I bounded out of the room and caught her while she was still slipping off her shoes and putting her purse down on the table in the living room. She was wearing her green scrubs.
“Hi Chels,” I said, smiling wide and goofy.
She stared at me suspiciously. I bounced on my feet.
“Let me guess. You finally got a job.”
“Yes!” I exclaimed, throwing my hands up in the air and then pulling her into a hug. She laughed, trying to break free from my grasp.
“Don’t act so surprised. I knew you’d get a great job. You got a 4.0 GPA without even trying.” She pulled away, looking down at her scrubs. “Congratulations. Uh, you might have wanted to let me change out of these before hugging me that close, but oh well.”
“How dirty could they be?” I said.
She raised an eyebrow. “I work in a hospital. Trust me, they’re dirty.”
Chelsea meandered back to her room and I followed after her, sitting down in the swivel chair by her desk and excitedly swaying back and forth.
She clasped the back of the chair, making me sit still, and pointed the chair away from the closet. “I want to hear more about this job, but you’ve gotta turn the other way while I change.”
I rolled my eyes. “You know I’m not into boobs, but okay.” I looked out the window while she put on clothes. I’d known Chelsea for a long time—she was a family friend who grew up in New York State just down the street from me, but had moved to L.A. to get her Physician Assistant degree. When I wanted to move here, she happened to be looking for a roommate, and so I took the spare room. Things had immediately been comfortable between us like they had been when we were young, except now we were Full Blown Adults who could drink alcohol and talk about sex.
“So,” I said, “You’re now standing in the same room as someone who will soon be a published biographer.”
“Biographer? Wow, look at you, hot shot—is it, like, some movie director’s biography or something?”
I shook my head. “Nope. You’re never gonna guess who it is.”
“Don’t make me try to guess, Jamie.”
“Think late 90s, early 2000s.”
She paused, walking over to the window, now dressed in her regular clothes. “Um… holy shit, is it that one guy? The director of The Sixth Sense? That would be quite a twist in your life.”
“No, no, no. It’s not someone in the movie world.” I bit my lip, nervous to tell her for some reason. After a pause, I blurted it out. “It’s Leo fucking Stone.”
She was silent, furrowing her brow. “Leo Stone… Wait. Wait a minute. Was he in 5*Star? The kinda cute one who was mostly in the background?”
I nodded, my smile growing wider.
She laughed loudly. “Holy shit. Wow, I haven’t thought about any of the 5*Star boys in so long. Well, other than Chandler Price, obviously, but he’s like, on another level. Man, I used to listen to their CDs on my Discman.”
“I know. I met with Leo’s manager and she asked me if I knew who Leo Stone was. I wanted to say ‘Oh, that guy? Yeah, I definitely know him! When I finally hit puberty I totally stole my sister’s old magazines, hid them under my mattress, and fantasized about him!’ I’m sure that would have gotten me the job.”
“Gross.”
“I know. By the time I was old enough to be attracted to guys and not ashamed of it, 5*Star had already been broken up for years.”
“Shit, dude,” Chelsea said. “When do you get to meet him?”
“No clue. But I’m signing the contract tomorrow.”
She smiled at me, shaking her head slightly. “I gotta be honest, when you told me you wanted to move to L.A., this is not what I pictured you doing. But I don’t know—somehow, it fits.”
I nodded. “Obviously, I’m still going to work on getting my screenplay out there. That’s always the main goal. But… I think this will be fun. God, I wonder what Leo Stone even looks like now.”
“You could probably Google it.”
I shook my head. “Tempting, but… nah. I don’t want to. I’ll be seeing him soon enough.”
The front of Leo Stone’s house was fucking nice.
It wasn’t a mansion, and for a celebrity home it was actually kind of humble. It was surrounded by more lavish residences, and was probably the smallest house on the block—but the block was in the Hollywood Hills, and it took effort not to stare slackjawed at all the perfectly manicured properties.
