The Director (Hollywood Nights)

by North, Cara

  “What?” Frankie gasped.

  “That’s right. Harvey found me. He took me back to his agency and told me to tell him everything. Everything. I did, because I had nothing left to lose. I wanted him to put the final nail in my coffin. To confirm what I thought was true. He didn’t. He listened, he heard me, and he said I was the perfect challenge for his son, Alex to prove he was worthy of taking over the business. I don’t know. I saw past the challenge. I think he knew I was scraping the bottom and he concocted this test for his son as a way of doing two things at once.”

  “What two things?” Frankie asked.

  “He saved my life, and he made Alex step up and earn his place. I’m not the same person, Frankie. I mean I am, but I’m not. I’m finally allowed to just be me, and I like who I am. I know you’ve been keeping me at a distance. I get it. I’m not even hurt by it. I’m grateful for every smile, every comment, every chance I get to earn my place in your life.”

  Frankie smiled at her, wiped a stray tear, and said, “And Jed?”

  Shay couldn’t stop the warm flush of emotion that surged through her at his name. “He gets me, Frankie. He understands me in a way no one ever has before, not even you. See this bracelet, this flat line was me before I met him, this fist spike, that’s the start of my life now.”

  “They liked you, instantly.” Frankie sighed. “They didn’t like me that easy. I had to work for it. Of course, I had taken the happy-go-lucky one and made him an emotional wreck before it got better. You have taken the…grumpy one and made him happy.”

  “Maybe just less grumpy.” Shay held her hand out and Frankie took it.

  “I knew you had to be special to him when I saw the hoodie.”

  “What is with that thing?” Shay had to know. She had tried to find InkBlot, but didn’t come up with anything that fit the graphic design of the logo.

  “The InkBlot hoodie. It was their band, the three of them when they were kids. A short lived adventure, but they hold on to it like a link that keeps them together. I guess it is. I don’t know. I mean, you’re the only sister I ever had.” Frankie said. Then she added, “If you marry him we really will be sisters.”

  “Won’t that make being a little lesbian even more awkward?” They laughed. Shay squeezed Frankie’s fingers and explained, “You are always going to be my family Frankie.”

  “Well.” Frankie smiled. “Help me up so we can go see the rest of the family. Jonas will get worried soon. He thinks I’m going to pop this kid out any minute. We still have some time.”

  Shay grabbed both hands and pulled Frankie to a standing position. “Are you excited?”

  “Scared,” Frankie admitted. “I’m excited, but also scared. It is apparently a big deal to his fans. I keep reminding myself that I once got excited about this stuff too. I’m thinking about letting his stylist take over my wardrobe.”

  Shay walked with Frankie through the house and into the dining room where everyone seemed to be busy getting things set up for dinner. “You’re great as you are, but it couldn’t hurt to get some cool pregnancy pieces at the same time.”

  “Hi, Shay!” Janice said excitedly.

  “Hi.” Shay smiled and looked at everyone now looking at her and Frankie. She leaned in to tell Frankie, “You should ask who she uses, she always looks great.”

  Frankie nodded. Buddy Junior ran towards them, smiled, waved, and then ran to hide behind his father.

  “Hey,” Frankie called after him, “Where are you going? When did that happen?”

  Janice said, “When he met Shay.”

  Shay tried to ignore Frankie’s sigh of defeat as the last person Shay thought might have accepted her easily, Buddy junior, was flirting with Shay instead of Frankie. She asked, “Where’s Jed?”

  “Down the hall, in the third bedroom on the right.” Jonas pointed.

  Shay looked at Frankie and Frankie said, “I forgot they grew up in this house. That was his room. Go grab him and tell him dinner is ready.”

  Shay made her way through the insanely gorgeous home and found Jed right where they suspected him to be. “Hey.”

  He turned to look at her. He seemed unsure of something. Like he just finished doing something he shouldn’t have been doing, but she couldn’t tell what. She closed the distance between them and as he wrapped her in his arms he breathed a sigh of relief and asked, “How’d it go with Frankie?”

  “Good,” Shay said as she reached up to push her fingers through his hair. Maybe it was just a text, e-mail, or missed call that had him on edge. She was sure he had returned something to his pocket. “She just wanted to catch up. This was your room?”

  He squeezed her tight and said, “I think they know about the…”

  “I’m sure they do,” she said. “Frankie gave me the copy I showed you. They are just worried about you, Jed. They want you to be happy. I guess I have that in common with them.”

  He looked down at her and then pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. “I thought you wanted to make me miserable.”

  She smiled. “Terribly miserable.”

  “Well,” he said and looked around the room that was once his. “It’s working. So, you ready to go have dinner with my family?”

  She nodded.

  ***

  Shay decided over the course of a small gathering with his family that there was no way in hell she could ever look at Jonas Gunner the same again. He was such a brat. His sister had asked him to stop, but he kept on. Frankie even looked annoyed at him. He had been asking questions the entire meal. Shay had put up with it. Jed had taken it in stride.

