Off Camera

by Opal Adams

  I really shouldn't be going for a drink with her. It was a bad idea, even if we were in a public place and she wanted to talk about a crisis she was going through.

  It didn't stop her being Ellie, and it didn't stop just how attracted to her I was.

  If anything, not getting much chance to speak to her these past few weeks had made everything grow even more intense. I barely knew her; I should be over her by now. I should have fucked that beautiful woman who came onto me at the party I went to on the weekend, not turned her away because she wasn't Ellie, and so I just wasn't interested.

  Ellie needed my help, though, and I'd been powerless not to offer it. I'd seen how she was struggling. Not even all the make-up Nel owned could hide the bags under her eyes, and they didn't sparkle like they had that first day on-set. She just wasn't happy, and I wanted to be able to fix that if I could.

  I also got the impression that she hadn't seen much of the city since being here, and New York was one of my favorite places to visit. This could double as a chance to show her around.

  I met her in the lobby of the hotel we were staying at five minutes later, and was tempted to just bring her into a hug when I saw her face. Her eyes were drawn, and until she realized I could see her, her lips were downturned in a frown. She attempted to brighten up, but it wasn't very convincing.

  "Hey," she said. "Sorry about this. I just need someone to talk to. My mom... she was helpful and not helpful at the same time."

  It didn't take me asking to know exactly what her mom had said. There were endless people in the industry who had exactly the same kind of parents as Ellie. People who had forced their kids into acting from such an early age because of failed dreams of their own. Their kids were the kind of people who had always thought that acting was their only path in life.

  "I don't mind, really. I thought we could go and sit in a fancy bar and talk about it. Some nice scenery always improves my mood."

  That alone perked her up. "I've been really wanting to see the city, but I always feel so tired after filming that I can't be bothered to go out and see things." She paused for a moment, running her hand through her hair and then walking ahead of me out the door so I couldn't see her face. "And really, I'd be doing them on my own which just isn't that appealing."

  My fingers itched to take hers as we got into a cab and I gave them the address. Mindy had grown up in New York, so I'd never been able to show her around the place. I'd have given anything to spend the next few weekends showing Ellie around, watching her face light up as she saw the things I'd fallen in love with.

  I figured that since it was night, the best place I could take her was to a bar at the top of a skyscraper downtown. It had windows for every wall, and you could see the entire city laid out below you from up there. The drinks were overpriced, but that wasn't something I was worried about. It was worth it for the view, and I had money to throw away, really.

  Throwing it at Ellie was definitely what I'd like to be doing.

  We didn't really talk until we'd been whisked up in the elevator and ordered our drinks. Ellie had looked at the menu and her cheeks had turned pink when she said, "I can't really afford this right now."

  "Don't worry about it. My treat."

  She'd looked like she was going to contest it, but then she took in the view and said, "Okay."

  She leaned back in her chair and looked at me, gnawing her bottom lip. "I feel kind of stupid now we're actually here."

  "You don't have to feel stupid. Acting isn't an easy business, I get that you want to talk about it. Just tell me what you've been thinking."

  "I just feel like I haven't been enjoying myself. I don't get up in the morning excited to go to work, and when I come back in the evening I'm so exhausted that I just go straight to sleep. It's stupid, I know. I'm doing what most people would kill to be doing, and most people don't enjoy their jobs, either. You see? I feel like an idiot telling you this."

  "If someone else told me that they weren't enjoying the job they were doing, I'd tell them to start looking for something else to do. This is no different. You gave it a shot and you didn't like it. What's the difference?"

  "The difference is that I spent so much time attempting to be an actress. I've been in acting classes since I was five years old. That's a crazy amount of time."

  "If I thought like that I wouldn't have divorced Mindy. I spent ten years married to her, and even longer in that relationship. So what if she'd started making me unhappy? I'd put a lot of time into it."

  She was still staring into her drink and refusing to accept that I was right.

  "My parents paid so much money for me to do those classes. They put me through acting school. It'd be so selfish of me to just stop now. It'd be so selfish of me to just stop when so many other people want to be here. It's like I'm squandering it."

  I reached forward and took her hands, forcing her to look up at me. "This isn't anyone else's life, Ellie. I can't claim to know what you're thinking, but you've looked miserable the past few weeks. If you can figure out this early that this isn't for you then you should seize that and move on to something else. The longer you leave it, the harder it will be."

  "I just feel like I'd be giving up."

  "You're contracted to filming until the end of this movie, you'll always have the option to come back after that. With one of Den's movies on your filmography, you're probably set for life."

  "I guess that's true."

  "It's definitely true. There's nothing stopping you from just taking a break after this movie and trying something else to see how you feel."

  "My parents are going to be so disappointed."

  "And they'll deal with it. Why would you make yourself miserable to give your parents a little bit of satisfaction?"

  She took a sip of her drink, and then finally broke out into a big smile. "I was expecting you to tell me ways that I could get through this and still keep acting, or to tell me to suck it up and stop being a bitch about the whole thing."

