by Eden Butler
“I don’t know.” Up ahead, Will and J.J. leaned against a wall, heads together, as two Con workers hounded them for pics and autographs. Will hadn’t seen me but J.J. was inching away from the staff workers. They weren’t the right kind of groupies for him anyway. “Ellie, I’ve got to go. But, I promise, I’ll see what I can do.”
“For you or me?” That comment held a bit more venom than Ellie’s usual snide remarks. I knew she hated the time I spent with Will and J.J. She’d confessed just a few weeks before that she was felt like my focus was on my new friends and not my career…or her.
J.J. stopped in front of me, head tilting when the muscles around my mouth hardened. “What the hell does that mean?” I asked Ellie, back and shoulders going rigid.
“Nothing,” she said, sounding more remorseful than I’d heard from her in months.
J.J. stood in front of me, mouthing Ellie’s name and I nodded, smiling at the dramatic way he mimicked gagging. He’d never liked Ellie, said she wasn’t a real friend, but then again, J.J. didn’t trust many people.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.” It was true. Ellie’s luck was bad, but she hadn’t yet learned that you had to crawl before you walked. She flaked on auditions Jo and J.J. got for her and she blew off the job at WME, one of the biggest agencies in town, just because she believed she was above mailroom work. But Ellie was very beautiful with large dark doe eyes and thick wavy black hair and a perfect olive complexion. That face and her killer body opened a lot of doors, but she hadn’t learned how to keep them open. “I’m just bitchy because it’s been months since I’ve had anything.”
“Yeah, well, me too.”
Ellie exhaled and the noise tickled my ear as I walked with J.J. toward Will when Coop approached him. “Well, you did get my role,” she teased, not pausing for me to return her laugh. I’d gotten a little tired of hearing how I had stolen that role from her; the woman just wouldn't let it go. “It’s total bullshit that our friends are rich and famous and we can’t even book jobs.”
I couldn’t disagree with her, but God, we’d only been in town for a year and a half. We both had a lot of dues to pay. “They’ve been at it longer, Ellie.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Coop didn’t bother greeting me as I approached and he tugged on Will’s arm, guiding him toward the back of the hallway while J.J. took my bag, ignoring me when I disconnected my call with Ellie to paw through my bag.
“You have chocolate in here? I bet you do. You never worry about carbs.” He’d managed to unzip the bag but I stopped him from opening it. “God, Raine, seriously?” That nosey bitch tugged open the front flap before I could move out of his reach. “You and my captain, I swear, you don’t even try to be cool. Like, at all.”
“Give me that,” I said, grabbing the red storm trooper helmet before J.J. had it out of the bag. “You have no room to talk.”
J.J. gasped, a mocking, exaggerated sound that rang out through the hallway as he leaned back, one limp hand against the base of his neck. “How dare you! I am not a damn total flag-flying geek like you and Will.”
“Bitch. Please.”
When my friend shook his head, waving his finger at me as though he meant to shut me up, I laughed, stepping up on the balls of my feet to whisper “Clay effing Aiken.” That shut him up quick.
“Bitch…”
“You don’t mess with me and Will about our tiny speck of cosplay and I don’t tell anyone about how you snuck into Clay Aiken’s dressing room to snatch his bright pink thon…”
“That’s enough,” J.J. said, covering my mouth, eyes shooting around the hallway as though he worried anyone at all might be listening to us. “Sacred secrets, bitch.”
“Of course. Sacred.” I reinforced my promise by giving J.J. a Girl Scout’s salute, fingertips to brow and all. The stoic expression on my face was forced, but I might have convinced him, if only for a second. J.J., at least didn’t immediately laugh.
“Please. You were kicked out of the Girl Scouts. Your salute means shit.”
J.J. looped an arm around my shoulder and I let him lead me toward the end of the hallway where Coop and Will were off in a corner having a private conversation that didn’t seem to make either of them happy.
“So how was the panel?” I asked J.J., frowning when Will scrubbed his face, pacing in front of Coop with his hands threaded on the top of his head.
