by Naomi Niles
“Hors d'oeuvre?” he asked as he extended the silver platter in front of us.
“Why not?” Marc said with a smile as he scooped one off the platter. “Ezra, you should try one. These are to die for.”
“No, thank you.”
The waiter bowed his head and continued walking through the crowd. “You are missing out,” Marc said as he swallowed his appetizer whole. He grabbed his handkerchief and patted his mouth to clean off the residue. “Anyways, the director will hand you the script later tonight, but for now,” he put his hand on my shoulder and rotated me until she was in my line of vision. “Your co-star is right over there at the punch bowl. How about you go and introduce yourself to her? It wouldn’t hurt to start building a working relationship with her. It will go a long way while you two shoot the movie.”
“Yeah,” I said as she smiled in the middle of her conversation with an older gentleman. “That’s not a bad idea at all.”
I approached her as she held her purse tightly underneath her arm. Her dress sparkled as if she were headed for a beauty pageant, and her hair was tied into a bun. I licked my lips as I stepped closer to her; her breasts sat perfectly beneath her dress. “And we meet again,” I said as I stood beside her.
The whites of her teeth shined bright as we made eye contact. “Ezra,” she said, “I was wondering when you were going to show up.”
“So, that means you were looking for me?”
“Um,” she chuckled. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“Well,” the older gentleman said, “I will leave you to it. Congrats again on the role, Hannah. And you too, Ezra. I’ve heard nothing but good things about you.” He shook my hand, then walked away, leaving me with a perplexed look.
“Um, who was that?”
“He is the director’s brother. I don’t know what he does, if anything, but he has been talking my ear off since I ran into him a few minutes ago. You just saved me from the agony. I didn’t want to be rude because he is Leonard’s brother, but–”
“Hey, come on, you can be nice. I mean, it looks like the guy is on his last leg anyway. He might have croaked right in front of you if I didn’t show up. He just needed a little more time.”
Her mouth hung open for a moment until a laugh sputtered out. “My God, that was mean! He is not that old!”
“He is old enough,” I said as I dipped the spoon into the punch and poured it into my glass. “But if that is your type, then I apologize. You might like them old. Hell, if you get married, that is less time you have to deal with them.” I wrinkled my eyebrows. “Wait a minute; you just might be on to something.”
She laughed, “Wow. You’re either a grade-A jerk, or you just like to get a reaction out of people.”
I took a sip of punch. “Well, maybe a little of both.”
“I see.”
“So. You didn’t bring a significant other with you to this event?”
“No. I don’t have one of those.” She took a drink, then placed her glass on the table. “It’s just me. It’s been that way for a little while now.”
“Oh, really?” That was all I needed to hear. “What is a beautiful woman like you doing single?”
“I wish I knew the answer to that, but I don’t. I’m like the last piece of bread in the bag. Nobody wants me.”
“Shit, I don’t know about you, but I ALWAYS eat the last piece of bread in the bag. Always.”
She blushed and looked away from me just as Leonard stepped to the middle of the room. “Thank you for attending this special script release event. I am thoroughly excited to begin shooting this wonderful movie. I would like to take the time to thank our two stars, whom I see together already.” He smiled. “Building more chemistry between one another. I love it. I absolutely love it! Please, both of you, come up here with me, front and center. Ezra Hamilton and Hannah Black.”
The people in attendance clapped as we walked, hand in hand, to the front of the room next to Leonard. “This is brand new talent, and I believe that we have two future stars in the making. I know they will put their best foot forward during this movie and not only will it launch their careers to new heights, but they will also make us a lot of money before they do!”
The audience laughed as he clapped his hands together. “Now, everyone enjoy yourselves, and in just a few moments, we will hand the script out to all of our actors and actresses, but for now, enjoy yourselves. Mingle. Drink. Eat and laugh, because that is why we are all here.” He shook my hand, then kissed Hannah on the cheek and walked away, leaving us in the front of the room.
