Not to Scale, page 23
“Did they behave during the interview?”
Entertaining For You travelled to The Clan to do a photo spread complete with Gilly, Jack, and their two kitties to illustrate domestic O’Leary bliss.
“The furry hussies did a bang-up job flaunting their feline Jack worship for the camera.”
I bend to peek into the carrier. One of the cats, I can’t tell them apart, stops washing its face to give me the stink eye. No, that did not just happen. Won’t Patrick laugh when I confess his goofy saying about cat eyes and marriage may yet have some basis in truth.
Gilly gives me a one arm hug.
“Do you need help carrying the girls?”
“Nope, it’s all the workout I can manage these days. Can’t give it up.” She waddles a few steps toward the door, then turns back. “Did I mention you look stunning? Knock ’em dead. I want every detail at soul-to-sole night. Bye, El.”
“Bye, G.” I couldn’t ask for a better sister-by-association, and I’ve also inherited Maureen in the process. Two sisters for the price of one.
The massive sound stage sleeps. The crew has gone home. It’s only me, security, and my workaholic lover left occupying The Clan.
I check my watch. Bobby will be here any minute. We’ve synced our lives for the most part except for his marathon editing sessions or what I’ve dubbed laundry nights when I take his clothes and mine to wash at my flat.
I shouldn’t be surprised Bobby completely immerses himself in learning about bipolar disorder. He’s formed a mutual admiration society with Kevin these past few months during our joint therapy sessions. The two have become so thick, sometimes when the three of us are on video chat I wave my hands to remind them I’m part of the convo. It takes getting used to, accepting that I deserve these two worthwhile human beings. I’m working on it.
Truthfully, life is kinda wonderful. I do my best not to feel like I’m playing at a successful relationship and will be found out soon. Now whenever doubts creep in, I tell Bobby, and we work on it. He doesn’t talk at me or write off my worries as overreactions. We navigate his issues and my issues together. For years, I’ve maintained a career and got to where I am on a massive hit show despite my mental stumbling blocks, but having someone to share both my triumphs and fears with is a whole new level of living.
I hear the door at the far end of the sound stage bang shut. Attempting to scurry halfway up the stairs of the castle set doesn’t go great since I have to gather buttercup’s skirts in one hand and brace myself against the faux stone wall with the other. It took some searching in wardrobe storage, but I managed to find the bright yellow dress that stopped Bobby’s heart once before. I roost in a dark section of the stairs where the work lights don’t reach.
“El?”
“I’m in the Rock of Cashel,” I call through an arrow loop into the cavernous sound stage. We’re close to the end of shooting on this set before we transform it into the digs for next season’s chieftain. The season wrap is fast approaching as well, and then a blessed but short hiatus for us all, thanks to Stream Up’s revised production schedule.
From my perch in the shadows, I watch Work-Bobby turn the corner at the edge of the set at full steam. He scans the ground level for me, but I’m high enough to be out of his eyeline.
“Elodie, where—” His voice cuts off as he reaches the two frescoes I added to the set, inspired by the ones we saw at Coolderry Castle. I’ve made a few improvements. In my castle, the chieftain and his honey are dressed in their period finery, holding hands as they survey their domain.
Bobby stares, then runs a finger down the paintings.
“Remind you of anyone you know?”
His head snaps up, searching until he finds me on the stairs. “It’s us.”
That’s my cue. Slowly, like a proper chieftess, I descend the stairs. When I step into the light, I hear his sharp intake of breath.
Bobby walks to the bottom of the stairs, gazing up at me with a look of adoration to satisfy any chieftain’s lady. His voice is pitched low. “I do love that dress.”
I stop when we are eye to eye and manage a half-curtsy. “I do love you, Robert Benjamin Provost.”
He moves as close as he can get with a couple of stairs still between us and holds out a hand to help me to the floor. “Dear one, my heart is filled with the glory of your beauty.”
It’s pretty cool to have a writer as a boyfriend. You get some very fancy phrases.
I take his hand but hold my position. “Do you want to know how much I love you?”
