Hot Set, page 5
Jay slides a hand to the small of my back. “Glad you’re coming aboard Gilly, and I’m saying that for purely selfish reasons.”
I slide to the edge of my chair. “Which are?”
“I get the chance to know more about this silly girl who can dive into the soul of book like The Chieftain’s Son and swing a golf club like a madwoman.” He trails a gentle fingertip on the skin beneath my lower lashes. “Your eyes are the strangest reddish-brown color I’ve ever seen. Not quite a rust. Maybe if I study them in sunlight, I can name it.”
I lay my head on his shoulder then, to escape the intensity that’s building as we stare at one another. As much as I want him to kiss me again, I don’t want it to be because Treat isn’t kissing me. Jay strikes me as a decent guy—too decent for a rebound romp. Working on the show together will give us a chance to become friends. This evening with him has been great. We both golf. He can be my new Irish friend, Jay. Friends can be a dandy place to start.
“That’s the nicest thing any guy has said to me in a very long time. Thank you. By the way, I was beginning to consider the long game with the show even before the eye comment.”
“That’s grand.” He takes my face in those warm and wonderful hands. If I let this follow-up kiss happen, it will be more than a fly by.
“Jack!” A compact woman about my age in a tidy, dark brown suit that matches her hair perfectly sweeps up beside Jay and grabs his arm. Panic brightens her eyes. “Into the snug, now!”
The sensation of being pulled under by a wave when you can’t find up or down washes over me as the woman yanks Jay, who in turn yanks me, into a small, partitioned space at the end of the bar.
“I’m sorry for this. I told them we’d be in Tralee, not here in Blennerville. Someone in the pub must have tipped them off.” The woman peers back into the main room.
I tug at Jay’s arm. “What’s going on?” He looks like he ate bad clams.
“Reporters, paparazzi, the whole mess,” whispers the woman, then she eyes me skeptically. “Who are you?”
Jay’s face is bright red. “Meg, this is Gillian, the one Bobby’s been on about, the new writer’s assistant.”
She gives me a sharp nod. “So, you are. Meg McGrath, publicist. Welcome aboard.” Her gaze rakes the room. “Here’s what we’re going to do.” She pulls out her phone. “I’m texting Bobby to corral the reporters over for an interview. Jack, you duck behind the bar and out the back door. Patrick’s waiting to drive you.” She assesses me. “It was dark enough at the table, so I don’t think they saw you with Jack, but stay here until Bobby dumps the mob, or they’ll crawl all over you.” Meg plays her cell like a slot machine. “I’d hate for your first night in town to be a nightmare.”
I narrow my eyes at Jay. “Jack?”
He clutches my hands. “I thought you knew. I’m Jack O’Leary. Bobby calls me ‘J’ for Jack.”
Meg shoves Jack, busting us apart. “Okay, go! Go!”
He turns to me just before disappearing behind the bar and mouths, “I’m sorry.”
Five seconds later, the press swarms Bobby. Jack O’Leary, star of The Chieftain’s Son, bolts out the back door with Meg on his heels, leaving me alone in the shadows of the snug.
Chapter
Five
Momentum is a funny thing. We pretend to have control over it, but that’s a wish, not reality. The moment The Chieftain’s Son entered my life, I became a captive of momentum.
There was never a defining moment when I officially began this new life. It wasn’t when I said “yes” to Bobby or that first step off the plane at Shannon Airport. Momentum gobbled me up at some point last night in the pub. Jack—aka Jay or J, per Bobby—introduced me as the new writer to Meg, and she made sure I got to my hotel in Tralee. This morning, Patrick, a production company driver, is bringing me to The Chieftain’s Son studio complex called The Clan near the town of Waterville.
What I said to Jack last night is true. Tiny seeds of entertaining the possibility of an extended future here lay in my hand. I haven’t shown them the Irish soil yet, but they’re with me. Those seeds appeared, first one then the rest, as I assigned myself the task of breaking book one of The Chieftain’s Son series into hypothetical episodes. I did the exercise to prove to myself I may be able to do this. I’m not ready to admit to the seeds, but I will keep them safe. Maybe I should thank Treat for being a cheating asshole and throwing me clear of the car crash that my life with him had become.