  “I just don’t understand why you can’t do something safer, that’s all,” Jonas ended his line of questions aimed at his big brother.

  “Well,” Jed grumbled. “I’ll keep that in mind as I decide on my next project.”

  Shay was irritated most by the fact that through Jonas’s line of questioning, she had started to worry about Jed’s safety as well. When he told the stories of his adventures they seemed exciting and important. When Jonas questioned him he made good points regarding risk and safety. Shay didn’t want Jed to take another assignment that might put him in harm’s way.

  Still, she didn’t like Jed taking the beating.

  Janice and Buddy had taken Buddy Junior to their car and were reasonably out of sight.

  Shay looked at Frankie who mouthed the word sorry. Then Shay looked at Jonas. His smug little smile provoked it.

  “Goodnight Frankie,” Shay leaned in and kissed Frankie full on the lips, nothing overly dramatic, but simple smooch that got her husband’s attention. Frankie covered her lips with her hand as Shay pulled back. Frankie was blushing. Jonas was in a state of shock.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “What?” Shay asked innocently and looked at Jonas. He probably had had more sex than anyone in a ten mile radius but his expression was that of a man who had never seen anything like it before. “She’s adorable. We always kiss hello and goodbye. What?”

  “Frankie?” He looked at his wife. Frankie shrugged. It was true. She couldn’t deny it. “Jed?”

  “You want me to kiss her too?” Jed asked.

  “Frankie!” Jonas looked at her as though she had just kissed his brother though he was the farthest from her.

  “Jonas.” Frankie mocked him.

  “I don’t like you kissing my wife, Shay.” Jonas crossed his arms and glared at her.

  “And I don’t like you grilling your brother in front of everyone like that. It’s not just him that had to sit there and take it, Jonas, we all did. So, I thought it was only fair to make you as uncomfortable as you had made me.” Shay watched Frankie bite her lips to keep from smiling. This was a part of the old Shay Frankie always appreciated. Shay had been bullied enough in her life; she didn’t let anyone bully people she loved, even if they were related. Frankie had drawn the line between who she would choose. Shay had to do the same. It was Jed, even over Frankie, it was Jed.

  Jon
as thought about it a moment and said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too,” Shay said sweetly. Then she moved to stand next to Jed who smiled from ear to ear.

  “She hates me,” Jed said and Shay knew he meant the opposite.

  “I really do.” She looked up at him.

  Everything sparked between them at the admission. He leaned in to kiss her lips. It was not a simple kiss. It was passionate, with lips, tongue, and teeth. Arms were wrapped tightly around one another. They had forgotten time and place.

  Frankie cleared her throat and said, “We’re just going to go inside now.”

  As if coming to their senses, Jed slowly let her go and they both looked a bit stunned towards a smiling and waving Frankie and a blushing and cowed Jonas.

  ***

  Jed was as shocked as his little brother when Shay leaned in and kissed Frankie. He was glad it was just a simple kiss, because he had to admit he was a bit jealous. Then she revealed that she did it to get back at Jonas for being an ass all night. “Do you and Frankie really kiss hello and goodbye?”

  Shay shrugged. “Yeah, we used to. It got attention when we were younger. She knew I was just doing it to get him fired up.”

  “Did you consider it might bother me?” he asked.

  “Did it?” She placed her hand on his shoulder quickly as she asked. Before he could respond she explained, “I didn’t think it would. I mean it wasn’t a real kiss, just lips on lips long enough for him to feel awkward. He thinks we were a little more lesbian than we joked around about being. He feels threatened by me when it comes to Frankie. I know this because he told me he would fight me for her. I swear we were not involved with each other that way. We were kids. We just practiced.”

  Jed smiled. “I don’t think he’s ever had to compete with anyone before. It’s just new for him to feel so strongly about someone.”

  “Why did you let him talk to you like that at dinner?” she asked. Her hand moved to his thigh and remained there. He liked the feel of it. The intimacy of the touch reminded him that she admitted she loved him, though not in those exact words.

  He took in a deep breath and explained, “I’m older than they are. I was five when they had Janice. I loved her instantly. She was such a good baby. Then they had Jonas two years later. He was a little hellion from the time he came home. He’s my little brother, so I had to take care of him. I let him break my favorite toys, steal my favorite clothes, I don’t know. I mean, I guess I still look at him that way.”

  “He is a grown man with a wife and a child on the way. He can’t just badger you in front of everyone because he’s worried. I mean he made everyone worried!” she practically shouted the last part at him. “I don’t want you to take dangerous assignments either, Jed. You didn’t make it sound like it was all dangerous when you told me what you were doing. I understood the military assignments, but not the rest. I didn’t know you were at risk then.”

  “It’s what I do, babe.” He placed his hand on hers and decided to go to her place for the night rather than the beach house. Her place was closer, and he didn’t have any cigarette cartridges there. He had to break away at the house to get some space and to calm his anxious heart. She was asking him to change his entire career path. He needed to think about that. He would definitely wind up smoking if they went to the beach house. She had almost caught him earlier. He needed to just quit. He looked over at her. She was trying to smile, but it wasn’t genuine. It was there for his benefit only. “I can’t make any promises, but I will see what I can do.”

