Hot Set, page 8
Hitching a thumb over his shoulder, he says. “I stay in a little cottage on The Clan property about halfway to Waterville. It was an Airbnb before the True Time folk snapped it up. A private road connects my place to the studio, so there’s no need for me to drive through town. No one’s tracked me there yet.”
I’m not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed Jack and I aren’t cohabitating in Waterville. The storm cloud of a thought blows into my mind.
“Does Niks have a cottage, too?”
“Naw. She tucks in at the big hotel there on the water.” Jack lets out a loud hum. “Niks functions best with room service and dog walkers.” He rubs hands over his face. “I dealt with fan jams after Randy in 6B, but that was small potatoes compared to what this show’s bringing about. Niks isn’t used to the crazy, so she insulates herself at the hotel.” He blows out a long breath. “It’s the books, you know. Whatever feller found himself in Donal Cam’s boots would be dealing with this.”
I rub his arm. “It’s not just the books. You’re a pretty amazing lightning rod on your own. Better than a golf club in a thunderstorm.”
Jack drops his forehead onto my shoulder. “It’s grand you think so.” The sound of a motorcycle nearby brings him to attention. He scans the street and his shoulders relax. “I should bring you to my place, and Patrick can drive you here after the watch gives up.”
The reason I can’t go home with Jack is because I really want to go home with Jack. This is all too fast. It’s only the second day I’ve known him. My primary goal is to make an impression on Bobby and the other writers. If I lose focus because of whatever seems to be starting here, I could blow that.
“Do you know which of the houses I’m in?”
“The yellow one with the stone duck out front. There’ll be someone on duty at a desk inside to get you where you need to go.” He starts the car.
I put my hand over the stick shift. “You can’t take me. If Meg banished me to a snug last night just for sitting at a table with you, I doubt she’ll be too keen if I pop out of your car in front of a crowd. Gotta protect the image, Donal Cam.” I reach for the door handle. “I’ll walk. It’s only a couple of blocks.”
Jack pulls my hand from the door and kisses it with a growl. “Leaving you off on a dark street is not the way I’d choose to end our first date.”
“Oh, is that what this is? I didn’t even get dinner.”
He pops open the glove box and offers an energy bar. “I hope you like pumpkin and flax.”
I grab it. “My favorite.” I slip out of the car and shut the door.
The passenger window slides down. “I’ll do better next time.”
“It’s all good.” Too good. Too tempting.
“Goodnight, Gilly.”
“Sweet dreams, Jack.”
He flashes me a Wicked Jack smile. “Oh, they will be.”
I do my best impression of a casual wave and walk toward the sound of surf while visions of Jack O’Leary dance in my head.
Chapter
Eight
Shadows are not to be trusted. Is there anything as fickle as an entity that changes height throughout the day and mimics your every move? The shadows that swallow the last glow of daylight are thieves. They rob us of depth perception, banishing details from sight.
I escaped shadows when I shed Treat from my life. Now, after only two days, I’m teetering on the edge of venturing into a shadow with Jack.
I love my new feeling of freedom, of being able to only care about myself. It makes me giddy. Jumping back into an all too familiar situation holds about as much appeal as a fuzzy plum at the bottom of the fruit bowl.
This would be a much easier call if I wasn’t so attracted to Jack. I’d rather this giant question mark hanging over my head blow away in an Irish breeze. The problem is, without conscious effort, I skipped over attraction straight into smoldering want. I can’t stop thinking about the feel of Jack’s full, soft lips on mine.
“Stop! Stop! Stop it!” I fan the air in front of me to erase the playback loop of Jack’s kisses.
Out the window of my quaint, little studio apartment, I have a clear view of the Charlie Chaplin statue by the beach.
“What do you have to say about all this, Charlie?” I rest a knee on the window seat and stare at the waves as they swell and race toward shore. “What’s that?” I cup a hand to my ear. “You’re putting the cart before the horse, Gilly. Stop stressing about shadows and lies. There’s no relationship between you and Jack O’Leary.”
