“Thank you both,” I said, getting my purse out of my bag.
“Oh no, drinks are on me,” Alice assured me.
“Are you sure?”
“No one who’s upset should ever buy their own drinks,” she told me with a smile.
“And if you and Will are free,” Michelle said. “Jon and I are having dinner here about 8 tonight. Please join us if you’d like to.”
“Thank you.” They were being so nice to me, and I didn’t feel that I deserved it.
I made my way back to the room. Hoping that he might be here and as I opened the door, I could hear the shower running. I was already in the dog house so rather than cutting his shower short (and I really didn’t think I’d be very welcome if I tried to join him) I opted to pace instead.
Finally the water cut off and after a few minutes, I heard him emerge. I still didn’t go through, thinking it unfair to converse with someone when they’re naked. Well, this kind of conversation anyway, so I sat on the sofa facing the bedroom and tried not to fidget too much.
When he finally came through, his hair still damp from the shower, he looked surprised to see me but not angry.
“Will…” That seemed to be all I was capable of saying.
“Elle, I’m so sorry.” He approached me with caution, as if I were going to lash out at him, which made me feel even worse.
“No, I’m sorry. You were right, I have been shutting everyone out.”
“I shouldn’t have said those things to you.”
“I think I needed to hear them.”
“I should have found a kinder way to say it then.” He knelt down before me. “Please don’t go.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, reaching out and taking his hands. “I came back to apologise to you.”
I told him all about my epiphany, then how my lack of confidence and mistrust had made me closed off, and about Michelle and Alice finding me while I was Will hunting earlier, and my apologising for the shitty way I’d been behaving.
He listened without comment, letting me get it all out, then he smiled.
“I’m sorry.”
I laughed little. “Stop apologising. You’ve done nothing wrong, I was the one in the wrong.”
“I should have realised, I should have helped you. Adjusting to this life isn’t easy but I had years to ease into the role. You’ve been thrown in at the deep end.”
“You can't know what I don’t tell you, you’re not a mind reader. But I should have told you I just… I don’t think I even realised what I was doing, not until you said something. Can you forgive me?”
He detached one of his hands from mine and reached out to cup my cheek. “Always.”
And then he kissed me so tenderly, that I knew I was forgiven.
“So,” he said, finally getting off his knees and sitting beside me. “Tell me, what can I do to help?”
“I don’t think you can, my anti-social-ness, is that a word? Anyway, it’s something I have to get over.”
“Well I do have one suggestion, if I may.”
“Of course.”
“Drink. Alcohol is the great social leveller.”
“Is that right?” I laughed.
“Yep, tried and tested.”
“Are you trying to get me drunk, Mr Braxton?”
“From the taste of your lips, I don’t have to try and besides, when you said you were on a Will hunt, I kind of thought you might pursue me tonight.”
“I said I was on a Will hunt?”
“You did indeed.” He nodded while giving me a very self-satisfied smile.
“Well, normally I’m against hunting but in this case, the prey is definitely worth catching.” I moved to straddle him and he put his hands on my hips.
“Are you propositioning me, Miss Greystone?”
“Absolutely not,” I said, stealing a kiss.
“No?”
“No. I’m just taking what I want; it’s faster that way. Why, do you have any objections?”
“Not a single one.” His hands moved to my back and although he was the prey, he claimed a very hot kiss from me. Not that I was about to object.
“You, darling,” he said, pulling away and beginning to work the buttons of my shirt, “are wearing entirely too many clothes.”
“Shhh,” I said in my best Elmer J Fudd impression, placing a finger over his lips. “Be vewy quiet, I'm huntin’ Williams!
He laughed.
***
Things got easier after that. I made myself a promise that unless I had a very good reason, I wouldn’t refuse any invitations.
That evening at dinner, I did drink a little more than usual, I usually never have more than one or two glasses of wine and then, only one, maybe two nights a week. That night, as well as the Jamesons I'd had earlier, I had three glasses of wine while we ate. I admit, I was still a little intimidated by Jonathan but after dinner we had liquors with coffee, and I was finally starting to relax around him.
While Will was working, Michelle and Alice also helped introduce me around and bring me out of my shell and within a week, I was wondering what I had been so worried about. I also showed some people the places I had been exploring and thought that there were one or two people here whom I could make a good friend of. I wasn’t sure I’d get that chance, not everyone was staying for the full duration of shooting, but I was content to see how things went.
I was still a little tight-lipped for fear of information leaking online (mainly about how we met) but I supposed that fear might never truly leave me.
Things were good, for a while at least, but before shooting ended, I had another surprise coming. One that was not at all welcome.
Chapter Eleven
“What do you mean, Dad wants to see me? I’ve hardly seen that man a dozen times in my life.” While Skyping Hannah, I could tell something was bothering her, and I’d finally wheedled the truth from her.
“Come on, he was around a lot when you were little,” Hannah argued.
“I was little, I don’t remember. I do remember when he missed by 6th birthday party, a trend that continued for the next… twenty four years.”