“So, Hannah Bread,” I laughed. “I mean, Black. Maybe we should get together and go over the script sometime soon. I know we are not shooting for a little while now, but it’s probably good to stay proactive here.”
“Oh, yeah. Sure thing,” she said, attempting to hide her face. “Yeah, um. Monday is good. Is Monday good for you?”
“Monday is perfect.”
“All right.”
“Ezra, baby, I’ve got some people I want you to meet,” my agent called out to me as I stood next to Hannah.
I shook my head, “I need to–”
“Yeah, sure. I understand. You’ve got people to meet, and I’m sure–” just then, another person beckoned for Hannah’s attention. “–I’ve got people to meet, too.” Our laughter mingled together and led us staring into each other’s eyes for a moment. “Yeah, so… I guess we will exchange numbers before we leave or something?”
“Yeah, absolutely.”
“OK.”
She smiled and hesitantly walked away from me as my eyes glued to her backside. Just then, Marc put his arm around me. “Ezra, baby, come on. Important people! Important people waiting for you, babe. Let’s get this ball rolling!”
Chapter Ten
Hannah
“Hannah! Can you help me with these bags!” I heard Carrie stumbling through the front door as I rushed down the stairs to help her. She collapsed in the middle of the front room with her luggage piled around her as I closed the front door.
“Carrie? Are you all right?”
She took a deep breath as she laid sprawled out on the floor, “Why oh why did you let me take all these bags on a two-day trip!”
I laughed, pulling one of her bags to the side. “I told you, Carrie. You were only going to be out of town for two days at a photo shoot, but you felt you needed 30 outfits, and you know how you are when you get your mind made up. There is no hope for anything else.”
She pulled herself onto the couch. “Um, it was only 20, and I needed every last one of them, thank you very much.” She took a towel and wiped her forehead. “I had fun, but I am glad that is over. But you? How was your little shindig over at the movie studio?”
“Oh, yes. It was good! And speaking of that,” I said, standing up, “I need to meet up with Ezra at Bookers so we can get ahead of the script.”
She smiled. “A date? Really?”
I rolled my eyes, “No, not a date. A business meeting. Yeah, let’s just call it that.”
“Bullshit. First, you tell me that the man is fine and next thing I know, you are going out to dinner with him. Please. That is a date, and you know it.”
I laughed. “Whatever, Carrie. I need to go get ready, though.”
I turned to walk back upstairs as she called out to me, “But wait! Hannah, who is gonna help me unpack?! I didn’t plan on doing this by myself! Hannah!”
“What?!” I yelled as I was halfway up the stairs.
“Does he have like a cute brother or something? If he does, send him my way!”
I chuckled to myself as I went upstairs and got myself ready to meet Ezra at the restaurant. It was a nice place in North Hollywood that offered everything from seafood to good old-fashioned burgers. Nothing too fancy, but far from a hole-in-the-wall spot.
He texted me just as I pulled into the parking lot. “Hey, I’m here already seated. Just come on in and walk to the right. You can’t miss me.” I walked into the building and follo
wed his directions. He stood up and pulled out my chair as I approached.
“Hello, beautiful,” he said as I took my seat.
I smiled. “Hello, Ezra. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” He walked to the other side of the table and took his seat. “How was the traffic?”
I placed my purse in a vacant seat beside us. “It is Hollywood, what do you expect? People are driving 10 miles an hour just so they can be seen and slowing up everyone behind them.”
“You remember that game, Mario Kart?’”
“Do I? It was one of my favorite games growing up.”
He leaned closer to me as if he were ready to tell me some deep, dark secret. “You know, I wish that my car had that little turtle so I could spit it out at those kinds of drivers. Like, seriously. Why the hell are you going 50 in a passing lane? I mean, seriously?”
“Right! My God, I hate that more than anything! I wish they could get a ticket for that! I would snitch every damned time!”
Just then, the waiter approached our table with an appetizer. “Fried mushrooms and pickles,” he said as he placed the steaming hot plates of food on our table. “And two Sprites. Are you all ready to order?”
