Rising Star

by Susannah Nix

  She wasn’t being judgy. As long as all parties were consenting—and she’d never once heard anyone imply otherwise—how Griffin Beach chose to conduct his private life was totally his business. Alice simply had no interest in drawing his attention—or anyone else’s for that matter. At this particular point in her life, she didn’t want anything to do with any men, no matter how nice or gorgeous.

  “I feel like such an idiot,” she said, scratching Taco in his favorite spot under his chin. “I’ve never messed up that bad before.”

  “Seriously, don’t worry about it.” Griffin threw his leg over the bench across from her and sat down, propping his forearms on the table. “It happens to the best of us. On my very first speaking part, I poured a pot of coffee all over the table instead of into my cup. Forget Dean. He was in a pissy mood long before you threw a tray of knives at Brent.”

  “I know.” Alice sighed and reached for a cold french fry, which she broke in half to share with Taco. “Dean isn’t even my biggest problem right now.”

  Griffin’s eyebrows lifted in inquiry. “What’s up?”

  The dissertation hanging over her head wasn’t something she liked to talk about, so she stuck to the more emergent housing problem. “I’m being kicked out of my apartment so my roommate’s boyfriend can move in.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yeah, and the apartment search isn’t going well.”

  “Slim pickings?”

  “See for yourself.” She unlocked her phone and slid it across the table with the Craigslist page open.

  Griffin’s eyes widened as he scanned the listings. “Female coed wanted for rent-free situation,” he read aloud. “Must be open minded and a good listener who enjoys a mature man. Light cleaning and cooking expected.” He looked up at her, grinning. “What? You don’t want to be a sex-slave-slash-therapist-slash-housekeeper for some creepy old dude?”

  “I’m not that desperate—yet. But ask me again when I’m living in my car.” Taco lay down with his head on his paws, and Alice laid her hand on his head, smiling at the blissful way his eyes rolled. When she looked up again, Griffin was staring at her with a weird expression on his face. “What?” she asked, warily.

  “Nothing.” He reached for his smoothie shaker and took a drink of whatever beige liquid was inside. “I was just thinking…” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You could move in with me.”

  Alice’s mouth fell open. “Uhhh…” Had Griffin Beach seriously just asked her to move in with him? Because that was crazy. Big time movie-slash-TV stars didn’t invite lowly extras to move in with them out of the kindness of their own hearts. That was definitely taking nice way too far.

  “I didn’t mean move in with me, move in with me,” Griffin clarified without making things any clearer.

  “What…did you mean?” Alice glanced around apprehensively, and was discouraged to find no one else in sight. She and Griffin were effectively alone on this side of the building.

  “I just—” He ran a hand through his hair, almost like he was…nervous? She’d never seen him act nervous before—he usually oozed easygoing confidence. “I need a dog sitter. As soon as we wrap next month, I’m leaving for a three-month shoot in Atlanta, and I’ve been trying to find someone to take care of Taco for me while I’m gone.”

  “Oh.” Alice relaxed a microfraction. That was slightly less crazy.

  “Three months is a long time to trust him with a stranger,” Griffin went on. “But he loves you, and you’re great with him. You could house sit for me and look after both him and the house while I’m gone. It’s win-win. And I’ll pay you, obviously.”

  “Really?” Alice said in disbelief. “I mean, you barely know me. You sure you want to let me live in your house while you’re away?”

  It seemed like an awful lot to trust her with on their limited professional acquaintance. They chatted occasionally, sure, but it wasn’t like they really knew anything about each other. For all he knew, she could be a crazed dognapper who was just waiting until the right opportunity presented itself.

  Okay, maybe that was a little far-fetched.

  “We’ve worked together almost every day for an entire season,” Griffin pointed out. “Which is long enough to know you’re reliable and professional on the job. You already look after him for me sometimes when I’m on set, and I’ve let you go into my trailer when I’m not there.”