It had been two days since I’d gotten the job, and here I was, parking my car in Leo Stone’s rounded driveway. I’d spent the first half of the morning convincing myself that I wasn’t nervous, and the second half doing deep breathing exercises. I had the perfect outfit—button-up, tie, slacks, nice shoes—and I hoped to God I wasn’t sweating through them sitting there in my car.
The shoulder bag I’d brought contained my resume, a laptop, a list of 30 or so open-ended questions I had prepared, and a voice recorder I’d hastily picked up at the store the previous day. I was almost certain that I wouldn’t need any of those things. The meeting would just be a casual “getting to know you” type of deal, according to Ella.
Gulp. I checked my phone for the time. It was 2:59, the meeting was at 3:00. My mind was in overdrive: Should I be professionally early? Fashionably late? Is he, like, on rock star time? Or… used-to-be-a-pop-star time? Are my pants too tight? Et cetera, et cetera.
When I checked again, the clock read 3:01. I got out of the car. Got my shoulder bag. A white cat with reddish paws scurried past me as I was walking toward the front door, and I rang the doorbell.
Nothing.
I waited a suitably long amount of time and rang again. Nothing. It could have been broken, so I knocked, but that didn’t seem to work either.
After a minute I turned away from the door, fishing my phone out of my pocket to see if Ella had emailed me last minute about a cancellation. Just as I was about to call her, I heard the big door squeak open behind me.
I turned around and saw a man, dripping sweat, breathing heavily, in workout clothes.
I must have stood there staring at him for a minute because he gave me a confused look, maybe even an irritated look, and finally spoke between his labored breaths.
“Hi,” he said, “You’re the guy?”
I swallowed, blinking and shoving my phone back in my pocket.
Words fell out of my mouth faster than my brain could censor them: “Oh. Yes. Wow, I’m so sorry, you just—you’re a lot taller than I imagined,” I said.
The faintest mocking smirk gathered across his face. “You gonna put that in the biography?”
My cheeks grew hot as I gathered some modicum of tact. I held out my hand. “Jamie Sheffield. So nice to finally meet you.” Jamie Sheffield, heinously unprofessional.
“Leo.” He shook my hand. His grip was firm and warm, and afterward, he stepped to the side, gesturing inside.
“Well, come on in, then.”
I followed him inside, unable to stop watching him as he walked a few paces in front of me. He looked exactly the same and yet completely different from the 5*Star music videos of the past—he didn’t look old, but his jaw was stronger, his features more refined. His hair no longer stuck upright, gelled into bleach-blonde spikes; instead it was a natural dark brown, in a haphazard ruffle. And maybe it was from the workout he’d just finished, but he looked pretty damn strong, too. Sculpted. In just the right places.
I tore my eyes away from his body.
The inside of the house was pretty much as I would have pictured it: modern but not sterile, tidy but well lived-in. The living room had stunning floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out toward a small backyard, with a pool and plenty of shrubs and trees. It had an open floorplan, so the living room connected to the kitchen, and then a hallway that presumably led to the bedrooms.
For whatever reason, being there, finally inside, calmed me. I didn’t know why I had been so intimidated. The home looked like it could be anyone’s—certainly, someone
who at least had some money, but nothing you’d see on Cribs or anything.
“Water? Coffee? I’ve got some iced tea and soda in here too,” Leo said—Leo fucking Stone said, to me, from his kitchen—opening the door of his fridge. I took a seat at the breakfast bar, putting my bag on the counter.
“Oh! Um, do you have any herbal tea?” I don’t know why I said it, since not only did he not offer that as an option, but it also was a strange and unnecessary request.
Leo turned to me and fixed me with a narrow gaze. “I think I might have some black tea in my pantry from, like, 6 years ago?”
“Nah, that’s okay. I had like, six shots of espresso this morning so I shouldn’t have more caffeine… and now unfortunately I’m being an annoying herbal tea guy. Sorry,” I said, laughing quickly. Shit.