Patrick nods out the window. “That way’s Waterville, where you’ll be staying, but Mr. Provost wants you at The Clan straight away.”
I recognize Patrick’s name as the driver who rescued Jack from the press last night. “Do you usually drive for Jack O’Leary?”
“Nah. Miss Tellefson’s my ongoing concern.” He lets out a percussive laugh. “That one’ll never take to driving herself. Her assistant, Marisa, isn’t fond of our narrow roads.”
If I’d been tossing back pints last night with Niks Tellefson—Nieve, the female lead on The Chieftain’s Son—I wouldn’t have mistaken her for anyone else. Her porn satires online are snort laugh hilarious. My personal favorite is Sloppy Serenade, where she plays a hooker with a list of clientele she has no desire to sleep with. Disgusting examples of humanity show up to her fluffy, pink boudoir to collect their pleasures. Niks makes them wait while she chows down humungous, four-patty cheeseburgers, sending pickles, tomatoes, and secret sauce spilling all over her would-be lovers. One by one, they stomp out in disgust, which we learn was her diabolical plan all along. It ends with her ordering a pizza and tipping the delivery boy with one of the hundred-dollar bills she collected in advance from her men. Classic.
Patrick slows by a tiny guard shack and rolls down the window.
A ruddy-faced man the size of a pro wrestler sits in front of an electric fireplace playing video games. “Ho, Paddy.”
“Ho, Dev. Couldja, send word to Mr. Provost that his girl is here?”
His girl? If Patrick hadn’t been witty and wonderful on the drive down and given me a list of all the golf courses I have to play before I go home, the title would rankle me. I don’t intend to be anyone’s girl.
There are no signs marking this nexus of The Chieftain’s Son universe. On either side of the single-lane road, grasses grow so high I can’t see beyond them. The further down the road we go, the more violently butterflies flap in my stomach. I try to tell myself the buzz is only eager anticipation over my new adventure, but that would be a lie.
My nerves are on the verge of shorting out because of Jay. Correction, Jack. Jack O’Leary. I’d like to blame our cozying up to each other last night on the Guinness. Blame it on the high of winning the golf tournament. Blame it on Treat for making me crave what he doesn’t give me. Where the fault lies doesn’t matter. Last night was fun, but it’s a one and done. A decent takeaway from my Treat Graham debacle is to stay out of the shark-infested waters of workplace romance.
If only I hadn’t liked Jack so much. He’s fun, smart, ridiculously handsome, and damn it, a decent golfer.
The land opens up, sheep as far as the eye can see. Spray-painted sheep. Lines of orange, green, and even pink spread across wooly coats.
“Patrick, who tagged these poor sheep?”
“Ah. The orange are Catholic sheep, the green, Protestant, and the pink, nondenominational.” He allows me a few beats of silence, watching me in the mirror before he laughs. “The colors tell you who the beasts belong to.”
I answer him with a cheeky look. “Is anyone in this country serious about anything?”
“Only on Tursdays,” he says with the characteristic “t” replacing the “th” sound that I’m getting used to. “See over tere.” He points to a trio of donkeys gorging themselves on grass. “Those are Doolin’s ladies. I hear you golfed a round with the man himself yesterday. He rescued these darlings from a bad situation. Now they follow him around like dogs.”
Beyond Doolin’s donkeys and the sheep, cows roam the lush fields. As we descend a small rise, a gray warehouse complex appears in front of us. It’s at least the length of three football fields.
“Here we are,” says Patrick.
The massive collection of nondescript buildings plunked in the middle of a pasture is not how I envisioned The Clan.
Cars are scattered over an expanse of gravel that serves as the parking lot. Bobby Provost bursts out of a set of double glass doors and makes a beeline for the car. He throws his arms around me for the closest thing to a bear hug a hummingbird can pull off.
“You’re very welcome here, Gillian Bettencourt,” he says. The Irish greeting coming out of his American mouth sounds strange. When in Rome. “We’ve got a little while until the table read. Let me give you the express tour.”
