by April Fire
I leaned back in the little director’s chair I’d insisted on getting for the shoot, and watched as everyone milled around, taking care of the little details that their jobs required them to care about. Well, I was pretty sure that was what they were doing – there was only one person I was paying attention to, and that was Dina.
She was leaning up against the small table that made up part of the set and chatting easily with Martina, the two of them laughing and gesturing wildly. I wondered if they’d worked together before, or if Dina was just that good with people. All the make-up artists, all the ones who got repeat work, were generally sparky, interesting people with twice the social skills of any actor. Dina was certainly proving me right on that front. She went to grab her stuff and make her way off set, and she briefly lifted her head and make eye contact with me.
She froze for a moment, stock-still, and the two of us were just looking at each other. Her eyes were a bright hazel, outlined with long lashes that made her eyes look like a cartoon character’s. A smile slowly broke over her face as she seemed to unstick from the surprise of finding me staring at her, and I shifted in my seat, glancing away and then glancing back to see if she was still looking. This was the part of the chase I loved, the flirtation, the way my heart beat fast when I laid eyes on the object of my affection.
But there was something different about this. Maybe it was the uncertainty of the way she’d left me hanging last time we spoke, or maybe it was the unreadable expression in her face as she looked back at me, but something about it put a big grin on my face. I leaned back in my chair and tilted my head back for a moment, and when I returned my gaze to her found that she was grinning and shaking her head. Yeah, she was into me. Thank fuck. I had no idea what I’d have done if she wasn’t, because even just seeing her like this was enough to stir something deep down in my chest.
“Dina,” I called her over, waving my hand to indicate that she should come over. She glanced around before joining me, getting closer than she had to. I could smell her perfume – it reminded me of the hippy piano teacher I’d had when I was a kid, but in a good way.
“What’s up?” She placed her hands on her hips and smiled brightly, the grin lighting up her entire face. Damn, we could break down the lighting rigs right then and there and run this whole place just off her smile.
“I was wondering, about the make-up for this scene…” I began, speaking slowly so I could give myself time to figure out what I was going to say. To my relief and chagrin, Derrick arrived back right at that moment, and Dina stepped aside to let him past. She glanced over her shoulder at me one last time, a look that told me if we were at a bar then I should have been scrambling to my feet to follow her home, and then she vanished behind a trailer as Derrick sat down again.
“You know what you want yet?” he asked, and there was a tension to him that hadn’t been there when he’d left the room a few minutes before.
“I think we should shoot this scene now,” I nodded firmly. “We can always mess around with the placement later. But I want to have it, as an option.”
“You’re sure about that?” He cocked an eyebrow, and a flash of irritation marred my head for a second. He was sitting there like he knew better than me, when I’d been in the business way longer than he had.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I shot back, my voice a little terse. “You got a problem with that?”
“I just don’t think you’ve considered my point of view,” Derrick replied, pressing his fingertips together and tapping his foot against the ground. The motion made his knee bounce, and for some reason that annoyed me more than anything else.
“I have,” I assured him, my voice a little sarcastic. “Trust me, I have. And I think this is the best way to go forward for the movie.”
“I don’t want to pull the director card, but I don’t want you making mistakes this early on into shooting,” he spoke again, cocking his head at me and speaking as though he knew best.
“Good thing I’m not making mistakes,” I shot back through gritted teeth. “This is my movie, remember?”
“And it’ll have my name on it just as much as it will yours,” Derrick stopped tapping his foot. “I’m not willing to mess this up because you can’t swallow your ego.”
“It’s one scene,” I replied, exasperated. “Just give me this, will you?”
Derrick eyed me for a moment, and it seemed to strike him that I wasn’t going to back down anytime soon. He let out a long sigh, resigned, and turned away from me.
“Fine,” he snapped. “But don’t take this to mean you’re going to get everything you want in this movie.”
I rolled my eyes at him, and suddenly realized that someone had been observing us the whole time. Glancing around, ready to chew them out for eavesdropping, I found myself faced with Dina once more. I wasn’t sure how much she’d heard but the look on her face told me that it had been enough. She raised an eyebrow at me and glanced away, turning to take care of something on the other side of the set, and I watched her leave with a sinking feeling. Whatever that was, I doubted it was good news.
Chapter Five
Dina
I stretched my arms out over my head and let out a long sigh. No-one was around to hear it, as I was hiding out in that make-up trailer all by myself, but it felt good to let out a little of the frustration that had been building up over the last few days.
The shoot so far had been trying. Even the most experienced amongst us could say that. Derrick Hanson and Will seemed to be at loggerheads with every other shot, and while I respected how passionate both of them were about getting this thing right, it meant that everything had slowed down to a snail’s pace. There was hardly any make-up to do day-to-day, and I was struggling to find reasons to stick around till the end of each shoot. Part of me wondered that if I just snuck off home, whether anyone would even notice my absence. I doubted it.