His lips curl into a half smile. “What currency are you suggesting to quantify your love, Euros, gold bars, plunging?”
“Time.”
“How much time?”
I smile back. “A lifetime.”
He climbs the first step, his gaze locked to mine. “It’s yours.”
I set my hands on his shoulders. “Will you spend that lifetime being my husband?”
His hands grip my waist. “Only if we get to keep this dress.”
“I think it can be arranged. I know the guy in charge.” I lean into him, and he swings me down to the ground.
“I am aching to marry you, Elodie Pettipas.” His lips find mine and show no mercy. When he backs me into the set wall, I say a silent thank you to the carpenters and plasters that built it strong enough to withstand a thorough plunging. Bobby rucks up my skirts, moaning into my mouth when he realizes I’m naked and naughty underneath.
“This is unprofessional,” he says, tasting the skin along my collarbone.
“Not as unprofessional as…” I pop one breast over buttercup’s neckline.
Bobby’s teeth accept the offering as his hands continue to meet the challenge of finding me under the skirts. The way his fingers manage to skim across my most sensitive parts before they succumb to skirt interference sets me on fire. With a huff, he loses the battle of buttercup and lowers me to the ground. “I’m a total failure at castle ravishing 101.”
I laugh and drop my head against his chest, while my fingers tease the bulge in his khakis. “I know a certain fitting area with a very soft carpet.”
Fiancé-Bobby sweeps me into his arms. We fly through the hallways toward wardrobe at a speed that would put any wife-carrying couple to shame.
Epilogue
UNDER THE HAWTHORN TREE
Bobby and I stand with our soul-to-sole group along with Rich and Amethyst Bettencourt, Jack’s parents, and his sister, Bonnie’s, family upon the hilltop near the studio under a hawthorn tree. No one can argue now that magic does exist on the tiny rise. Gilly and Jack became engaged here, and I first met my darling Bobby on this very spot.
Jack ties a small pewter Christening spoon to the branches of the hawthorn to join the other ribbons and offerings at this purported gateway into the realm of the fae. He whispers a wish to the faeries for his baby girl, who coos in the arms of her godfather, my beloved fiancé. Her godmother, Deidre, drops a kiss on the infant’s forehead. Sun breaks through the clouds to set the layer of soft strawberry-colored down on the baby’s tiny head ablaze.
Bobby surrenders his bundle into her father’s arms and returns to my side, wrapping an arm around me. His lips graze my ear. “My goddaughter deserves a playmate.”
Next to us, Cian stands behind Meg, his arms wrapped around her growing waistline.
I smile up at the future father of my babies, the Irish babies we plan to start making here during the run of The Chieftain’s Son. “Someone beat us to it.”
My thumb rubs against the beautiful jade and topaz engagement ring we had made at a local jeweler here in Kerry, twirling it around my finger not with nerves, but with contentment. A lovely peace settles over me with visions of Bobby, babies, and The Chieftain’s Son painting my future.
I look around our circle and see all the different colored threads that bind a family together—love, blood, shared creative goals, and most of all appreciation you’re in each other’s lives. A certain bipolar, off-kilter kid from a movie ranch in Wyoming is so grateful to belong here.
Jack and Gilly hold their beautiful child together and speak a blessing in unison.
“May your heart ever shine with love, our dearest Nieve Deidre O’Leary.”
Thank you for reading! Did you enjoy? Please add your review because nothing helps an author more and encourages readers to take a chance on a book than a review.
And don’t miss more in the Behind the Scenes series coming this fall! Until then read more from Leslie O’Sullivan with PINK GUITARS AND FALLING STARS. Turn the page for a sneak peek!
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Sneak Peek of Pink Guitars and Falling Stars
You only get one parachute. There’s no point packing two for a B.A.S.E. jump since you’ll be pavement art before the second chute blossoms.
“Justin!”