I turn to Patrick. “Thank you for the ride and the company.”
He tosses me a salute. “I’ll take your things into Waterville.”
“Great.” I almost say “grand.” It is easy to slip into local speak.
Bobby drags me into the building.
The lobby is quite a contrast to the Irish country calendar scene outside. The theme is leather and black marble. Behind the reception desk is a massive painting that matches the picture from book one of The Chieftain’s Son where Donal Cam and Nieve drink each other in as if there is no one in the world but the two of them. I suck in a breath when it registers the novel version of the lovers has been altered to the likenesses of Niks Tellefson and Jack O’Leary. His wild Atlantic eyes blaze with eternal love. The same eyes that danced with mine last night in the dark corner of a Blennerville pub.
Bobby introduces me to Murphy, the guard who is even more imposing than Dev, the gatekeeper. We’re buzzed through two sets of double doors into a full-blown sound stage complex. I spent my childhood on sets of the shows my parents art directed, but here, the size, the scale, the authenticity of colors and texture are so magnificent, I’ve stepped back in time. A great hall with massive fireplaces twice my size and faux stonework so real I can almost hear moss growing in the cracks looms before us.
Off to our left is a set with an enormous bed covered in furs. There must be a hundred candles on ledges, tables, and in every niche. On the wall is an enormous map painted on what looks like tanned animal skin. I walk toward the room, drawn by the naturalism of the environment. I want to touch everything and savor the timelessness.
Bobby puts out a hand to stop me from further investigation. “Hot set. We’ve still got pickups to shoot in there from episode 106.”
I stop dead in my tracks. Hot set. The ultimate hands-off order from the art department. Everything in this environment has been captured by the camera. Bump one thing out of place, and the continuity of the scene will be screwed up. My parents’ mantra has always been “Respect the hot set.”
“I promise you can pet the furs later.” He waves his hands in the air when I wrinkle my nose. “Prop department fabricated furs. We’re completely animal friendly, down to stables filled with the most pampered horses in all of Ireland.”
I spin to take in this set and the others that occupy the massive sound stage. “This is breathtaking. Are you sure we weren’t buzzed through a time portal?”
Bobby beams. This is his baby, and he’s one proud papa. “Everyone in our art department is actually a wizard.”
“Definite evidence of magic wand work,” I say, holding arms out to the studio.
Bobby scurries behind a row of flats, waving me to catch up. “We’re all in-house here. We’ve got a kick-ass design studio, a shop right off the sound stages, and you should see the costume department. Think Willy Wonka with fabric and jewels.”
We leave the sound stages and move down a corridor flanked with glass walls. In one pearly gray and plum-themed office, I see a familiar dark brown bob.
“Hey, that’s Meg. I met her last night when she yanked me into the snug.”
Meg waves as we pass by.
Bobby’s chirpy countenance sours a little. “That was a screw-up extraordinaire.”
Next down the row is a classroom of sorts. There’s a long table in the middle and a wall of white boards. Doolin writes a sentence on one of the boards in a language that must be Irish.
“Hey, Doolin. Nice donkeys you’ve got out there in the field.”
He adds an accent mark to a word and turns to us. “Morning. I’m sure they’d like to make your acquaintance.” He looks over his glasses at me. “I’ll be seeing you in here soon, Miss Gillian. You’ve got a bit of catching up to do.”
“Catching up?” I look back and forth between Doolin and Bobby.
“Irish language class,” says Bobby. “Everyone takes it—cast, writers, designers, even guest directors. Absorbing the language builds the world, don’t you agree?”
“Honors the past,” says Doolin, pointing a marker at me. “He’ll be putting you on a horse as well. Now go away. I’ve got work.”
A thrill runs through me. Free Irish lessons. How cool is that? With Doolin. If his seriousness on the golf course is any indication, he’s got to be quite the task master with his language lessons. I wonder if he raps knuckles for mispronunciation.
“Wait, did Doolin say ‘horse’?”
“We’re all about immersion, Gillian. My writers ride horses and get some weapons training. We even did an overnight in the woods. I want organic writing. This story needs to be told from the inside out. Feel it. Live it. Write it.”