  That was all true. On more than one occasion Griffin had asked her to take Taco back to his trailer—or go get Taco from his trailer and take him for a walk. He used to ask the PAs to do it, but once he saw how much Alice liked Taco, he’d started asking her sometimes too.

  “You’ve never once stolen my laptop or sold my email to TMZ,” Griffin said with a shrug.

  “That you know of,” Alice said. “I could be biding my time until your next movie hits to drive the price up.”

  He smiled. “I’m taking my laptop to Atlanta with me, but if you want to sell my old socks on eBay, go nuts…unless you’re not interested in being a dog sitter? Which I would totally understand.” He gestured at Taco. “This guy can be a real diva. Insists on having his kibble sorted by color, pees on the floor if his mochaccino isn’t hot enough. That sort of thing.”

  Alice chewed her lip as she tried to imagine it. Griffin probably had a hella nice house. Having it all to herself for three months would be like a vacation getaway—but with a bonus dog to snuggle. Not to mention how great it would be not to have to pay rent for a while. She could save her money while she took the next three months to find a new place and a new job. Maybe even use the alone time to get back to work on her dissertation. If she could just finish the damn thing, she could put graduate school behind her and stop feeling like a failure.

  There was only one problem…

  “I have to be out of my place by the twenty-third,” Alice said.

  “Of this month?”

  “Yeah.”

  Griffin tapped his fingers against his shaker as he seemed to think about it. “Okay. Well. What if you moved in now? It’s only a month until I leave. We could be roommates for a month.”

  He didn’t look entirely sold on the idea, and neither was she. Living together? In his house. Like roommates, except in this case Alice’s roommate would be her landlord and her employer, and also someone rich and famous who was used to getting his way and being catered to.

  All the alarm bells ringing in her head made her headache kick into a higher gear.

  “Well?” Griffin said. “What do you think?”

  Alice wished she could accept his offer. It would be the solution to so many of her problems. If one of the female cast members had proposed it, she would have said yes in a hot second. But moving in with Griffin Beach? She just couldn’t see herself doing it. The more she thought about it, the more her insides knotted up.

  Sure, he palled around with the crew and extras like he was just one of the guys, but Griffin Beach wasn’t just one of the guys. He was someone who made twenty times her salary and could get her fired with a phone call. Not just from Las Vegas General—he could call her agency and make sure she never set foot on a set again. As an extra, she always had to be careful around the talent: don’t distract them, don’t get in their way, don’t speak to them unless they speak to you first. There was a hierarchy that enforced the power imbalance on set. Did she really want to take that power imbalance home with her at the end of every day?

  Maybe it would be fine. Griffin genuinely seemed nice. But so had Dr. Gilchrist. Alice had learned the hard way that nice could be deceiving. Sometimes men only acted nice to get you to let your guard down. To make you think you could trust them. It was only later, once they’d gotten past your defenses, that they showed their true selves. When you’d put yourself in a vulnerable position that was hard to get out of, and they could use their power over you to their advantage.

  It was possible she was just being paranoid—probable, even. Maybe Griffin was exactly as great as he see
med and was just looking for someone to take care of his dog and nothing else. But Alice had heard too many stories about rich, good-looking actors who were used to taking what they wanted from the women around them. If she moved in with him she’d be completely at his mercy, with no backup plan and nowhere to go if things went bad. Not to mention, he was a lot bigger and stronger than her.

  She’d already endured unwanted advances from one man in a position of authority over her. No way was she putting herself in a position for it to happen again. It had been bad enough dealing with it on campus, but to put up with something like that at home, where she couldn’t get away from it, was unthinkable. Even if her fears were totally unfounded, she just couldn’t take the chance.

  “I appreciate the offer,” she said, shifting uncomfortably, “but I don’t think so.”

  Disappointment splashed over Griffin’s features. “You don’t want to be a dog sitter.”