J.J. seemed to notice our friend’s mood but he kept speaking, standing at my side as we watched Coop and Will. “That Queen from San Francisco showed up again.”
Coop touched Will’s shoulder and he stopped pacing. My instinct was to approach, find out what had gotten Will so bent out of shape, but I waited with J.J., unwilling to move until Will looked at me. “The one that keeps proposing to Will?”
J.J. nodded, taking a few steps that I followed as Coop and Will approached. “Yeah. This time she said she was carrying Captain Thorn’s baby. Swore it was part alien.”
“It’d have to be.” Coop wasn’t great at hiding his thoughts. Something had happened and that something was bad. Still, I didn’t ask, neither did J.J. We waited for Coop and Will’s approach and for the others in the cast to hover around their showrunner. I tried lightening the mood, looping my arm with J.J.’s. “Isn’t that what two cocks would make? Something abnormal?”
“Bitch…”
“Guys, I’m sorry,” Coop said, waving for his cast to come closer as he and Will stopped and stood in front of us. His body was stiff and his eyes had gone glassy. “The Allegiance of the Unified Republic Authority is…no more.”
“What?” J.J. asked, looking between Will and Coop. Around us, their fellow co-stars muttered and leveled question after question at Coop, then at Will before their boss lifted his hands, asking for supplication without making a sound.
“I just got word from the studio.” If Cooper was a crier, which he was not, he’d be sobbing. At least that what his expression told me. There was very little color on his tawny face and his eyes looked hollow and drawn. “I don’t know why, I honestly don’t. But they dropped us. They won’t even give us a proper finale.”
Will shook his head, looking as though he couldn’t decide if he wanted to cry or hit someone square in the jaw, but after a couple of years of being his friend, after months of hearing every asinine idea, every wild nefarious escapade, I knew Will enough to know what he needed.
The others kept talking, bombarded Cooper with possibilities, queries that he couldn’t possibly answer and for a while I wasn’t sure how long he could manage the onslaught. It was a huge loss for him. Gigantic. He’d loved AURA, was incredibly proud of it. It was a great show that hit high numbers and had always ranked in the top ten shows on major networks. This cancellation made zero sense.
“Guys,” Will finally said, waving off the cast when they didn’t seem eager to let up on Coop. He was the lead actor, his co-stars looked to him. It was Will’s nature to take control, because off set and on, he was a leader. I saw that just then as the actors around him waited for him to speak. “Why don’t we schedule something later, lunch maybe, for the end of the week? Thursday, maybe? Give Coop some time to process and get more answers. Right now, he doesn’t know any more than what he’s told you, no one does. So let’s go out there, and have some fun, meet some fans, pretend like this hasn’t happened and be on our way.” Damn, but I was proud of my brother-geek-in-arms right then, despite it all.
It took a moment for the shock to die until finally the AURA crew retreated, exchanging hugs and worries with Cooper and Will as I held close to J.J. He hadn’t said much, but I could read him as well as I could Will. This was a loss for him too. His first big break that had barely lasted sixteen episodes.
My friends were hurting and there was nothing I could do to defuse the situation. I had no clout, no sway at all with anyone that could give answers, but I could do my best to give them a breather—the smallest break that would take them from their worries.
Wi
ll finally approached, doing his best to seem nonplussed and unaffected by the news. One look my way and the smile cracked, then fell from his mouth. I seized the opportunity to keep his guard down.
“Be on our way?” I teased, pulling Will to my side because he looked like he needed a crutch. “Or, did you mean, let’s get blitzed out of our skulls?”
“Now that,” Coop said, answering for Will, “is a damn brilliant plan.”
***
“Moun sòt. No-good suits with zero idea what they have.” Coop was on a roll, sloshing his rum from the bottle slipping between his fingers and the glass over spilling onto the small pedestal table that took up most of the suite’s front room. “You mark my words in ten years they’ll be begging me for another show.”
He made more sense than J.J. had just an hour before when he went on and on about the appropriation by the studio of alien culture. “Bullshit. Pointless bullshit,” had been his response when I reminded him that he wasn’t, in fact, really an alien, second in command of an elite transport vessel.
