of an uncontrollable fit that threw me back against the vinyl seat. “You have no idea how happy that makes me!” Tears of laughter streaked down my cheeks, showing no signs of slowing or stopping. “And not just because that feather duster looks filthy.”
Unscrewing the lid, Kole smelled the milk, cringed, and dumped it out on the ground beside the cart. “I’m only going to let myself feel grateful that I didn’t scare you straight into a restraining order, and not be offended by how incredibly relieved you are that I wasn’t coming on to you.”
“What would ever inspire you to do that?” I hiccupped between giggles and wiped at my face with the back of my hand.
“I have no idea.” Kole dropped his head against the back of the seat as if hoping the answer would magically scrawl itself across the roof. “But on the upside we aren’t arguing anymore.”
“Your methods are unorthodox but effective,” I snickered and bumped his elbow with mine.
“Look, about the Mateo thing,” he let his head fall toward mine, his tone suddenly thoughtful, “I wasn’t trying to be a dick.” At the doubtful lift of my eyebrow, he cleared his throat and amended that claim, “Okay, I was trying, and succeeding with flair. But I had a reason. The guy sounded like that puppet vampire on Sesame Street reading his lines. ‘Two … two … two … gratuitous sex scenes, ah-ah-ah!’ It was horrible. I just thought by letting him be himself the studio would meet their obligation to him, and he wouldn’t ruin our movie. Which I really do care about, in case you had doubts there. My intentions were actually noble.”
“Intentions were good,” plucking a loose feather from my leggings, my chin jerked in a brief nod of agreement, “your delivery needs work.”
“What about you, Miss Romance Queen?” With a light chuckle, he flipped his sunglasses back down into place. “I grabbed your hand and you seemed on the verge of either kicking me in the face or puking.”
“Don’t sell me short. I planned to do both … in the grossest form of multi-tasking ever.”
Seated side-by-side, our shoulders barely touching, we shared a laugh that slowly faded into an easy silence.
“We good here?” Kole asked, tilting his head slightly in my direction.
“Yeah, I think we are.”
The newfound friendship agreement was sealed with a firm handshake … and no false pretenses of how long it would last.
Chapter 7
“The Notebook had the river of swans, Dirty Dancing had that epic final dance, True Love will have the butterfly garden,” I gushed, unable to hold back my reverence and awe.
“Not too shabby, huh?” Kole crossed his arms over his chest, nodding his approval at the dazzling set the crew had constructed.
“You know that lady that married the Eiffel Tower?” Tandy asked, her hands covering her heart. “In this moment I totally understand her.”
“I’m not ready to commit my life to it,” I breathlessly murmured, “but I would sign on for a week long romp of mutual exploration.”
What lay before us was nothing short of a fairy tale. Delicate pink, violet, and yellow flowers lined a zig-zagging stone path. The path rose before us, ascending in shallow stairs crowned at their peak by an enchanting gazebo. Dusty-rose colored petals cascaded down from all four sides, white twinkling lights transforming natural beauty into enhanced perfection. The scenery around it was accented by two Masonite bird baths surrounded by exploding bushels of wild flowers and a small stream that bubbled through a rocky crevice and ended in a small, trickling waterfall.
“Glad we all like it.” Kole pushed the rolled sleeves of his button-down shirt up his forearms, and sauntered to the playback monitor to take a seat. “That means I don’t have to fire anyone today. You two may want to take a seat, we’re about to role film.”
Before I could hoist myself into the canvas chair with my last name scrawled across the back, Art Hadley strolled in flanked by a group of stern looking suits. Fear launched my h
eart into a hammering rhythm as the assemblage edged along the far wall of the sound stage, each of their faces frozen in icy indifference.
“I don’t want to alarm you,” Tandy took the seat beside me and crossed her legs in a way that earned a few lingering stares from the cameramen, “but I think the Hollywood mafia just walked in.”
“Those are the Raven’s Claw studio executives … so, yes, the Hollywood Mafia.” Flicking my gaze to Kole, I watched him acknowledge the new arrivals with a brief nod before sliding on his headphones and calling for the scene marker—seemingly unaffected by their presence. “They’re here to make sure Kole and I don’t shave our heads and beat each other with umbrellas.”
“Dated Brittany reference.” Tandy’s silver-lined eyes narrowed, her lips pursing in distaste. “You’re better than that, Bree.”
“Quiet on the set!” Duncan bellowed in the made-for radio voice that completely contradicted his flustered appearance. “We’re going to walk through it once before we release the butterflies!”
“There’s a sentence you don’t hear every day,” I mused. My giddy anticipation rose the second Greyson and Willa appeared on set to embody my creations, Aiden and Paige.
Clever costuming had morphed Willa’s usual dark punk style into Paige’s simplistic innocence. Chestnut locks cascaded down her back in soft waves, the sides pulled off her heart-shaped face by two tiny braids that encircled her head like a crown. The supple curves that had graced many Maxim covers had been covered by a flowing white sundress decorated with giant yellow sunflowers. Thin spaghetti straps granted a teasing glimpse of the flawless vanilla-cream skin beneath the shift of fabric.
It wasn’t Greyson, but my Aiden that took her hand and guided her up the stone stairs. The dapper style of Hollywood’s golden-boy had been exchanged for faded denim and a red flannel print shirt that bore a striking resemblance to the one Kole happened to be wearing that day.
Best not to dwell on that subtle nuance or what meaning it could have, I mentally cringed.
Adapted for Film Page 5