  “It’s not that, it’s just…” She couldn’t think of a normal-sounding reason to give him. I’m afraid to be alone in your house with you? Actually, I’m afraid to be alone with any man. I’ve been burned before and now I’m sort of broken, so I can’t bring myself to accept your very sweet offer. Sorry about that!

  “No worries,” he said, letting her off the hook. “I’ll find someone else.”

  “I’m sorry.” Alice looked at Taco, feeling like she’d let him down.

  “It’s cool.” Griffin grabbed his smoothie shaker and stood up. “Come on, Taco.” He whistled, and the dog jumped down from Alice’s lap.

  “Good luck with your dog sitter search,” Alice offered.

  “Good luck with your apartment search,” Griffin called over his shoulder.

  She watched morosely as the best housing offer she was ever likely to get walked away. Was she crazy for turning it down?

  Probably.

  That was what that creep Gilchrist had done to her. In addition to ruining her academic career, he’d left her too broken and distrustful to accept kindness when it was offered to her.

  4

  “Bang.”

  Alice pretended to flinch at the second assistant director’s monotone impression of a gun firing. The other extras around her dropped to the floor in halfhearted impressions of panic, but she stayed where she was. She was playing a patient today instead of a nurse, stuck on a gurney with her regular clothes hidden under a hospital blanket, and she was supposed to stay put when the gunfire started.

  It was just as well. Unlike most of the other extras, Alice hadn’t gotten into background work because she wanted to be an actor. Let the rest of them have their spotlight and put their acting lessons to good use throwing themselves to the floor. She was content to lie on her gurney with her back to the camera, mostly hidden from view.

  The soundstage was crowded this morning, and the cast hadn’t even showed up yet. There were even more crew on set than usual because of the firearms they were using today, which required armorers and additional makeup and safety personnel as well as a stunt team.

  “Alice.”

  Her stomach lurched as Robert, the second AD, approached her. Did I not flinch well enough? She bit down on her fingernail as he picked his way through the extras huddled on the floor.

  “Ethan will be standing here examining you at the start of the scene,” Robert told her, “and when the gun goes off, he’s going to shield you with his body. Okay?”

  Alice’s eyes widened. Ethan was Griffin’s character. And he was going to be shielding her with his body?

  She gave Robert what she hoped was a convincing thumbs-up. “Got it.”

  So much for lying on her gurney unnoticed. Now she was going to have a member of the principal cast—a very muscular, very attractive, very male member of the principal cast—sprawled on top of her.

  “Our gunman’s got a couple lines of dialogue,” Robert went on, flipping to the next page of his script sides. “Then Gary the security guard shows up on the scene, yada yada. After their exchange, Alfie enters from here.” He pointed to one of the doorways. “When he starts talking, I want some of you to start crawling to safety.”

  Robert picked out a few extras and assigned them a specific dialogue cue and a direction to exit during the three-way exchange between Alfie, the security guard, and the gunman.

  “While you’re doing that,” he said, moving on, “the heroic Dr. Convey is going to wheel Alice’s gurney out of frame, so make sure you stay out of his way and watch your fingers and toes. That gets us to page twenty-two, when the gunman shoots good old Gary the security guard.”

  Alice had been pretty sad about that when she’d seen this script. Gary had been playing a security guard on the show for most of its run. It was nice that he was getting a little bit of a spotlight in the show’s final season, but killing him off in episode eighteen meant he wouldn’t be around for the series finale.

  Robert went through the rest of the scene, but since she would be off camera by then, Alice didn’t bother paying attention. It was a pretty sweet gig being on a gurney. She got to lie down for the whole scene, and there was no chance of her tripping or dropping something, which was what she spent most of her on-camera time worrying about. Since her screwup the other day, she’d been even more paranoid about it.