“Um,” he said as he looked at me while my mouth hung halfway open like a garage door. “No, give us a minute, please.” He bowed his head and left us alone at the table. “I hope you don’t mind these appetizers. I always get–”
“I LOVE fried pickles and mushrooms! Love, love, love them! Did we just become best friends?!”
“Yup!”
We laughed together as I scooped a few pickles onto my plate and covered them with ranch. “So, how long have you been acting? Is this your first big movie? Sorry if I am acting like a groupie, but I just want to get to know the person I will be acting alongside of.”
“Oh, no problem. Just um… let me get a bite of this food first.” I sunk my teeth into the pickle as my eyes rolled to the back of my head. “My God, this is good. So, so, soooo good.” I wiped my mouth with a napkin, then took a sip of my drink to cool down. “So, my acting career. Um, this is my first big time movie. I’ve done a few commercials and some webisodes and things like that for a few friends, but that’s it. Nothing on this level. What about you?”
“Nope. This is my first time on the big screen as well. I’ve done made-for-TV movies and commercials for things that you probably have never heard of.”
“I bet I have. I have done a few commercials for bullshit products over my time. Shoot.”
“Roll-aid.”
I kept a straight face for a few seconds before I burst out laughing. “All right, you win. Shit, I’ve never heard of that before. What is it?”
He scooped a few mushrooms onto his plate. “It’s what I use whenever I have to talk to my ex because she is such a fucking pain.”
“Your ex?”
“Yeah. I mean, we’re not together anymore–”
“Yeah. I think that’s why they call it an ex?”
He paused and glared at me. “Listen, we can’t both be the asshole here, all right? It’s either gonna be me or you, and trust me; I have more asshole ammunition on standby. I was born for it.”
I slid another pickle into my mouth. “All right, it’s yours.”
“Good. So, what about you? Your commercials?”
“I’ve done things for regular companies. Workout gear, insurance companies, you know? Things like that. When you said, ‘roll-aid,’ I knew right from the beginning that you were going to win that battle. Roll-aid.” I laughed to myself as he sat across the table, fighting to keep his laughter away.
“All right, I’ll let you have that one. I’ve done some fucked up things for money, I’ll admit, but hey… I had to take what was offered.”
“So… we are both struggling entertainers who finally found a chance with this movie. Are you nervous?”
“Nah, I’m good,” he said as he took a sip of his drink. “I walked into that audition and damn near did a striptease, then told them that I was the man for the job and they should just go home for the rest of the day.”
My eyes widened as if I were trying to see the world at once. “Really? In front of Leonard?”
“Oh, no. It was three women. Elizabeth, um,” he tapped his finger on the table, “honestly, I don’t remember the other two. I just remember that I walked into that room and owned it. I was going to get this part if I had to kill somebody to do it.”
“That is funny. A striptease?” In my mind, I had already removed his shirt from his body. His muscles were bulging right in front of me, and on cue, I could make them flutter. I saw Ezra’s lips moving, but I couldn’t hear anything he was saying. He laughed out loud and gazed right at me, his sky-blue eyes snapping my mind away from the soft porno that was replaying in my head. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was funny.”
His eyebrows wrinkled. “What was funny?”
“Um, your umm, striptease?” He gave me a side-eye and moments later; I burst out in laughter. “I am sorry, my mind was somewhere else. What were you saying?”
“Wow, really?” He laughed. “Never mind, it wasn’t important. I was just saying how I was going to take you home and have my way with you.” He took another sip of his drink as he peered at me from behind his glass.
A part of me wouldn’t have cared if he had his way with me. In fact, my mind had already replayed the scene out 100 times. We ended up spending the rest of the night talking and laughing with each other like we were best friends catching up on old times. Before we knew it, two hours had passed, and we hadn’t gone over one line of the script.
“Well um,” I said, pulling the stack of papers from my purse, “I guess we will have to look over this another day?”