  I laughed, too. "I've been in this business long enough to know that the people who don’t enjoy it, but keep going are the ones who end up going off the deep end. If you've hated filming this movie, then you should listen to that and try something else."

  "With the money from this movie I could go back to college, to a proper college and get an academic degree."

  I sat back in my seat, and finally dropped her hands. They'd felt so normal, so right, in mine that I'd forgotten they were even there. Ellie's eyebrows pinched for just a moment but she recovered quickly. "What do you think you'd study?" I asked.

  "I'm not really sure. I always liked history at school. Maybe English Literature. I could see myself being a teacher, maybe."

  "I could see you as a teacher, too," he said. "You’ve got the patience for it."

  "Or maybe I'd do something fancy, like law. I'm not sure I could see myself being a lawyer, though. I don't know. I think I could spend hours in front of a course catalog and want to do everything."

  I’d been tempted to hold back and be a bit more wishy-washy with my answer. After all, it had only been one movie and maybe I was a being a little preemptive telling her to just give it all up. But seeing how happy she looked now, I knew I’d done the right thing.

  "You could do whatever you wanted."

  She beamed. "This place is amazing. Do you come to New York often, to know cool places like this to take me to?"

  "It's one of my favorite places to visit. I stay here in the downtime between filming sometimes."

  "Traveling is something I've always wanted to do, too. My mom is from Hungary, and I've always wanted to visit, but we've never had the time or the money. I can speak pretty decent Hungarian, my mom has always talked to me in Hungarian since I was a little kid." Her eyes were wide as saucers. "It feels like I always imagined doing these things without ever thinking I might get to. After this movie I'll have some free time to think about things, and a whole lot of cash that'll be burning a hole in my po
cket."

  "And maybe when filming is over, I can come with you."

  Her eyes flashed to mine, but she knew better than to confirm that we could do it. I'd slipped up, and we weren't going to acknowledge it.

  She was probably embarrassed that I'd just made it obvious I was in way deeper than just the casual sex she wanted, anyway. No wonder she was ignoring it.

  She drained the last of her drink. "I suppose there isn't much open at this time of night to go and sight see."

  I took that as a challenge. "You'd be surprised." She'd finished her drink, so I downed the rest of mine and stood up. "I'm sure I can find somewhere fun to show you tonight."

  Really, most of the things I enjoyed in NYC were either available in the day only, or were nice restaurants and bars that I liked to pass the time in.

  I tapped my finger against my chin, before deciding on something simple. "Come on," I said. "Let's go and get a cab."

  We took the elevator back down again, standing much closer than we had on the way up. It was only now that I seemed to notice what she was wearing. I'd said I was taking her for a drink, so she'd put on a skirt that came to her mid-thigh with a cute blouse that I wanted to undo button by button until it was in a pile on the floor between us.

  The cab took us to Brooklyn Heights Promenade. It was one of the more popular sights in New York, but that was because it was one of the best, and I thought it was even better at night. It was quieter at night, and for the first time since I'd left the hotel with Ellie I was reminded that we might not be able to just walk around New York without people recognizing me and wanting to talk to me.

  What I was treating as a date was about to be spoiled by fans.

  It wasn't the first time that I'd wished I could just become someone else for a few hours and live the normal life; just do something without having to worry about people coming up to me and asking questions or for autographs. Most of the time it was something I liked, though. It was part of the package, and knowing I had so much of an impact on people's lives they stopped in the streets to take pictures with me and ask me to sign things made my pride swell.

  All I wanted right now, though, was to walk down the promenade, hand-in-hand with Ellie, without the fear that a picture of it would end up in the tabloids tomorrow.

  "You okay?" she asked as we started walking.

  "I just realized that I can't really walk through downtown New York without people recognizing me."

  She laughed. "I hadn't even thought about that. Huh. That is weird. You need some big shades and big scarf to wrap around your mouth or something."

  "I feel like that would attract just as much attention."

  "We don't have to do anything, you know. We can just head back to the hotel, have a drink in the bar or something."

  I glanced around, and hoped that I gave everyone a sufficient enough glare that they knew not to approach me right now. "No, that's okay. It's not something I really dislike. Sometimes you just want a little bit of privacy, that's all."

  "I'm not sure how I'm going to handle the publicity side of things," she admitted. "All these practical things I've just kind of shoved to the side for so long, and now Dana keeps sending me emails about talk shows she wants me to appear on and I keep putting her off or just ignoring her emails. It's awful."

  "You're just exhausted. It's no wonder." It sounded like the past few weeks had put Ellie into some kind of depressive funk. She didn't have any motivation, and it wasn't good. "It's something you either love or hate, though, I think. It's kind of difficult to be impartial to something that's always there like that."

  "Does this stuff that's going on with Mindy make you bitter enough to start hating it?" I was sure there was a second question hidden behind that: the media was one of the main reasons we were walking along here instead of lying in bed with each other. "Having it held over your head like that."

