“My sister. I’m closest to her and parents are supposed to go first, you know? I’m not saying I’d enjoy losing mum, but it’s natural that she dies before me. Losing a sister is wrong, especially at our age.”
He nodded his understanding. “For me, I think it would be my mum. My sisters are out living their lives and while I don’t see my mum often, she is the family member I’m closest to.”
He was such a sweet guy. I could already tell that I wanted to be his friend (and maybe a lot more) but I didn’t dare hope that he felt the same.
I looked down at the questions to see that we were on the last one of section three.
“Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how they might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen,” I read.
Will frowned for a moment. “I have no idea.” He admitted.
“Come on, there must be some issue in your life right now.”
He thought for a few moments, pressing his lips together as he spoke.
“Well,” he began, sounding hesitant, “sometime soon I’ve got to choose between two roles that would shoot at the same time, but that’s hardly personal. Are you a Shadow Watch fan?”
The Shadow Watch movies were a film franchise, a little like the James Bond movies, if you also got to see films with agents 001 to 006 as well as 007. The agents all worked for Shadow Watch, a global intelligent agency and every now and again, there would be a villain so bad that they had to team up into a group of spies, known as the Sentinels, to take them down. It fell somewhere between Bond and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. on the camp scale.
Will was a bad guy in three of those films so far, the personal nemesis of Agent Kevin Bolt, codename Firebolt, and the reason for the first time the spies teamed up together to try and take him down.
“Okay, this might count then,” Will leaned forward. “When I signed on with Shadow Watch, it was for five films, so far with the two Firebolt movies, Sentinels and a small part in Sentinels Two which comes out later this year, that just leaves the third Firebolt movie and my contract is up, but they’re already talking about including Dante in the third Sentinels movie, which will be a two parter, and extending my contract for two more films.”
“And you’re unsure what to do?”
He nodded. “The thing is, I do love that franchise, I’ve made a lot of friends there and John Phelps, who would direct the next two Sentinels films, is fantastic, but I’m a little worried I’ll be typecast, and even more worried I’ll be remembered only for Dante. I love him but…”
“You’re concerned he could take away from more serious roles?”
“Exactly. Then again, playing him has opened up so many doors for me.”
It was a serious question and I couldn’t let my love for his character unduly influence my reply, so I considered it for a few moments before answering.
“I’d say you’re already at the height of your Dante fame, so are you already being typecast?”
“I am offered a lot of villain roles, but I do other stuff too. And before him, I seemed to be relegated to good guy roles, so he certainly helped broaden the spectrum of offers I receive.”
“Then I would say that typecasting is probably not something you need to worry too much about. And you sound grateful to the franchise for the opportunity.”
“I am, I feel very privileged to have been given such an chance, and that the audience has taken Dante into their hearts.”
“Okay, well, he is the biggest character you’ve played to date and you could be right about only being remembered for him, but then again you have what? 40 plus years ahead of you, which is plenty of time to make an impact with other characters, isn’t it?”
“Well, I hope so.”
“I can't tell you what to do because it’s your life and your career, but if it was mine, I think it would depend on the ending Dante gets.”
“How so?”
“Is it satisfying? Basically, from my point of view, Dante is the most interesting and the only well rounded villain in the Shadow Watch universe. He covers the whole spectrum from heroic at the beginning of Firebolt, to troubled misfit, then to ultimate bad guy in the Sentinels and finally, an agent of chaos in the last movie. You never know what you’re going to get with him, which side of himself he’ll show that day, and that makes his potential huge. Such a character deserves a fitting final chapter so if you don’t get that in Firebolt three, I’d sign on for the two more movies. I mean, even if they’re released a year apart, they’ll shoot back to back, right? So it won’t take you away from other projects for too long, and then you can walk away knowing you took him as far as you could, and left the character and audience with a satisfying ending.”
“You sound like you’ve given this some thought.”
I shrugged. “I know what I’d like to see, if it was up to me, that is.”
“Maybe you can tell me later?”
“Sure.” I felt that sort of tingling in the pit of my stomach, that either meant I was ill, or seriously crushing on someone.
“So what’s your personal problem,” he asked.
“Um… Okay, I have a really hard time standing up for myself.”
“In all situations?”
“Not so much professionally, but personally. I’m the girl who finds it hard to say ‘no’, or ‘don’t treat me that way’, or ‘I don’t like that’.”
“Do you know why that is?”
“Uh, I think it comes from my mum. She can turn on a dime and I never knew if she was going to turn around and laugh, or start screaming at me. And she didn’t just attack what you had done, she attacked you as a person. I think I’ve carried that into my adult life and I’m always worried that if I stand up for myself, I’ll just get torn to shreds.”
“I have to say, I find that difficult too, I hate confrontation. You seem to view it as a weakness though?”
“I guess. My sister’s always been strong and unafraid to argue but I always preferred to avoid it or hide from her.”
“You feel like a coward,” he said kindly.