He laughed. “Wow, I completely forgot about that.” He looked at his watch. “We’ve been here for just over two hours. It didn’t even seem that long. It felt like we just got here.”
I looked at the empty plates of food in front of us, “Yeah, but these plates kind of give it away.”
“So,” he asked, “I guess we can try again… tomorrow?”
“Yeah, we can try again tomorrow. I’m free.”
“Yeah, me too. Tomorrow it is.”
He walked me to my car as the moonlight illuminated our path. I unlocked my door as he opened it for me. “I enjoyed myself tonight, Hannah.”
“Yeah, I did, too. I’m looking forward to tomorrow. Maybe we can actually read the script.”
We laughed together as he closed the door. I rolled my window down so he could speak. “Yeah, I think we can. Drive safe, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“All right.”
I mentally undressed him as he walked to his car. If I was nervous at all about our possible sex scenes, the fact that Ezra was going to be the man involved eased my anxiety 100 percent. To be honest, I was starting to look forward to it.
Chapter Eleven
Ezra
It was almost 1 pm by the time Jeff and I finished our workout. I sat on the bench inside of the locker room, wiping sweat from my brow with a rag as I tried to catch my breath. I felt like Jeff tried to kill me, but I kept up with him the best I could. My phone buzzed inside of my gym bag just as Jeff emerged from the rear of the locker room with a towel wrapped around his waist. “Who is that?” he asked while he pulled clothes from his locker.
“Hannah,” I said with a smile as I opened her text.
“Hannah?” he asked quizzically before he recollected who she was. “Oh,” he snapped his fingers, “the chick that you are doing the movie with?”
“Yeah, her.” She sent a message to confirm that we were still on for reading over the script later tonight at my place. Even though I was anxious to pick up where we left off the day before, I didn’t want her to sense it. I slid my phone back into my bag and decided I would text her a few minutes later. “We are supposed to go over lines from the script together. Back at my place.”
I stood up. The mirror 10 feet in front of us reflect
ed the muscles that Jeff helped trim during our hours of working out. I admired the dip from my pecs down to my abs and the definition of my obliques. “Your place?” Jeff asked, interrupting my brief stint of narcissism. “Really?” he smirked. “Boy, you move fast!” He nudged me with his arm as a group of men strolled into the locker room with music blasting from their headphones.
“No, no, it’s not like that. It’s strictly business. For real.”
He lowered his eyes as he dropped his towel in front of me so he could slide into his underwear. “Bullshit, man. I know how you are, Ezra, and if this chick looks like you say she does, then she is primed to become another notch on your belt.”
I laughed because he was right. I was known to sleep around with women, barely knowing their names. It wasn’t like that with Hannah, though. I didn’t see her as a one-night stand or anything similar. Our chemistry was evident from the very first time we met. Yeah, she was gorgeous, but there was more to her than that. “Nah, seriously. I mean, don’t get me wrong, she is cute and all and I wouldn’t mind going there with her, but it’s something different about her.” I paused with my hand inside of my locker, recollecting moments of last night’s dinner. The way she finished my sentences like she knew what I was thinking or how I didn’t have to explain my jokes to her after they left my mouth.
“Wait a minute,” he said, pulling his shirt down over his head. “Don’t tell me you are falling for her.”
“What?” I said, snapping out of my daydream. I grabbed my jogging pants and leaned against the locker for support as I slipped my legs in one at a time. “Fall for her? Fuck that, man. I just got out of that bullshit relationship with Tanya. I’m not trying to jump into anything serious right now. Shit. That’s why I’ve just been fuckin’ around with different women here and there. No strings attached. That’s how I’ve been playing it.”
“No, fuck that, bro,” he said as he fixed his clothing in the mirror. “I’ve known you for a while now, and I can tell when you are feeling some kind of way about a chick. It happened once that I can remember.” I hung my head, knowing he was about to bring up Stacy. “Remember Stacy?” he asked, right on cue.
