by Maggie Marr
My best friend and roommate, Emma, had called going to LA for the summer The Big Risk. I bit down on my bottom lip and shook my head. Emma with her sweet periwinkle-blue eyes and corn-silk hair and a surgeon for a mother and CEO for a dad couldn’t begin to understand why I would want to risk everything and go to Los Angeles. Here’s the thing Emma didn’t understand, couldn’t understand: The Big Risk is not that big when you have nothing left to lose. That’s how I felt this past semester after my mom died. I loved Emma, she was my best friend, but how could she understand? She had the perfect life with a whole lot of money and a great family. Me? I had nothing and no one left. At least not in Kansas. Maybe this summer in Los Angeles was a Big Risk, but I wanted into the world of entertainment. I wanted to make movies. I wanted to live in California. I wanted to feel alive and whole. I wanted so much more than a girl from Kansas should ever want.
My heart pounded. My internship at CTA was an opportunity I’d chased down for myself, a big opportunity that would hopefully lead to another big opportunity that would lead to another and another and another. Until someday Los Angeles might be my town. I cupped my hand over my aviator sunglasses and took one final scan of my summer home. Then I hopped into my Jeep. I had the entire summer to explore LA.
*
The winding roads back down the hill circled and curved and circled again. I leaned forward trying to read the street sign on my right. I’d driven by the big white house with a Mercedes and a BMW parked on the drive three times. I pressed the brake and stopped in the middle of the road... shit. I was lost. The sun sank in the west, and even with my sunglasses on, the harsh light blinded my eyes. I pulled hard on my Jeep wheel and turned left. There had to be a way out of this maze of streets and back to my motel, I just hadn’t found it yet. I sped down the road.
Orange and white barriers closed off the way I needed to go. Three giant white semi-trucks lined the road that I needed to drive down. I could back up, turn around and try to find my way back to my motel the other direction but I wasn’t sure where I was. My fifteen-year-old Jeep barely had power steering much less GPS. Instead I pressed the clutch and pushed the stick into first gear and wove around the barricade. The sun beat into my eyes and I squinted. I swiveled my neck to get a good look at the giant white semi-trucks.
There was a planet logo and the studio name painted on the cab door of the trucks. My heart kajolted in my chest. These were production trucks. Someone, somewhere on this street was making a movie. I craned my neck to the right, lifted my foot from the brake, and my Jeep rolled forward. In front of the last truck was a giant RV. Was there a star inside? Someone I’d have seen on the big screen? My eyes widened and my heart beat faster. This was the very reason I’d shucked my golden opportunity in KC and taken the Big Risk. I wanted to be part of this world. I wanted to make movies. To work with people who made movies. For me, movies were magic.
Metal clanged and I slammed my foot into the brake pedal.
“Hey! Watch the fuck where you’re going!”
Standing beside my Jeep with his eyes burning fire was the best looking guy I’d ever seen. His white T-shirt strained over his chest and his black hair blazed in the sun. His arms were thick with muscle, and a giant tattoo wound over his forearm to where his hand was balled into a fist. The same fist that he’d just pounded onto the hood of my Jeep. His bright blue eyes pierced through my window. He squinted and his full lips pulled tight. He walked around to my side of the Jeep.
Up close he looked even better. Hot little flashes pulsed over my skin. His cheekbones were high and cut hard. His lips were full. His golden skin was perfect, flawless. His body muscled and tight under his clothes. With so much masculine perfection so near I could barely breathe.
“D… d… do? Do I know you?” I stammered out. He looked so familiar. That face. My eyes dropped down to his neck and roamed over his body.
“Do you know me?” He shook his head and rolled his eyes up toward the sky. “Oh, sweetheart.” He crossed his arms and the muscles in his forearms flinched. “There is no way that you don’t recognize this face is there?” He pointed at his own mug. He looked at me like I’d fallen out of the sky from an alien planet. The sun lit him from behind. I squinted.
Did I know this guy? Did I recognize his face? I could sit here all day and watch his muscles flinch. He waited and finally he pressed his face forward with a bored expression, “Even as good as you look, you’ve got to come up with a better line than that.”
A better line? Behind my sunglasses I squinted. What the hell? Did this guy think I was picking him up?
“You,” he pointed his finger at me through my open window, “nearly ran over me.”
I should have apologized. I could have apologized. I would have apologized if this guy wasn’t behaving like such an incredible ass.
“Maybe you shouldn’t walk out into the center of the road without looking,” I said and flipped my hair over my shoulder. I cocked one eyebrow up. He was the jerk, I was just a driver.
“Maybe you should pay attention to where you’re going instead of craning your neck at a film set.” His voice grew louder with each word. “There are barricades all over the street so some no-name person like you doesn’t run over someone like me.”
Someone like him? I fought the urge to shove the stick into reverse, back up, then ram it into first, hit the accelerator and let this asshole know just what it would feel like for this no-name someone to run over his ass.