“Doesn’t matter,” he’d say. “They have no idea what they’ve done, dropping us. Our fanbase….”
“Damn straight.” Will spilled enough rum on the table that a small puddle wetted the elbow of his button up in his eager attempt to toast J.J.’s assertion. Neither were wrong. The AURA fans were rabid, at the very least. They’d not take this cancellation lightly.
“Absolutely,” I agreed, feeling my head swim a bit when Will passed another shot of rum in front of me.
“Fuck ‘em.” Coop toasted his glass higher than the rest of us and we mimicked our fearless leader, finishing off the second bottle of Malibu in less than an hour.
The suite had been comped by Coop’s manager, as soon as word reached him and Jojo had already been notified that her husband might be a little too drunk to drive his Benz from the crowded convention center. Our exit had taken longer than I anticipated as both Will and Coop were stopped by a skinny fanboy sporting a Captain Dash Thorn brown vest and phaser rifle strapped to his thigh.
“Oh, my God, it’s you!” he screamed at Will, waving his hand as though it was wet and in need of a quick drying.
“It’s me all right,” Will had offered in his best Captain Dash Thorn voice, shaking the guy’s hand as the fanboy looked as if he’d just pissed himself. ”Hey, man, do you mind if I take some pictures?" Both Coop and Will obliged, and I even offered to take a few shots of the three of them together. Hell, might as well make someone’s dream come true on this awful, awful day. Still, it was hard to deal with the guy's unbridled enthusiasm, knowing what had just come to pass.
“That panel was the shit. Hey, Captain, do you think they’ll bring back your sister next season?” Will glanced at the man, keeping the disappointment I knew he felt from his expression. He went on signing the guy’s convention program, offering the fan a smooth shrug.
“There’s no telling what will happen next,” he said simply, and a small pang ached in the pit of my stomach. This poor fan had no idea of the larger story he had just stumbled into.
Cooper and J.J. stood back and watched as the fanboy continued to ply Will with questions and comments. I decided to intervene, and tugged on Will’s sleeve, smiling at the guy, hoping he got the hint that we needed to leave, but that turned out to be a bad move.
“Hey! You’re Raine Quinn! I saw that web series about the girl who wakes up on her thirteenth birthday with wings. You were the older sister. That was a good little show. Would you mind signing this…”
It was at least fifteen minutes before Will and I escaped the lobby and made our way to the suite. J.J. and Coop had gotten a head start on us while we were finishing up with the kid, and had already made significant inroads on a bottle of wine before I could read the text from Jo asking me to keep her man from alcohol poisoning and well within the confines of the suite. That meant that word of the cancellation had already leaked out.
Hence, we were now on bottle number three.
“Just another chapter in your book, Coop.” I leaned across the table, keeping all of their glasses filled. “There is still so much more to come for all of you and in ten years AURA will only be the first chapter. I promise.”
“Do you now, zanmi mwen?” Coop leaned back in his chair, head swaying as he watched me. “You know, Pinkie, for someone who doesn’t hustle for gigs, or book big parts, you sure are confident.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Around me, Coop, Will and J.J. waited, seeming to cling to what pearls of Waco Wisdom I would unearth from the store my folks had passed along to me. But my friends were hurting and a little pissed at the world. I pulled something out of my ass without really thinking about it. “Tomorrow the sun will rise and the day will move forward and we’ll either be stuck in what happened yesterday or ready for what happens next.”
“Bitch…yes. I love that.” J.J. was the first to toast and I laughed at his expression, part drunk pretty boy, part proud friend, but neither lasted for long, not when Will leaned back, abandoning his shot as he stared up at the ceiling.
“What the hell do I do next?”
That guard was lowering, though it hadn’t gone down completely. J.J. and Coop muttered to each other, but I tuned them out, focusing on Will and the small break in his confidence. It didn’t happen often. “Whatever you want, sugar.”
“I’ve got some things in the works, man,” Coop offered, ignoring whatever J.J. said to him. “Try not to worry about it.”