Leo was still staring at me, unsmiling, in front of his fridge. “So… water?”
“Yes. Water’s great. Yeah.” I cringed internally.
He dropped a water bottle in front of me and cracked another one open for himself, finishing half of it in one gulp.
“You were working out before I got here, I assume?”
He shook his head. “No, this is just how I look after I watch one of my favorite shows. That monster on Stranger Things? Makes me break a sweat,” he said, walking over to his couch and plopping down.
I faced him from where I sat on one of the barstools. He gave me an exhausted look.
“I’m joking, dude, yeah, fuck, I was working out. I forgot we were supposed to meet at 3, sorry,” he said, taking off his shoes and putting his legs up onto the couch.
I laughed, probably a little too hard, then got up and sat on the other side of his big, L-shaped couch.
“Your house is so nice.”
“It does the job.”
I nodded, swallowing.
“I just moved here about three weeks ago,” I said. “Do you like living in L.A.?”
He shrugged, taking another swig from the water bottle. “Beats living in Michigan.”
“Michigan! My mom’s from there.” In my preliminary research (otherwise known as Wikipedia), I’d read that Leo was from there as well.
“It’s a cold, dirty place.”
I smiled weakly. “It seemed nice on our summer trips.”
He eyed me, putting his legs back down on the ground and leaning forward on the couch. “So is this basically how it’s gonna go? We make small talk and I tell you answers to questions you could find in a Google search for Fun Corporate Retreat Icebreakers?”
I met his eyes, surprised to feel a quick flash of shame and anger moving through me. He was mocking me, I realized—or worse, being condescending. I was suddenly acutely aware of how young I must seem. And I suddenly remembered that I was here to be professional, and to get a job done.
If he had no respect for me at all, I’d never be able to write a good biography.
I had to do something.
I got up quickly, strode over to my shoulder bag, removed the laptop, voice recorder, and list of questions, and went back over to the couch. The laptop clattered as it hit the glass coffee table. I opened it, turned on the voice recorder, and placed one copy of the questions sheet in front of Leo and one in front of me.
“No, this is pretty much how it’s gonna go,” I told him, my voice steady. I looked down at the sheet. “If you’d like, we can start from the top. ‘What was your relationship like with your father? You’ve said in interviews that he was absent for much of your childhood, and that he even once drove drunk to your birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. Have you reconciled? Do you think the lack of a father figure contributed to your joining 5*Star when you were just eighteen years old?’”
I flipped the paper over to the other side.
“Or should we start with a different one? ‘In the years since the disbandment of 5*Star, your career was at first fraught with tabloid scandal and then later settled into a lower-profile stasis with your involvement in infomercials such as the Blade-Chopper and small guest roles on basic cable television programs. Is your—’”
“Okay, okay, Jesus fucking Christ okay, kid, I get it,” Leo said. When I looked up his eyes were wide like a scared animal. Seeing him like that almost made me feel a pang of regret. He’d been slightly condescending to me, but worried I’d just gotten too harsh too soon.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly, taking the paper away from in front of him and clicking off the recorder.
He exhaled, leaning back on the couch. There was a pause and I didn’t know what to say. I watched him stare up at the ceiling and then rub his temples as if he had a headache.
Finally, he spoke. “…I cannot believe you brought up the Blade-Chopper.”
He turned to me, eyes weary, a look of utter resignation.
“What, you mean you don’t use it every day?” I said, giving him my best incredulous face.
He shrugged. “I mean, I use it breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but I know I’m just missing out on using it for my midnight snacks.”
I laughed—this time a true, natural laugh.
“Don’t fucking talk about the blade chopper,” he said, pointing at me and smiling wide for the first time. It hit me how expressive his eyes were, beautiful yet dark and tired around the edges. He really had aged well, even if his personality had taken a turn toward ill-tempered cantankery.
I gave him a single, affirmative nod. “You got it. Never again shall the word be spoken. Unless you compare my questions to icebreakers again.”