“Dillon baby, are you okay?” To the left a bleach blond California bimbette ran onto the road and grasped his arm. He didn’t look at her or even answer. She ran her hand up his bicep and over his shoulder. Her eyes turned to me and shot me the smoldering bitch-look.
“This is a closed set,” he said his tone so sharp it could make you bleed. “Do you know what that means?”
My teeth ground. I was new to LA but I wasn’t stupid.
“Dillon baby, let me call security,” the girl whipped her cell phone from the back pocket of her barely there short-shorts. I was surprised she could stand up straight without those fake ta-tas pulling her forward.
“Leave it, Denise,” he said without looking at her. He sharpened those blue eyes on me. He left Denise on the edge of the street and walked right up to my Jeep window. The muscle in his jaw flinched. He was so close I could feel the heat of his breath. He was even more handsome up close—if that was possible. How was that possible? He smelled like mint and something so very... male. “A closed set means that you’re not supposed to be here.”
I thanked God I had on my sunglasses so he couldn’t see the wide-eyed attraction racing through me. I’d never been so affected by a guy. Even with his anger, and his smoldering look, something so crazy inside me wanted to lean forward, clasp my hands to his face, and plant my lips onto his. He wasn’t nice, he was a big jerk, but this guy was all kinds of sexy. He latched his gaze onto me and paused for the tiniest second, then he jerked backward away from me, and away from my Jeep.
“So back this heap of shit up and get out of here.” Again he folded his arms over his chest as though he were king of the world and the bimbette again attached her body to his side.
He was going to watch me leave? Make sure I was gone. I didn’t like being ordered around and I definitely didn’t like being supervised like I was a child.
“I can handle it,” I called and shoved the stick into reverse the gears ground hard.
“Sounds like you can handle it,” he said and smirked.
“I can,” I yelled.
My heart hammered in my chest and a tiny bead of sweat rolled down the back of my neck. I looked out the windows. A small crowd had gathered on the edges of the road. All of them watched me with smirks and smiles. Laughing at the hick in LA.
I pushed the clutch into first, pressed the accelerator, my Jeep jumped forward and died. The crowd around me laughed.
“Are you kidding me?” The guy yelled from where he stood. He held up his hands and smiled
looking at his audience. “No wonder she almost hit me, this chick can’t even drive.”
My face flushed red and my breathing shortened weighted down with embarrassment. Humiliation carved a giant hole in my chest.
“I can too drive,” I yelled. “I just finished driving two thousand miles.”
“Oooo,” he said and raised both of his eyebrows and that smirk, that god-awful smirk crawled across his face. He took four steps forward and bent in front of my Jeep.
“No wonder!” he yelled to the crowd as if he’d just found the answer to life’s biggest question. “She’s from Kansas!” He nearly bent double with laughter. Laughter directed at me, and my driving, and where I was from burst through the crowd.
“Yo, Dorothy, you a little lost?” He called, amping up the crowd.
I turned the ignition on my Jeep and fired up the engine. I slammed my foot onto the clutch and rammed the stick into first. I wouldn’t give any of them an opportunity to laugh again.
“My name’s not Dorothy,” I stared into his eyes. I would never forget that face. I would never let anyone like him ever make me feel this humiliated again. “It’s Lane,” I yelled. I slammed the accelerator and my tires squealed as I laid rubber to pavement. I flipped him the bird and hoped I would never, ever, meet that asshole again.
Dillon
“Can you believe she flipped me the bird?” I called out to Logan my co-star on the film. He walked beside me toward my trailer.
“Bitch nearly runs your ass down and then you’re the one that gets flipped off?” Logan looked at me over his sunglasses. “Nice tits though,” he added. Logan was always willing to notice a good rack.
“Yeah, nice tits,” I called. “Later.” I bounded up the steps to my trailer. I slammed shut the trailer door. I was a damn good actor.
What the fuck!
My heart exploded in my chest and I scrubbed my hand over my forehead and through my hair. I’d seriously almost bitten it because of some chick from Kansas. Kansas! That wasn’t how I was supposed to go out. Not the legacy I wanted to leave. I could see the headline in Variety; Dillon MacAvoy Tornadoed By Kansas Driver. I paced up and down the length of my trailer. I definitely never thought I’d die because of some tourist who didn’t know how to drive.
But those eyes. I was pissed but I wouldn’t forget those eyes. Fire and ice--her look burned. The color was ocean blue with flecks of green and brown that glimmered in the setting sun. Good thing I’d never have to see that face again. Wow. And that tight little body under a tank top. She definitely didn’t look like she was from Kansas.
“Dillon? Baby?” I spun around. Denise climbed the steps of my trailer. She was pulling the halter string over her shoulder. Her tits were huge but they were seriously fake.
“You want me to make you feel better?” A coy smile wrapped around her lips as she played with the snap button on her short shorts. Denise was easy. A little too easy.