I caught his eye and gave a small nod. It’s not an easy thing to admit.
“I know it can feel that way but actually, it’s better to be too passive, than too aggressive.”
“How do you work that out?”
“Because aggressive people argue, and nothing ever gets sorted out in a fight. It takes cool heads to compromise and reach an understanding, while tempers just inflame sensibilities and make everything worse.”
I’d never thought of it like that before but he was right. For all the arguing my mother and sister had done, they never seemed to reach an agreement, just an uneasy truce. Of course by hiding from the problem, I never reached a resolution with her either.
“That doesn’t make it easier to speak up though,” I countered.
“No, that takes practice,” he admitted. “You seem like the type to stand up for your friends though, am I right?”
“Always,” I agreed. I didn’t hesitate to stand up for other people when warranted, it was only defending myself that I found difficult.
“I came up with a little test for myself,” he continued. “I realised that I was more inclined to stick up for other people than I was for myself, so once I had a confrontation, I would walk away and put someone else in my shoes. I asked myself, if they faced the circumstances I was facing, would I defend them, or would I advise them to stand up for themselves. If I decide that yes, I would advise them to do something, then calmly, once all tempers have cooled down, I’ll go back and either ask for what I want, or state what I need.”
“And that really works?”
“Almost always and as an added bonus, I realised that in the situations I decided not to make an issue of, I stopped replaying those events in my mind, worrying about what I could or should have done differently. It’s hard to be resentful of something when you’re the one who made a
conscious decision not to do anything about it.”
“I’ve never thought about it in those terms.” I smiled at him. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” He returned my smile. “Do you want a break before we move on to section four?”
“Might be wise. Each section seems to be getting more complicated.”
We both stretched our legs and got more tea, sharing glances and shy smiles as we moved around the small room. I gad almost forgotten that we were being watched through the two way mirror while we answered the questions but now, I felt very aware of being watched. I also felt extremely attracted to him, which was just stupid.
He was an actor and was so far out of my league, it was unreal. I wasn’t ugly, I knew that, but I also wasn’t poised, elegant or beautiful, well, not the kind of beauty he was used to. My beauty, if I could be said to have some, was more of the girl next door type: easy, natural, quiet and in his world, boring.
If this was a romcom, someone would give me a fabulous makeover and I’d win my man, but real life wasn’t like that. Sure, I probably could look like a star, or at least a starlet, but that would just be for one night. Mostly, I just wanted to be me, which meant that on the days I wore makeup, I kept it light, I kept my body mostly covered; no plunging necklines or backless dresses for me, and I simply couldn’t be bothered to spend hours on my hair.
I was utilitarian. He was some kind of reborn Greek God.
This little crush was so not going to end well for me, but what could I do about it?
Maybe Katie’s next study would be on eradicating love. Hey, if science was going to manufacture it, I could only hope that it might also find a way to end it and save me from my predicament.
Truly though, he was just such a sweet guy, not at all full of himself or vain as you might expect, so I had a feeling that I might feel this way about him even without this experiment.
“Do you wax your chest?” I suddenly asked as we took our seats again.
His amused expression made me feel like an idiot. “Uh, only if a film requires it, which is very rare, thankfully. It’s not pleasant. But then, I probably don’t have to tell you that.”
Why did I ask that? See, this was one of those un-poised things I did, sometimes if I thought it, I just said it.
“Why?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” How could I tell him the truth, that I really didn’t like snuggling with men who shaved their chests? I mean, it’s not like I had a hair fetish and wanted someone who looked like he was wearing Tom Jones’ chest wig, just… natural. Like me, I guess.
“Uh huh,” his tone said that he didn’t believe me but luckily, he didn’t press the issue. “Ready to move on?”
“Sure.”
We both turned to page four, expecting it to be more questions but instead it was a small paragraph of text.
“This part is optional,” he read. “Stare into your partner’s eyes for four minutes, using the clock to time yourselves. This is not a staring contest, you can blink but try maintain eye contact and not look away, no matter how uncomfortable you feel. Please do not talk during the four minutes.”
Wow, this was going to be super awkward.
We shared a nervous smile.
“I’m game,” he told me.
Well, it would be uncomfortable, but probably bearable. And while we could refuse, Katie was a friend and I didn’t want to hurt her study.
“Okay.”
He reached out, his finger hovering over the clock, and we both stared at it, as of it held the answers to the meaning of life. The truth however, is that I suspect we were both avoiding each other’s gaze until the last moment.
“Three, two,” he counted down and I braced myself to break societal norms. “One.”
We looked at each other, awkward smiles on our faces to begin with, but they quickly faded as it went from uncomfortable, to excruciating. This wasn’t normal, not something normal people did, unless you were competing in a staring challenge. For some reason, the competitive edge of such contests made it okay.
I was allowed to blink though, and had to remind myself to or I would never last thirty seconds, let alone four minutes.