Startled by a bellow from my jump leader/uncle, Timmer MacKenzie, my toe jerks to a stop half an inch above the trigger pedal of my launcher. Is his gray matter shredded, distracting me during a safety check? There’s no chute on my back. One accidental tap on the business end of this launcher, and I’ll be eye to eye with the flock of seagulls patrolling the Hollywood skies. I retreat onto the non-ballistic end of my perch. Peering over the edge of the Rampion Records Tower, I analyze the antics of the wind.
“Join us,” Unc calls, teeth clenched in a P.R. smile. He hosts a cluster of reporters near the center of the circular roof. “Meet the rising star of the Slinging Seven.”
Their faces morph into a collective portrait of panic as I leap more dramatically than necessary from launcher to the terra firma of the rooftop. After a salute to the Hollywood sign, a photo op my uncle will appreciate, I join the party. Pre-jump interviews are not my happy place, but keeping a smile on Timmer’s face is essential. He leads our B.A.S.E. jump troop, giving the green light for my carcass to launch off skyscrapers, bridges, and cliffs in a wing suit.
“This Rampion Records Tower may rival Mount Olympus for acceptable jump altitude,” Timmer tells the press jam sandwich. “Even so, I believe in enhancing the safety zone for my lads.”
I sweep an arm across the roof. “Thus, the launchers.”
“Your latest exhibitions of low altitude B.A.S.E. jumps have raised serious concerns,” says a fresh-out-of-journalism-school reporter. He rocks a Channel Six pin on the lapel of a blazer clearly tailored for someone else. We get his type all the time: low man on the news roster, usually stuck with covering mudslides or C-list celebrity screw-ups.
I grunt at the question. Timmer’s a walking archive of aerodynamics. His B.A.S.E. jump designs adhere to a superhuman canon of safety. Even Unc can’t control the wreath of clouds descending on the tower. Humidity makes trickier conditions. My bangs congeal into a sweaty clump. Twenty-three is too young to die when you have plans, and I have plans.
“To you, B.A.S.E. jumping is an extreme sport. To me, it’s a science.” Timmer slings an arm around my shoulder. “Would I risk my own nephew’s life?”
A grandfatherly dude slides square-framed sunglasses to the end of a nose in serious need of a good hair plucking. “Come on, Mr. MacKenzie, that kid can’t be eighteen.”
I wince at the familiar speculation my youthful image always dredges up. Satan’s roadies have prepped a new circle of hell for Timmer’s perpetuation of the lie about me being eighteen. My B.A.S.E. jumping talents at twenty-three are PDG – pretty damn great—but a fresh out of high-school dude rocking my moves is prodigy wonder boy territory, great P.R. fodder.
I keep my lip zipped over the deception. I’m not going to lie, it does not suck being a prodigy wonder boy.
Unc spins me to display the product emblems plastered all over my banana-colored wing suit. “Endorsements like these don’t come from launching children into the sky. Justin jumps one-hundred percent legally.”
The reporter’s skepticism settles at the edges of his mouth. Metallic coating on his sunglasses turn my gray eyes silver as I catch my reflection. The gloaming breeze plucks strands of my tawny mane free from the generous layer of product I always apply before a jump. I’ll have to retame those suckers to restore my roguishly hot vibe instead of the young and soft look Timmer prefers. I’d give my right nut to have a growth spurt on the spot. Sadly, thanks to MacKenzie short man genes, there probably aren’t any in my future.
A gust of wind blows the press a tiptoe closer to the curved edge of the roof. Timmer and I hold our ground with matching “no big thing” expressions.
A babe in a raspberry-colored lady suit pushes toward me, eyes bulging with concern. Twitchy fingers alight on my shoulder. Next to my banana wingsuit, we’re a fruit salad. Here comes the concerned auntie vibe.
“Justin, why take risks B.A.S.E. jumping with the Slinging Seven Troupe even for someone as enchanting as Zeli?”
I bite back a groan at the mention of the pop queen.
“Is glorifying her platinum record worth your life?”
Truth rumbles in my throat. Yes, ma’am, B.A.S.E. jumping is worth the moon. It got me to Hollywood, the land of my music dreams. Dreams that will free me from Timmer’s whims so I can make my own destiny.