I didn’t feel it. I didn’t really want it. I’d already tapped it a few too many times. She was getting the wrong idea. The idea that we were regular, that we were a thing. We weren’t regular and we didn’t have a thing--I didn’t want either.
I turned away from her, “Thanks, babe. Not now.” I headed toward the back of my trailer. She’d get the hint and go back to her double-banger on the other side of set, or better yet, she’d head home. She’d gotten a little too clingy in the last week. Monogamy, relationships--not my scene.
The trailer door slammed shut and Denise was gone. Good. It was time to start hitting something new, something different. I didn’t want Denise to get the idea that I would ever settle down. I didn’t have the time or the inclination. I was too busy taking care of my little brother and my career. Plus settling down with one woman didn’t go with my image and my ‘team’ had spent a lot of time cultivating my image. An image that was supposed to make me the next big box-office sensation. An image that wasn’t too far from the truth. An image that was easy for me to maintain as long as I continued with the string of never-ending fabulous looking women who wanted to hang onto my arm.
My phone beeped and I slid it from my back pocket. Webber’s name flashed across the screen.
“Hey man,” I said. “What’s up?”
“What’s up?” Webber’s tone sounded more serious than usual. “What’s up is I need an answer on those four offers for the films you have. If you don’t read the scripts and tell me which film you want to do within the next 72 hours the studios are going to pull all the offers.”
I sat on the edge of the couch. There was a 2 million dollar offer attached to each of those scripts. I ran my hand through my hair. That money could take care of me and my brother for a long while. I couldn’t let this kind of opportunity slip away.
“Shit, I don’t know man,” I said. The muscle under my right eye twitched.
“Have you read them?”
I bit my bottom lip and cocked my eyebrow upward. I fucking hated reading scripts. “No, man, I haven’t.”
“Has your reader read them?”
Webber didn’t know? My gaze bounced around my trailer. My eyes landed on the stack of thirty scripts next to the couch. I had the same thirty scripts at home.
“No, man,” I sighed, “The reader is gone.”
“Again? The reader is gone again?” I heard Webber cover the phone, “Get me human resources next.” he yelled. “Dude, you have to stop fucking your readers. You bang them and then they quit. If you won’t read the scripts then someone has to read them.”
“They get all gooey and clingy and man, I can’t be around that shit. Find me a guy.”
“Working on it, but until I do, you have got to read the scripts. These are major action films with some serious money offers. The Steve Legend script is at the top of the pile. You do realize what starring in a Steve Legend film would do for your career?”
I leaned back onto my couch, covered my forehead with my hand, and closed my eyes. A Steve Legend film would make my career. He was box-office gold in action films.
“Legend is looking for the next big action star. That’s who he wants as his co-star for this film. Every actor in town between the age of 18 and 24 is begging for this role and you have the offer. You! Legend came to you,” Webber’s tone was hard-edged but had a tremor of panic. “Am I making myself clear on this?”
“Yeah, I got it,” I mumbled.
“You’ve worked too fucking hard to let an opportunity like this slip through your fingers. Read the script.” Webber said.
“That’s what I pay you 10% for, isn’t it?” I growled. I hated reading scripts. I wanted someone to tell me if the shit was good or not.
“I do read the scripts that come in with offers for you. Every one of them. But, man, I can’t accept an offer if you don’t read the script and want to do it, and I read the Legend script it’s pretty fucking good. You have to meet with Legend and you can’t do that until you read the script.”
Webber was right. I settled back onto the couch and slung my feet up onto the coffee table and crossed them.
“What about your brother?” Webber asked.
“Too busy,” I said. “Working at your agency.”
“Right,” Webber’s voice trailed off. “Okay, I’m sending you coverage from our intern on the Steve Legend film. Read the fucking coverage. If there is one that looks good let me know. This is a big movie man.”
“Yeah, okay.” I said. I wanted to work. I needed to work. I just didn’t want to have to read five scripts a night to be able to work.
“Also we need to schedule a call with Boom Boom. I want to go over publicity for the premiere of Honduran Heat. It’s your first film.”
“Damn,” I shook my head. “That seems like forever ago.” Honduran Heat was my first role in a film. The shoot had wrapped in February and the film would finally premiere in July.
“It’s your first film, man, we got to get as many eyeballs on you as we can. Get those teen queens salivating. They buy ticke
ts baby! Those girls see a movie two or three times. That is your audience. If they love you? You are golden. You only get your first time one time, right my man?” Webber laughed. “And you never forget it. So first read the Legend script then we’ll schedule the meeting and we will also schedule a call with Boom Boom for this week. Got it?”
I nodded. I had my orders from my agent and before the end of the week I would get more orders from my publicist Boom Boom. I sighed. These were good problems to have. I was a working actor. A working actor making money who could take care of his kid brother.
“And get me a reader,” I growled. “One that will stick. Someone ugly or with a penis.”
“Dillon, you’re running thin over here. You’ve fired four in three months.”
“Just find me one,” I said. “Preferably one I don’t want to fuck.”