Slowly it became less intrusive and more personal. We both offered shy smiles again, but they were genuine this time. That feeling also faded, and I focused on his irises. They were not as blue as I initially thought, they were more a sort of steal grey, with a slightly darker rim. There were no flecks that my many romance books spoke of, and although there were slight variations in colour, there weren’t many, and the flecks (if that’s what they were) were too small to distinguish.
Was I imagining it, or were his pupils getting larger? That was a sign of attraction right? It was so hard to tell if they were though.
As for me, I felt naked before him, as if he could see into my soul and was reading my every thought. Which was silly, but I wouldn’t have felt more vulnerable if I’d been sitting here naked.
Why did we see eyes like that, as windows on the soul? Touch was surely more intimate than most glances, but we didn’t call the skin the window to the soul. And really, the eyes were just receptor cells which were attached to nerves, no different than receptors in our skin, or our noses, or mouths, they simply processed light rather than smell, taste and pressure. The real action was in the brain, that’s where all these nerve impulses were turned into images.
Jesus, how long did four minutes last? Surely it should be over by now!
I wondered what he made of me? What did he see when he looked into my eyes?
For me, I saw someone with a huge heart and a generous soul, someone who cared about and put others first. Someone who always did his best to be positive, making those around him happier as a result. Someone kind, trustworthy, someone who would never actively seek to demean or belittle others, no matter how upset he was. Someone who would defend those weaker than himself, although only in a peaceful way; he would never seek out confrontation, but he wouldn’t run from it either.
It was foolish to feel this way, I was probably projecting what I wanted him to be, but that’s how I felt.
Finally the clock dinged but we didn’t look away immediately, which surprised me. We both smiled.
“You have beautiful eyes,” he told me.
“You too,” I replied with a blush.
Then we blinked and the moment was over. We laughed nervously.
“That was intense,” I said.
“Very,” he agreed. “Might be an exercise to suggest to acting partners; sometimes it’s hard to manufacture intimacy for a role.”
“That could definitely help,” I agreed.
“Well, thank you for making this a very enjoyable experience.”
My heart plummeted as I realised that his words were a goodbye. He was right, it was over.
“You too. This whole thing could have been really awkward.”
There came a knock at the door, then Katie entered.
“How do you both feel?” she asked.
“I feel… weird,” I admitted.
“How so?” Katie asked, looking concerned.
“I don’t know, it’s hard to explain.”
“She’s right,” Will agreed. “It’s very hard to put into words, but it’s like… I feel a little emotionally tired, only a little and yet at the same time, quite exhilarated.”
Kate smiled. “We just have the reaction questionnaires, then you’re free to go. Each question asks you for an emotional response, like ‘I feel happy’ and you answer from strongly agree to strongly disagree. If you fill in the first page now, then take it away and fill it in on day two tomorrow, day four, day seven etc. Don’t worry, each questionnaire is coded so no one reading it will know your name, unless they have access to my data.”
“I’m under a pseudonym, right?” Will asked.
“You are, don’t worry, no one but me knows that you’re participating in this study.”
He smiled at her.
“Oh, here�
�s your phones back,” she said, retrieving them from her pocket and handing them to us. She had taken mine when I first arrived. Then she hugged us both, thanking us for coming in, and said we could leave once we had completed page one.
We both turned our phones on and I noticed that Will’s had a password to unlock it. I couldn’t really blame him, being famous must make his phone a target for unscrupulous reporters.
We sat back down, picked up the pens she had left, and began to fill in the questionnaires.
They were fairly generic queries. ‘I like the person I was partnered with’. ‘I would like to remain a friend with the person I was partnered with’. And getting gradually more personal, with a few control type questions thrown in, to make sure we weren’t lying.
I tend to be fairly self-aware when it comes to emotions, so I was whizzing through my replies with instinctive answers, rather than giving each question a lot of thought.
Then I heard Will’s phone began to beep as it connected to the network, and he must have had at least half a dozen text messages and missed calls while we were in here.
“What time is it?” I asked, realising that I had no clue.
“Four fifteen,” he replied, which surprised me. “We’ve been here for over an hour.” He also sounded a little amazed.
We shared a smile, then Will entered the code on his phone and I looked away.
“Damn,” he muttered as he checked his messages.
I pretended to still be filling in my answers.
“I’ve got to go,” he said, surprising me. “I am so sorry to run out on you like this. Rain-check on that drink?”
“Sure,” I smiled, knowing I would never see him again. “I hope it’s nothing serious.”
“No, just something I’ve been waiting for.” He ran to the door then turned back. “I’d like to kiss you,” he said, which totally surprised me.
I probably gulped like a goldfish for a moment before replying, “Okay.” Yep, I was real smooth.
He covered the distance in three long strides, then leaned down over the table and I cursed myself for not getting up. Then his lips were on mine, giving me a soft and gentle kiss. It didn’t last long, a few seconds maybe, then he pulled away.
Making Love (Destiny Book 1) Page 3