“Coop, I can’t spend the rest of my career depending on you for work.” Will wouldn’t look at Cooper just then, instead he focused on the loosened label on one of the empty wine bottles. “At some point, I’ve got to stand on my own two feet.”
“Maybe. But maybe it’s not so bad if Coop lets you lean on him a little.” When Will glanced at me, I caught the small bit of diffidence, of worry that I knew he felt. He’d never admit it to anyone, but he needed confirmation that this wasn’t the end of things. But how could it be? He wasn’t even thirty and he’d just been the featured performer on a hit show. Besides, Will was great. Talented, handsome, funny as hell. No way he would go without work. “You can do anything. Anything you want at all, no matter if it’s with Coop or someone else, you will land on your feet, I know that, sugar. Trust me. You are Captain Dash Thorn. You’re Will Mother Effing Callahan. Don’t you forget that.”
There was a brief pause when the men around me went quiet. Will’s expression was blank, but that slow twitching mouth moved as he watched me and I saw the smile before it came. “Christ, Rainey, what the hell did I do before you came along?”
“Horribly loose women who only cared about your fame?”
We were on, like always. The banter was effortless and I was engaged with my friend, eager to make him feel better.
“Hell, Pinkie,” he said, kissing my forehead before he rested against my shoulder. “You’re the best pick me up in the world.”
I laughed, resting my head against his as I blinked. He’d taken to using the sandalwood shampoo I’d bought for him in the Valley farmer’s market and the scent of it warmed my senses. “Yeah, yeah…I bet you say that to J.J. too.”
“No. Never.” Will snuggled closer and I realized just how drunk he’d become in the hour or so that we’d been drowning our worries. “J.J. doesn’t have a smile like yours and he can’t tell a decent filthy joke.”
“Hey!” I heard from across the table, opening my eyes to find Coop and J.J. watching my exchange with Will.
“He’s got better legs.” I offered J.J. a wink as a means to lessen the blow to his joke telling talent.
“That’s the truth. But not much of an ass.”
J.J.’s snort of laughter was easy, his pretend offense effortless. “It’s because he hates doing squats,” I offered, ignoring my friend when he flipped me off.
Will smiled against my shoulder and I felt the small slip of his damp mouth on the skin left exposed from my spaghetti strap when he moved his cheek again
st my shoulder. The quick lick of pleasure shot through my limbs and I held back a shudder, though I couldn’t repress the small trickle of pleasurable tension that moved my head and hardened my nipples.
It was the smallest little movement. The brief shake of my arms when Will’s mouth grazed my bare skin, but J.J. caught it. The reaction had my friend’s eyes rounding, his eyebrows lifting up as though some wonderfully awful realization hit him all at once.
It was the same awareness that had come to me just months after Will had interrupted my life with his needy friendship. It was the realization that I could not keep from J.J. just then. I hoped what he saw in my expression was a warning he’d take, but J.J. being loud and obnoxious and nosey as hell, could not keep completely silent.
“Cooper, do you notice the chemistry between these two?”
“Wi. I’m not blind.”
“Right? It’s electric.” J.J. downed the remains of his glass and slid it across the table for me to refill. “Will, you and Rainey make the cutest damn couple.”
The reaction came slowly, as though Will had to take a moment to figure out if our friend was being serious or if this was some new joke J.J. had fashioned just to keep the mood light. Will had never given any indication that he felt anything other than some kind of sibling affection for me. He never flirted. He never seemed jealous when I got attention from other men. But until J.J.’s assertion, I hadn’t considered that Will saw me as impossible to be with.
His laugh rang out and it was like a rack of knives right to my chest.
“Me and Rainey?” he asked, not bothering to keep his laughter from becoming obnoxious. “Dude, give me a break. She’s my best friend. My kid sister.” He kept on, clinking his glass to mine, though I didn’t toast back as his humor leveled up and he shot back another glass of rum, accepting the new one that Cooper gave him as I tried my best to get myself in check and keep the frown from my face.