“So, we’re all Donal Cam and Nieve?”
“And Chieftain Rory O’Connor, his soldiers, and his people, right down to washer women and cooks.”
A wave of something akin to dizziness makes me lay a hand against the wall to steady myself. This isn’t a job. I’ve walked into a world, a universe. Bobby Provost’s universe. Holy crap. I almost killed him with a golf shot.
“And you’ve invited me into all of this.” Imposter syndrome seeps into my bones. I’m in the land of artisans and experts. What the hell is a girl who writes about the way a raincoat reflects rainbows doing here?
Bobby lays hands on my shoulders. “You were already here. Traipse of Moonlight helped build our vision.”
God. I hope I can live up to his expectations.
Bobby’s phone alarm goes off as we turn a corner. “Table read. Are you ready to meet the family?” he asks.
Up ahead, the music of a dozen conversations chases around the room. The hallway ends at a big glass wall with double doors framed in brushed nickel. On the other side is my future. This is it. Once I step through that looking glass, there is no going back. My entire body buzzes.
Bobby propels me forward. We navigate a few cliques, heading deeper into the crowd. Running nearly the length of the room is a table massive enough to host an actual chieftain’s post-cattle-raiding banquet. In addition to seats at the table, lines of chairs stretch along side walls. Above them are coats of arms with the names O’Connor, MacMurrough, and O’Suileabhain beneath them. At one end, a huge flat-panel monitor is mounted high on the wall.
Bobby nabs a remote from the table and points it at the screen. “Here we go.”
When a trailer for the premier episode of the show blasts onto the monitor, the room goes into suspended animation. That’s when I see a familiar profile.
Jack O’Leary.
He sits at the head of the table, hair tied back in a low ponytail, much more period than the man bun he sported yesterday. My stomach drops to my knees when it registers his arm is draped around a stunning beauty with hair so white it looks like frosting. Niks Tellefson. I’m witness to Donal Cam and Nieve snuggling in real time.
The room bursts into applause when the clip ends and the logo for The Chieftain’s Son blasts onto the screen. More hoots and hollers follow as reviews for the series scroll by. They’re amazing, all from top-level entertainment news sources and showbizzy magazines. Deidre LaRochelle’s bestseller jumped off the page and hit the stratosphere.
Bobby slaps backs and grins. He raises both arms in victory. “We’re a hit!” He’s answered with a roar that shakes the glass wall.
I sneak another glance at Jack and Niks. He pulls her in for a peck on the cheek and then they’re both swallowed up by others for congratulations. No mistaking how very cozy they are with one another. Beyond cozy…connected, like they are actually a thing.
Why did he kiss me last night? I wanted to believe he was as sweet and genuine as he seemed. Are you that big an idiot, Gilly? He’s an actor for Heaven’s sake—a good one, apparently, judging from the reviews. The man didn’t even bother to tell me his real name. To top it off, we were both drunk. If Meg hadn’t ridden in on a paparazzi wave, who knows what idiocy that kiss could have led to. I’d better remember to thank her for that someday. Time to tread more carefully in this realm where romance refuses to stay on the page.
“Come with me,” says Bobby, dragging me toward the head of the table.
His movement is a signal, and people settle at the table or the chairs along the walls. Scripts open, pencils appear, and laptops spring to life as the table read is about to begin.
“Good morning, everyone. Before we get started, I’d like to introduce you to Gillian Bettencourt.”
Jack’s head snaps up at the mention of my name.
“Author of Traipse of Moonlight and our new writer’s assistant.”
I’m absolutely floored by the sheer volume of applause. A woman with kinky red hair about halfway down the table starts to pump her fist in the air. “Traipse, Traipse, Traipse!” The room picks up her chant. Everything blurs a smidge as I realize how many of these people have read my manuscript. I give a stupid, little wave.
Bobby pulls out a chair for me. “And if you need any coaching on your golf swing, this is the woman to talk to. Right, J?”
If I don’t acknowledge Jack now, it’ll be weird. There’s a beat before we look at each other. His smile is as warm as the hand I held across the table last night.
“Eight strokes off my last round says yes.” He throws me a salute.