Timmer’s glare scorches a hole in my suit, cueing the trained monkey answer he expects.
I open my arms to the clouds. “Who doesn’t want to fly?” Every person on this roof does. I see it in the way their eyes brighten.
My stomach loops into a knot. Unc may piss himself when his prize canary asks to go AWOL. I’ve jumped off everything Timmer asked of me on our jiggy pathway around the country to make it here. My gaze drifts to the Hollywood Sign as I press toes into the roof of Rampion Records, the touchstone by which all music greatness is measured.
Tonight, this bird will fly off the Rampion Tower. Tomorrow, I dive into the audition for Rampion’s annual singing competition, The Summer Number One. It’s the U.S. Open of music, amateurs vs. pros, where Rampion Records dangles a chance for nobodies like me to go mic to mic with their current stable of rock stars. According to the Rampion P.R. machine – Even the little people in this world have a shot at the Summer Number One dream. This ammie is going to kick some serious pro ass and score a Rampion Records contract. I’ve got everything I need for the audition: demo tracks, my guitar, ass-hugging black jeans, and a sexy aviator jacket.
For the last five years, in every crappy rent-a-room the Slinging Seven have crashed, I’ve done dozens of online music courses. I study. I practice. I’m ready.
Unc laughs at one of the reporters he’s chatting up, and I see Ma’s smile here on the rooftop. Our signature MacKenzie smile packs serious wattage. I should know, I’ve busted it out often enough to sway, play, and dazzle females of the species.
Once I grab the top spot in the Summer Number One, my pile of gold for winning will be enough to snag my own digs here in L.A., the last place I remember Ma smiling. The cold burn of loneliness flares when I think of her and wonder if she’s safe.
Clouds thicken as I watch the sun dip into the Pacific Ocean. I ignore a stitch of concern at the base of my neck as the jump difficulty ticks up a notch and think in my language of future Justin merch.
T-shirt moment: Music Dreams Sucker Punch Death.
Channel Six pushes in front of his colleagues. “Justin, does Zeli have a lock on the top pro spot in the Summer Number One?”
Lady Suit bumps her shoulder into mine. “Is Zeli your dream girl?”
My lips twist into a frown. Zeli is my nightmare.
Timmer digs his fist into my back, my cue to fix my pissy face. I manage to upgrade to a grimace dressed as a smile. By their winks and snickers, the reporters take my tension as embarrassment. I’d like to water cannon them all off the roof. I’m entitled to a dream girl, but it will never be the plastic diva with her bubblegum diluted pop crap. That chickadee is an affront to everything I love about music.
Unc hasn’t run out of bluster. “It’s an honor for the Slinging Seven to be part of Zeli’s platinum record celebration.”
My temple throbs. I’m more than half nuts to risk a concrete sandwich for that over-hyped female commodity with a pink guitar.
Don’t stop now. Keep reading with your copy of PINK GUITARS AND FALLING STARS
And find more from Leslie O’Sullivan at
www.leslieosullivanwrites.com
Want even more from Leslie O’Sullivan? Read PINK GUITARS AND FALLING STARS and be sure to check out all the details on her website at www.leslieosullivanwrites.com
Zeli’s signature pop diva sound and image are nothing short of magical—literally. Her fame comes with hidden costs, a curse that could ruin her voice forever.
Aspiring indie musician, Justin MacKenzie, is determined to kick it to the top of the Rampion Records’ Summer Number One professional vs. amateur singing competition.
The favorite to beat in the annual televised contest is none other than the label’s smoking hot superstar, Zeli, whose crazy extensions flow the length of a football field. Those ridiculous extensions, coupled with her bubblegum brand of pop, are an affront to everything Justin loves about music until a stolen kiss blazes into a romantic encounter.
Once inside Zeli’s world, Justin discovers things are not as they seem. In their quest to allow the real Zeli, to step into the spotlight, the pair must confront the mysterious force behind the dazzle of Rampion’s success. If these star-crossed lovers can’t rally their own magic to defeat the darkness, they will lose everything—including each other.
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