  By the time Robert had finished choreographing the background action, the cast had started wandering onto set. Gary the security guard was joking around with the guest actor who was about to kill him, while the other extras loitered on their marks. Alice lay back on her gurney and pulled out her phone to check her email, in case there’d been a response to any of the dozens of apartment inquiries she’d sent out.

  She’d devoted every free moment of the last four days to looking for a place to live, scouring all the online classifieds sites she could find and responding to every non-crazy-sounding female roommate situation out there. So far, the few who’d bothered to contact her had either been filled already, or wouldn’t be available soon enough to save her bacon. She’d even spent hours over the weekend driving around apartment-heavy neighborhoods looking for For Rent signs and calling leasing agents, but everything had been out of her price range. Even the toilet studio in Reseda had been snatched up. And yes, she’d actually called on that one, because that was how desperate she was.

  What she wasn’t yet desperate enough to do was consider a male roommate, and unfortunately the majority of the roommates classifieds had been placed by men. It probably shouldn’t be surprising that more men than women were willing to let a stranger from the internet move in with them.

  To her disappointment, she had no new emails or phone calls since the last time she’d checked twenty minutes ago. She wondered what would happen if she begged Isaac for more time. He’d have to give it to her, wouldn’t he? What was the alternative? Putting her stuff out on the curb and changing the locks? Surely he wouldn’t go that far if she made it clear how hard she was trying to find a new place. Maybe if she offered to pay for Diego to put his stuff in storage for a month? Not that she could afford to do that.

  Honestly, at this point she wanted to move out as badly as Isaac and Diego wanted her gone. Whenever she was around the two of them, she could feel the resentment pouring off them in waves. Feeling unwanted in her own home totally sucked donkey balls.

  “Hey!” Griffin said, appearing beside her gurney in his doctor’s scrubs.

  Alice looked up from her phone and attempted to return his smile. “Hey.” They hadn’t interacted much since she’d turned down his offer last week, and she still felt awkward about it.

  “Looks like we’re scene partners this morning.”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Cool.” He took the stethoscope from around his neck and put it in his ears. “Where would you like to be examined?”

  Alice stared at him. “What?”

  “I’m supposed to be examining you when the bullets start flying.” He waggled the stethoscope at her. “What’s your complaint? What brought you t
o the hospital today, ma’am?”

  Right, the scene. He needed a reason to be standing here next to her when the shooting started. “I dunno,” she said. “You’re the doctor-actor. What do you want to do?”

  Alice didn’t usually put much thought into her scenes. She wasn’t ever chosen for the featured background roles that required actual acting, so most days it was just a matter of walking from one place to another, or handing a particular instrument to one of the doctors. Some of the extras invented elaborate backstories and motivations for their presence in the scene, but Alice had never bothered going that deep.

  Griffin’s mouth tugged to one side as he thought about it. “You could have some kind of wound, like a scalp lac, that I’m looking at. Or if you’ve got the flu, I could feel your glands.”

  Alice narrowed her eyes at him. “Which glands exactly?”

  He rolled his eyes. “The glands in your throat, knucklehead.”

  “That’s okay, I guess. As long as we keep it outside the bathing suit area, I’m cool.”

  “Bikini or one-piece?”

  “One-piece.”

  He nodded and hung his stethoscope around the back of his neck. “So no palpating your abdomen. You’re on your own if you have internal injuries.”

  The sad thing was, Alice wouldn’t actually mind being palpated by Griffin Beach in a perfect world. It was pretty pathetic that she couldn’t even enjoy being in this scene with him. But when Griffin was looming over her about to play doctor for the camera, the reality was a lot more intimidating than the fantasy.

  Alice hadn’t played many patients—patients tended to have lines, which required SAG cards and SAG pay scale—but she’d always thought it must be hella weird to have all those people standing over you, touching different parts of your body. The trauma and surgery patients really got manhandled sometimes, and in places Alice generally preferred not to be manhandled by coworkers. Workplace norms were different for actors though. Their bodies were their instruments, and they were freer with them than the average person.