He eyed me, nodding slightly and giving me an unreadable look. His smile disappeared, but he seemed more relaxed, less cold.
“I’m gonna go rinse off in the shower, and then you’re getting the grand tour of the house,” he said, standing up and crossing the room.
I nodded and then turned back to look out the window, in disbelief that this was my real life. My job.
Leo could be as difficult or as kind to me as he wanted—as long as he wasn’t bored, it would only make the biography better.
Three
Leo
Fucking Christ, what had Ella done?
Needless to say, Jamie was an utter disaster. Smart, ruthless, overly attentive and overprepared. God help me.
He was all the things my biographer shouldn’t be. He’d write it perfectly, don’t get me wrong. He’d only been in my house for twenty minutes and I could already tell that he was sizing me up—not just from the way he had literally done so, with his eyes and his scarily thought-out questions, but from the way he looked at my house, my yard, my windows. He was like a sponge, taking everything in.
I shuddered to think of what he might be doing while I showered. I’d made a big mistake leaving him out there, alone to roam. Maybe he’d have bolted by the time I went back out, speeding away to Ella’s office to cancel the contract, but that scenario seemed far too pleasant to ever end up actually happening. The gravest concern on my mind was that Jamie might open my freezer and find the pizza rolls. There wasn’t one bag in there, there were three. Family-sized. Last thing I needed was that chapter in my biography.
I toweled off hurriedly and threw on jeans and a white T-shirt. I approached the living room, steeling myself for what I was about to see, but Jamie was still sitting in the exact same spot, staring out the window and scratching the back of his head.
“You just been sitting there the whole time?” I asked.
He turned to me with a curious smile. “Yeah? I mean, you were pretty quick, that couldn’t have been more than four minutes… I was watching a family of quail in the backyard, actually.”
God, he was so weird. People this innocent and un-jaded still existed in the world? He looked like a normal, handsome guy-next-door, someone I’d get a crush on if he were the sidekick in a Netflix show, but clearly he was odd.
"Yeah, but like, you could have turned on the TV if you wanted, or something."
"I didn't know if you'd be okay with me touching your stuff."
So he had so
me sense in him.
"I hereby give you permission to use the damn TV if you want to." I attempted a polite smile. “And did you say you saw quail in the yard? That’s not good. Really not good.”
“Why? What’s wrong with quail? They were adorable, actually, the mom and the little babies following—”
“Mr. Ginger Boots is going to annihilate them if they don’t watch out, though, that’s my concern.”
Jamie was looking at me quizzically.
“Neighborhood cat. Mr. Ginger Boots. White with little red paws. He’s a bitter old asshole, but he means well, and really he’s just lonely.” I realized then that my description of Mr. Ginger Boots’ personality was the same way I’d describe myself.
“I think I saw him out front when I got here. He’s super cute.”
I nodded, then waved Jamie off the couch. "Come on, you want a tour or not?"
I didn't want Jamie snooping around the house on his own, but did want to give him a tour. I was proud of my house. It was one of the few things I still felt good about, and I'd given the tour to pretty much every new person who'd come through the door in the past 15 years.
"So you've seen the living room and kitchen," I said gesturing around us. I led him over to the back window. "Backyard is pretty standard."
"Standard? Are you kidding? It's gorgeous. Your gardener must have his work cut out for him," Jamie said, looking at the flowers and thick vines.
"No gardener. Not anymore. I take care of the landscaping."
Jamie's eyes widened. "Wow. It looks seriously good, Leo. That's impressive."
I waved him off. "It's a ton of work, but I need something that gets me outside."
Jamie turned back to the window. "Nice pool, too."
"Thanks. If you ever wanna go for a swim rather than working on my biography, that's fine with me," I joked.
He raised an eyebrow.
"Okay, I gotta ask—do you want this biography to be written, or not? Because Ella made it seem like you'd been waiting for something like this your whole career...."
Your Fallen Star: Under the Stars Book 1 Page 2