  "I don't know. I think it just makes me hate her. With us, though, it's different." I didn't want to end up saying too much. I didn't want to tell her how every time a journalist had contacted me in the past few weeks for an interview about the upcoming movie I'd been unnecessarily nasty. I didn't want to tell her that it was making me so bitter I was going to have to hire a PR specialist if I wasn't careful. "I don't know. The media I've never really been fond of. It's all so fickle and most of it's lies. Being popular with the general public is something else entirely. I like that."

  "I suppose I'll see how it works out for me, too. With just one movie the publicity will probably die down pretty quickly, though."

  "Yeah, it will." She'd be recognized on the streets for a long time, but the media attention would shrivel up as soon as someone new and shiny and with a more interesting personal life came along.

  If, by some miracle, Ellie and I ended up together, though, her personal life would be very interesting, and the media would be very interested.

  "Do you think you'd stay in LA if you went to college?" I was a glutton for punishment. I wanted to know how invested in me she actually was; whether she would be sad to leave me behind and continue her life in a city across the country.

  "I really like LA," she admitted. "It's weird, I don't really have any friends there that I'd be leaving behind if I moved, but it’s still just nice and familiar for me."

  I took a seat on a bench and Ellie followed. We could see the entire skyline from here, endless skyscrapers reflected in the black water separating us.

  I opened my mouth, but someone had finally seen me. A couple was standing a few paces away, not doing a very subtle job of glancing in our direction and whispering. They were obviously considering whether they should actually come up to me or not.

  Curiosity must have won out in the end, because they approached with wide smiles on their faces. "Hey, we don't mean to interrupt or anything. I just wanted to say that I really love so many of the movies you've been in," the guy said.

  I smiled. These were my favorite type of fans. They didn't want anything, really, other than for me to know that they enjoyed my content. "Thanks. That means a lot."

  The girl tugged on his sleeve. She'd obviously been in favor of not disturbing me.

  "It was really awesome to meet you!" he called as he allowed his girlfriend to drag him away.

  I leaned back in my seat, chuckling. Ellie glanced at me. "They seemed nice," she said.

  "Yeah, people like that are the best fans."

  "You really cheered me up tonight, thank you."

  I turned sideways in my seat, so I could see all of her. She was beautiful, lit up by the streetlights, her eyes finally shining again. "I'm glad I helped."

  "What you said, about us maybe traveling together after filming has finished. I don't know if you just said it because being so charming is your default setting, or if you meant it, but if you meant it, then I'd really like that. I mean, I really like you."

  And I didn't even care that people here might see me, even take pictures of us, because I had to kiss Ellie right then.

  My hands cupped her face, and my lips barely brushed against hers at first. It was the only chaste kiss we'd ever shared, but I knew I wanted to experience it again and again. I wanted to wake up in the morning and give her a sweet kiss like that; come home from work in the evening and have her there to just hold.

  It didn't stay chaste for long; She opened her mouth and laced her fingers through my hair, pulling me closer. She was practically pressed against my chest, making my blood pump to all the wrong places when I was in public, before we even realized who we were and what we were doing.

  She pulled back with a flushed face. "Does that mean you like me too?"

  I laughed, pressing my forehead against hers. "It does."

  All this time I'd been telling Ellie that if something made you unhappy, then you should change it, and I'd been letting her sit right in front of me knowing that the fact I couldn't have her was making me the most miserable I'd ever been.

  I wasn't going to shy away from t
hat any more.

  8.

  ELLIE

  It felt as if, against all odds, everything was suddenly right with the world.

  I'd come out expecting to be told that I just needed to power through, no matter how miserable it made me, and I was coming back with my fingers laced through Aaron's, not planning on leaving his bed all night.

  We walked through the lobby hand-in-hand, and I couldn't stop myself from looking around, wondering who could see us. The hotel was swarming with cast and crew, but Aaron didn't seem to care. He strode through with a grin on his face, and had the nerve to say, "Did you want to get room service?" as we passed by the bar.

  I could only giggle and walk even closer into his side.

  All the barriers seemed to have evaporated. I wasn't interested in acting anymore, and so I didn't give a shit how people thought I got into it in the first place. It just didn't matter anymore. And for whatever reason, Aaron had decided to throw caution to the wind and stick a middle finger up at the tabloids.

  I figured it was only a matter of time before he decided he was making a massive mistake and tried to save face, but I needed him so badly that I couldn't bring myself to care right now. I didn't bother telling him that if he went back on this my heart would probably be shattered in two, and I didn't make him promise me anything.

  I was just going to have him for tonight, and treasure those memories forever.

  When this movie was over, and we inevitably parted ways, I'd put it all behind me. I'd lock it all into a box and try my best to move on. Start a new chapter.

  It was the first time I'd come into his room this turned on and hadn't just been shoved straight into the door, his body pressed against mine and our lips devouring each other. This time, he took me by the hand and toward the bed. It was almost weird seeing that his room was basically identical to mine.

  Aaron sat on the edge, and I straddled his legs, my hands on either side of his face. Right then, I couldn't imagine never seeing him again.

  He'd managed to mean so much to me in such a short space of time that it was almost overwhelming.