“He sent presents!”
“You can't hug a present. You can't ask a present for help with your homework. A present won’t come and watch your dance recitals.” As it turned out, the same applied to my father. “He can't even spell my name right!”
“He’s not perfect, Ellie, I know that, but he did his best.”
“Maybe he did, but I hardly know the man.” Hannah was six years older than I was and she had more memories of our father, who had left when I was 2.
“Look, he’s trying to reconnect. Can it really hurt to meet him?”
It had always been a fantasy of mine to have my father be a real father, but that dream had died a slow and painful death. Or so I thought. I was tempted, I admit.
“Why now?” Tempted I may be, but I was also cynical.
“Why not now?” Hannah asked. “He just mentioned it last time he phoned, is all.”
I knew they spoke sometimes, but not that they ever talked about me.
“Come off it, Han, if you didn’t think there was something shifty going on too, I wouldn’t have had to pry this out of you.”
Hannah sighed. “Okay, so I think the timing is odd, but maybe seeing you in the papers just reminded him of what he’d missed and gave him the kick up the bum that he needed.”
“That was almost two months ago. What happened, has it been so long that he didn’t recognise me?”
“If you go looking for problems, you’ll always find them. And it can't hurt to try and reconnect, can it?”
“Then why didn’t you say something?”
“Because I know you’re away for another month or more, so I told him I wouldn’t say anything until you were back.”
“Our family is so fucked up,” I muttered.
“At least you and I aren’t,” Hannah said softly.
“We are, Han, and you know it. In your
defence though, you are an amazing mother and I think the problems will end with our generation.”
“Do you really think that?” She sounded surprised.
“You adore those kids, and you might have had less experience, but you were a pretty good mum to me too.”
She began blinking rapidly. We didn’t often get sappy with each other. Maybe we needed to work on that.
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure, I’m only telling the truth.” I sighed. “And you are absolved of guilt on the Dad thing, but I am not going to even think about it until I get back. Okay?”
“Fine.” She hadn’t planned to tell me until then anyway.
We chatted for another twenty minutes until she had to leave to pick the kids up from their drama class but as soon as I closed the chat screen, I felt lost.
I tried to get some work done but I couldn’t focus, so I gave up.
There was only one person I wanted to reassure me, so I looked up his schedule on my phone and headed to the location they were at today.
***
It turned out to be quite a good thing that I had made friends among the cast and crew, because I didn’t technically have permission to be on set, and security denied me entry until I was able to wave at Walt, one of the actors’ assistants, and he told the guards to let me through.
“We should get you a pass,” he said, guiding me to the trailers. “Then you can come and go as you please. Do you want me to have one made up?”
“I don’t come often, and I’ve always come with Will before.”
“Still, it can't hurt. It’ll save you waiting around at security for twenty minutes until someone wanders by.”
“I don’t want to put you out.”
“It’s no trouble, honestly.”
“Then yes, I’d like that, Thank you.”
“No problem. I’ll have it for you by tonight. This is your man,” he said, pointing to a trailer a little way down, with Will Braxton written on the door.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. If he’s not in there, go to the end and turn left, the location is that way.”
I smiled and he went off to resume his duties, while I knocked on Will’s trailer. He wasn’t there, so I followed Walt’s directions.
They were in the middle of shooting a scene, so I held back and watched, trying to stay out of sight in case I distracted Will.
It took another thirty minutes until they broke to set up the reverse angles and I stepped out, where Will could see me.
He immediately looked concerned and came straight over.
“Something wrong?”
“Not exactly, but I could use a hug.”
He happily obliged and held me for ages.
I stayed with him for the rest of the day, keeping out of the way while filming was going on, and chatting with Will and some of the others in between takes.
Obviously he wanted to know what was wrong and I told him. I couldn’t actually say anything bad about my dad, other than that he hadn’t been around much. Mum used to talk a lot of shit about him but Hannah had always balanced her point of view, and reminded me that it was Mum who kicked Dad out, he didn’t voluntarily leave us.
Will agreed with Hannah, that I needed to meet with my dad, to find out for myself what he wanted and even if he was just lured by Will’s fame, I might kick myself in later life if I hadn’t found out.
And as they say, out of sight, out of mind, so seeing my pictures with Will could just have brought me to mind and given him the impetus to act. There was always a chance the man could be genuine, he reminded me.
It was about six pm when he was finished, the sun had faded enough to affect the lighting of the shots, so they had to resume tomorrow. After he’d changed we returned to the hotel and ordered room service while we spent the evening watching movies. That was the great thing about having an apartment in a hotel, we had a small kitchen but we could also order room service if we couldn’t be bothered to cook.
I did my best to put my dad out of my mind after that day; it wasn’t something I could deal with while I was away, and I had no desire to telephone a man I hardly knew and try to make awkward conversation.
In Mid-October, Will had to take a break from filming to promote the premiere of a movie he filmed last year, long before he met me, called Blood Moon (the producers of Kismet knew this and had accounted for it) and this would be our first official outing together.