  She lit up with a real smile and a sense of relief that washed over her so visibly he could feel it. Maybe he needed to think about becoming a family man. Maybe there were other opportunities out there. He had been offered a job recently that he wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about. Maybe it was just what he needed to consider.

  They hadn’t walked five steps into her house when her phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket and took two clumsy steps backwards. Jed caught her and held her steady. “What is it?”

  “It’s my mother.” Shay looked up at him.

  “You don’t have to talk to her if you don’t want to.” He wanted to reach through the phone and strangle them for even making that mournful expression cross her face.

  “I have to know what they…”

  He nodded as the phone rang again. “I’m here with you. I’ll be here with you.”

  Jed knew the movie business inside and out. He knew the woman he was in love with was a damn fine actress, but a better designer, and after that stunt she pulled to put his brother in place, he considered her the best woman he knew.

  He tapped on the bathroom door again and said, “Talk to me, Shay.”

  Another loud and mournful sob from the other side of the door and he regretted offering to make her some hot tea and letting her out of his reach. She had handled the conversation with an Oscar worthy performance. His heart was breaking every time he caught sound of the conversation on the other end. They made claims that she owed them and threats to sue her. She had barely even cashed her first paycheck. It was her first movie, she was an extra, and they were destroying it for her.

  “Shay, I don’t want to break this door, sweetheart, but I will. You have to the count of three to let me in.” He listened against the door and said, “One.”

  He heard the lock tumble and the knob twisted freely in his hand. He opened the door and stepped into the bathroom with her. She was sitting on the edge of the tub. Her hands over her face, her elbows on her knees, his bracelet on her arm. He looked back at the bedroom. She had turned the guest room into her closet and the bedroom back into a bedroom after the first time they tried sleeping in the twin bed. He moved to her side, picked her up, and carried her to bed. He crawled in next to her as he situated her so he could hold her.

  She sobbed and explained, “You don’t understand. I was supposed to be somebody. They left Hawaii to come back to California when I was little. They sold their house, and they put all of their money into me. I look different. Nobody wanted a racially ambiguous child. They would ask my mother what my race was and she would ask them what they wanted it to be. She dyed my hair blonde, kept me out of the sun if I was competing for one role and then had me in a tanning bed and dyed my hair black when the prospect was for another. I got a few background parts. They thought it was a sign. Then it stopped. I couldn’t even get the lead roles in the school plays. I got one commercial but it never showed my face. I’m too short to be a model. The older I got the more I developed. You see my body. It’s sex, not sweetness. The more I tried to look like I belonged…I don’t belong anywhere.”

  “That’s not true,” he whispered as he stroked her hair. “You belong right here. You belong with me. Let them sue you. They were horrible parents. No one would side with them.”

  “There’s more,” she sniffed. He waited. “I’m not sure about this movie. They were arguing on set today. Alex called me in the afternoon to let me know that if it continues Harvey wants me out of it. He doesn’t want my first film to be a flop.”

  “Harvey knows what he’s doing.” Jed didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t help her with the work. He could run lines, he could be patient during long work days, but he couldn’t go to the set and make it better for her.

  “What if I fail?”

  The question hung in the air. “You try again.”

  “You didn’t.”

  He couldn’t exactly argue with that but he would try, “I realized that I didn’t love acting. I did it because I could, not because I loved it. When I started working on documentaries, I realized I enjoyed telling a story more than being a character in one. This may be the worst time to tell you this, but…”

  “What?”

  “I was offered a job,” he admitted.

  “You’re leaving me?”

  “No.” He took a deep breath. “I wasn’t sure about it, but since it is an opportunity to do something less dangerous for a change, I thought I could
do most of the research while you work on this production, and then convince you to come with me when I go.”

  “Go where?”

  “New York.”

  “What would I do there?” she sniffed. “I’ve lived in California since I was two.”

  “You’ll love New York. You could work on your designs if you wanted. Come out with me on location. Both. Neither.” Then came the hard part. It was too soon to ask, but he needed her to think about it. “I just need to know if you would go. I need to know if I should tell them no and look for something more permanent around here. My dad asked if I wanted the beach house. I told him I needed to talk to you. I don’t need answers tonight, but we will need to start talking about this stuff soon.”

  He squeezed her tight and placed a kiss to the top of her head.

  The honeymoon was officially over.

  Chapter 11

  “I completely understand.” Shay kept a brave face as she hung up the cellphone. She took one last look around the small trailer that would have been her primary space on this movie. However, the brothers making it were having severe conflict of vision now that Ivy was not the lead. It was over. Harvey didn’t have to pull her, the brothers closed it down.

  An odd sensation came over her as she exited the trailer. She looked up at the sky, at the clouds, and a sense of peace came over her like she had never known before. She didn’t have the answers, but she had an idea.