Not to mention that whole other kind of frustration, as well. That first day of shooting, when I had bumped into Will going for coffee and we had spent some time on-set eye-fucking, I had found myself thinking something was really going to happen between us. Yeah, he would head back to Hollywood as soon as this shoot was over, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t have a little fun while the film was shooting, right? Even for those few hours, I let myself get caught up in the fantasy like some kind of idiot, and it took me overhearing the first of many rows he was to have with Derrick to snap me out of that silly little daydream.
Because he sounded like every other actor I’d ever heard – entitled, overly controlling, and determined to get his own way no matter what. Granted, I’d only heard the tail end when he’d been asserting himself so I had no idea what had led up to that moment, but I was particularly interested in chilling long enough to find out.
Not that my logic could stop my attraction to him. There was something about it that felt beyond anything I’d shared with a colleague before. The way he looked at me felt…heated. Yes, that was the word – as though I might burst into flames under his gaze at any moment. I knew at any given time when he was looking at me and what he was thinking about doing to me. I could see it in his eyes. And I shared the sentiment.
Every time I laid eyes on him I felt that skip of disbelief in my chest, the one that told me that yes, this was really happening and yes, the guy I’d crushed on all the way through high school and beyond was actually looking me straight in the eyes and seemed to like what he saw. I swear to God I could have licked my lips when I saw him in the mornings, all ruffled hair and tees showing off those well-defined arm muscles.
I wanted to sidle up to him and lead him up to that make-up trailer, and show him everything I’d always dreamt of doing. I could imagine the way his strong hands would have felt on my skin, the scent of his expensive aftershave curling around us both as he held me close and growled into my ear, the almost angry way he would spread my legs and-
But none of that was actually going to happen. I had to keep reminding mysel
f of that. It was a bad idea. I had to keep focused on work, and that was going to be pretty tricky if we did actually hook up. Keeping my mind of the job was proving to be tough enough as it was, but that would double in difficulty if we actually did end up sleeping together.
Not that things were particularly easy now. I had felt the tension of the cast and crew on the rise since the very first disagreement between the directors, and it was starting to get under everyone’s skin. The long days, the intensity of the schedule, and the proximity that we all had with each other meant that sometimes, it felt impossible to escape from the grasping presence of this set. It got that way no matter where you were shooting or what the atmosphere was, but the fact that we’d had to go back and forth a couple of times, redoing scenes and sequences because one director thought we hadn’t got it down the first time, got grating fast.
I had done make-up on Martina Devos, the leading lady, this morning, for a scene that she had already run through a bunch of times the day before, and I could tell from the impatient way she tapped her feet and the tense way she smiled back at me that she was getting as riled up as the rest of us.
A knock on the door of the trailer roused me from my reverie, and I yawned and called whoever it was in.
The door opened, and I found myself faced with Natalie, my assistant. Her eyes were wide and she looked kind of shell-shocked.
“What’s up?” I asked, feeling a sinking feeling in my chest. I had been sure that we were just finishing up for the day, and the thought of heading back out to set up for another scene made me want to lock the doors of that trailer and not come up till the next day.
“Will, Mr Derry,” she pointed back towards set. “He’s told us all to pack up for the day. He’s taking us out.”
“What do you mean?” I cocked an eyebrow. “All of us?”
“The whole cast and crew,” she nodded. “To a bar just down the street. Says we could all use the chance to blow off some steam.”
“Well, he’s not wrong there,” I muttered. “When?”
“Now,” she replied. “I was wondering if I could borrow a little make-up-”
“Sure thing,” I grinned. “But be prepared for the fact that a bunch of people might be in here with the same idea as you.”
“I’ll risk it,” she replied, heading to the desk and rummaging through the piles of make-up sitting out on the table. I couldn’t help but smile as I watched her excitedly go through the expensive make-up and fancy tools that had come with the small department we were running together; I still remembered how it felt the first time that I got a chance to get my hands on this amount of make-up, and how excited I was to get to play with new products on new people.
We quickly finished up a look that would work for the bar, and ducked outside to find the cast and crew milling around, more relaxed than I’d seen them since the start of shooting. I scanned the crowd, and within seconds, my eyes fell on Will. It was like a magnetic draw directly to him, and I shivered as he looked up at me and offered me that cocky half-grin. I flushed and looked away, reminding myself of everything I’d told myself earlier. Nothing was different just because he was taking us out.
It seemed like we timed it perfectly, as everyone as one suddenly shifted to head down the street to the bar around the corner. They wouldn’t know what hit them – at least three dozen people blowing off a couple of week’s worth of steam all over them. Tomorrow was going to be interesting, for certain – working in such close proximity usually fostered a few intense crushes that tended to manifest themselves on nights like these, and I was looking forward to the gossip that would have raised its head by the next morning. I felt a little flip in my chest when I realized that that could be Will and I if I let it, and pushed the thought to the back of my head. No. This was just a fun night out. Nothing more.