I was as nervous as a cat at a dog show.
***
We were booked into an LA hotel which was fabulous. I felt like I was living Pretty Woman, but without the prostitute plot line. I did however, have to get a dress, just like Julia Roberts. A few dresses actually, since we’d be attending three premieres and Will insisted I have a new dress for each as for the first time, I would be photographed at each event.
The rest of the cast were in the same hotel and as intimidated as I felt, I made a real effort to be friendly to them all, if not befriend them.
Will and the others had a series of press interviews lined up so on that day, I ventured to a shop that Will’s people had arranged for me to visit. How strange is it that my boyfriend has ‘people’.
The shop was one of those designer ones but one of the few that carried plus size gowns. I resented being thought of as plus sized considering that I wasn’t even overweight on the BMI chart, but this was Hollywood and compared to most of the women in this town, I felt like an elephant. I’d go so far as to call many of the people I saw anorexic.
Personally I don’t find that look attractive (and I hate that looking unhealthy is now ‘normal’) but when that’s all around you, it’s hard not to feel like the odd one out, as if there’s something wrong with you, rather than the BS messages women get fed about how they should and shouldn’t look.
Luckily, the ladies in the shop were wonderful and while they too were very slim, not one of them gave me any nasty or pitying looks.
It was actually the best shopping trip I could remember for a long time. A driver dropped me at the door, I was ushered into a spacious stall to change and the assistants already had a range of dresses lined up for me to try.
Being a designer shop, none of the dresses had prices on them and the staff were under strict instructions not to tell me the how much they cost. It was actually easier that way. Imagine if I’d found out one of these cost $5,000 or more? I’ve seen articles in magazines where handbags cost nearly that, so it wasn’t that outlandish a thought.
I couldn’t have worn it, I’d be too livid that someone dared charge that for a dress. I wouldn’t even pay that for a wedding dress.
This wasn’t a Dolce and Gabbana or Gucci shop though, so I hoped that the prices were more reasonable, although I had the feeling that Will’s definition of reasonable and mine were rather different. Until I met him, the most expensive dress I owned cost £140.
I chose three dresses. A blue/grey one, a red one, and one with black lace over a nude jersey. I loved the lace one, I’ve always wanted a dress like that but had never got around to buying one.
When I got back to the hotel, Will was still giving interviews and knowing how tedious they could be, I made my way there, looking for Mandy, Will’s temporary assistant for the press junket. I didn’t know her well but I liked her and of course, she would know where Will was. She was one of the ‘people’ Will had, although she was also assistant to one of the other actors too. She’d be coming on the brief promotional tour, so I was trying to get to know her, at least a little.
She smiled when she saw me.
“I’ve booked you a couples massage tomorrow, in the hotel spa, so Will will be with you for that. He then has a meeting with the Blood Moon producers, just covering the format for that night and while he’s doing that, I’ve booked you a facial, also in the spa, then a hair and make-up session in your room, so you look amazing for tomorrow night.”
“Really?”
“Will’s request. He said
you’d probably feel happier being professionally styled your first time, but that I was to assure you that you can refuse.”
“Uh, no, he’s probably right. Thank you.”
She smiled and tapped on her phone. “Right, I’ve sent the details to your diary, just click on the entries for times and places. I’ll be going with you tomorrow night, as your handler.”
“I need a handler?” I felt like some wild zoo animal, who needed someone to make sure I didn’t attack the public.
“No, but it’s your first time and since Will has to leave you to do interviews, he thought you’d prefer someone there, rather than, and I quote, ‘standing around on your own, like a lemon’.”
“Oh, well thank you. That’s very considerate of you.” I hadn’t even thought about any of that.
“My pleasure. Did you want to see Will?”
“Only if he’s free. I thought I might break up the tedium for him for a few minutes, then I’ll be out of your hair. Promise.”
“It’s no bother, he’s this way. E Entertainment News should just be finishing.”
“You’re so efficient.”
“These short jobs are quite fun,” she smiled at me. “And Will and Charlie are really nice. It’s when you’re assigned to a film for three or more months and people become familiar with you, that the trouble starts, especially if it’s a bad atmosphere on set.”
“Familiarity breeds contempt?” I asked. People often spoke to me as if I should understand their references, but I was still learning the ropes.
“Exactly,” she agreed. “I can't tell you how many times I’ve been yelled at, because they can't yell at the person they really want to.”
“Must be hard,” I agreed.
“Be quiet as we go in, in case they’re still filming,” she cautioned as she put her hand on the door knob.
We both entered silently and saw a blonde woman quizzing Will on Blood Moon, but he was being very tight lipped. The director wanted almost everything in the film to be a surprise, Will had explained to me earlier, so he was even more wary of giving away plot details than normal. Still, if there was one thing Will could do, it was talk, and he had told me that he planned to talk about everything and anything except the plot. Right now it was Javier Vega’s directing style and as usual, he didn’t have a bad word to say.
Making Love (Destiny Book 1) Page 11