Before I knew it, I had been swept along with the crowd in the direction of the bar. There was excited chatter amongst the crew as we got the first round and shifted off into our little groups and cliques. I was sure that people would grow out of this sort of crap as adults, but all that working in the movie industry had proved to me was that drama was always a prime source of gossip no matter what age you got to. I got myself a whiskey and took a sip of the heady, bitter liquid, sighing as I sat back on the bar stool and closing my eyes.
I tried not to drink too much when I was on a shoot since you never know when you were going to get called out at the last minute to cover for somebody, but since everyone was doing it, it would have felt odd not to. When I opened my eyes, I found Will looking at me, and a little uptick of confidence got me to my feet. I closed the distance between us, and held my glass up to his.
“Thanks for this,” I bowed my head. “I needed it.”
“Me too,” he agreed, looking me up and down in a glance. “You look nice.”
“Perks of working in the make-up department,” I shrugged. “How’s it going over on the main floor?”
“Slower than I expected,” he sighed. “But it gives me an excuse to do something like this so I don’t mind.”
“I can’t imagine…” I waved my hand around. “I can’t imagine being able to afford something like this. It just doesn’t compute.”
“Trust me, if you had this kind of money, you’d get used to it quickly,” he cocked an eyebrow. “It’s amazing the shit Hollywood can find for you to spend your cash on.”
“I bet,” I cocked my head, and took another sip of my drink. He was just so easy to talk to, the words coming easy as the nervousness that I felt whenever I saw him lifting as soon as he spoke to me. Helped along by the fact that he really seemed to want to spend time with me. I was practically having to avoid him and keep out interactions to a minimum just to be sure that I wouldn’t let my resolve slip and-
Natalie appeared behind me, and grabbed my hand – I turned around and she tugged me in the direction of the bar.
“Come on, you have to hear this,” she jerked her head towards the group that she was hanging out with, shooting a look at Will as she did so. I turned and gave him an apologetic look, and he shrugged, bowing his head as though giving me permission to go. I walked away, half-relieved that Natalie had arrived to drag me away before anything else happened, and half-annoyed that I wasn’t getting the chance to find out exactly what it was between us once and for all.
Because there was something. The rest of the night told me that for certain. Even though we barely interacted, we couldn’t take our eyes off each other, to the point that even Natalie couldn’t ignore it. We didn’t lay hands on each other, but the bar was so packed out that there was no choice but to squeeze by people, the knowledge of which we both took advantage of. On his way to the bathroom, he touched his hands to my hips to alert me to his presence and brushed by, close enough that I could smell his aftershave. He traced his finger up and across the tiniest strip of bare skin above my jeans before moving on. If I hadn’t felt it, I wouldn’t have been sure it had even happened it had been so fast.
I looked after him but he didn’t look back, as though that would have been acknowledging it. Well, two could play at that game. When I went to order another drink, I made sure that I had to head around to his side of the bar to do so, popping my hip and pressing it against his for a split second before I sighed and shifted my weight casually. He glanced over at me but I kept my eyes fixed firmly forward, as though I didn’t even know he was there.
I’d had a couple of drinks and by now I was starting to forget why on earth I’d ever held back. Will Derry was flirting with me – Will fucking Derry! Why had I ever given it a moment’s though? With a couple of glasses of whiskey swilling around my system, I wasn’t sure exactly what I had been so against. He grinned as he turned he attention away from me, as though he knew what I was playing at and liked it, and I felt a flutter in my chest. I wanted this. I wanted him. And why shouldn’t I have a little fun?
Chapter Six
Will
How much did I have to drink?
It was enough that I had forgotten all about the drama back on set with Derrick, which had been the aim of the night in the first place. People were starting to head home in little clusters, happy and drunk and looking as though they would come into work the next day feeling refreshed and ready to go, which was kind of the point. But I wasn’t done with the night yet. Not by a long shot.
Dina had been flirting with me since the moment we arrived in this bar. I wasn’t sure precisely what had changed between us, but I wasn’t complaining. She had found excuses to touch me, to appear next to me, to talk to me – even though we hadn’t needed to exchange many words. There was something unspoken between us that didn’t need to be given a name, because it was so fucking obvious what it represented.
We were finally giving up on that pretence that we were just a couple of professionals who happened to be working together, and had accepted the fact that we wanted each other. It was almost a relief, knowing that she felt the same way, because my feelings towards her were so damn intense sometimes it felt like they might boil over and scald somebody.
I looked up, and found her observing me from the other side of the bar. The way she was looking at me, I knew exactly what was on her mind, because it reflected perfectly what was on mine. Knocking back the rest of my drink, I made my way across the bar towards her. A smile curled on her lips as I got close, and I slid my arm along the polished wood in front of her and ran my tongue across my bottom lip as I looked her up and down. Her mouth was ripe from the whiskey, and I desperately wanted to taste her already.
“Hey,” she greeted me, eyes heavy with seduction, and I reached out to briefly brush my fingers along the side of her body. She shivered at my touch, and closed her eyes briefly as though to savour the sensation.
“Hey,” I replied.
“I left my phone back on set,” she sighed with a small pout. “Do you think you could escort me back to look for it?”