I plunk onto the seat and drop my head into my hands. All that Jack asks is the chance to get to know me better. He says he doesn’t kiss women right off the bat. Given that he kissed me the first day we met, I don’t know whether I buy that or not.
Everything I’ve learned so far about Jack O’Leary tells me I can believe him.
Common sense advises a retreat from the breakneck speed at which Jack and I are getting to know each other better. I can easily achieve that today. Meet Bobby at ten, find out what my responsibilities are, and do them. If I see Jack at work today, I’ll keep it casual. No inadvertent meetings at the stables or any other dark corner of The Clan. If he wants to hang out, I’ll make sure we’re not alone.
I toss Mr. Chaplin a salute. “You’re right, Charlie. Avoid kissing situations.” It’s always smart to get a second opinion, even it’s from the bronze statue of a silent film star.
Professional distance is best for both of us. Jack can play the dutiful hot bachelor for Meg’s PR-painted scenario without any complications or deceit, and I’ll avoid feeling like I swallowed a beehive. From what I’ve seen so far, Jack is a great guy—a little pushy, but not obnoxious. I’d love to have him as a friend, someone to golf with, laugh with. The right move is to stick to my plan of an untethered Gilly.
Regret tugs at my heart. I’ve always wanted what my parents have. A pair of creative souls finding each other and navigating life through that filter. Treat was a bottom-line profit guy. His thinking had no color, no composition. My love of telling stories was something he never understood.
“I buried that part of me for you, you unworthy bastard.”
It’s been more than a year since I indulged my own creativity. It’s as if something vital of who I am withered. The Chieftain’s Son is bringing that part of me back to life.
Jack lives in a creative reality. He would understand how sublimating a part of who you are slowly kills you.
The knock on my door makes me jump. Patrick isn’t supposed to meet me out front for another hour. Oh, God. Is it Jack? Did he do something stupid like climb a trellis to sneak in without anyone seeing him?
“Gillian, it’s Bobby.”
Bobby? The showrunner of The Chieftain’s Son should not be knocking on my door at eight o’clock in the morning. Shit. Did Moose tell him Jack and I were together in the stable? I’ve ruined my shot before I even started. For messing with the talent, Bobby is here to send me to Shannon Airport for the first flight back to LAX.
“How about breakfast to make up for dinner last night?”
Oh, thank God. “Sounds great. Just a sec.” I grab my purse and vow to commit to common sense from here on out.
Bobby’s phone is glued to his ear. “Fine. Put the first take back in.” He holds up a finger. “I’ll be in around half-ten.”
“What’s half-ten?” I ask when he slips the phone in his pocket.
“Ten-thirty, Yank.”
“So, I’m a Yank until I learn to tell time Irish-style?”
“As you say.” He yawns. Shadows beneath his eyes suggest a late night.
I turn to lock the door behind me. “I feel guilty for getting a good night’s sleep.”
He waves me off. “Someone should. Once I put this episode to bed, I can do the same.”
“Anything I can do? Assistant on duty.”
“As a matter of fact…” Bobby launches into the laundry list of my duties. During a breakfast involving lots of meat and potatoes at the pub painted with Baroque waves, he amends the list at least five times. He chews on his bottom lip. “I’m loading you up too much. I will not waste your talent. I want you pitching and evaluating ideas. You’ve got to meet Deidre. She’s the pulse of the show.”
His casual mention of Deidre LaRochelle, the icon, the author of a book series I’ve read a dozen times and am on my fourth listen of the audiobooks, knocks the wind out of me. “She’s here?”
“Of course. I’d never try to breathe life into The Chieftain’s Son without its heart in residence.”
“Was she at the table read?” How could I not know I was in the presence of greatness?
He shakes his head. “No, I’ve got her chained to a desk writing the penultimate episode for season one. It’s her first foray into a script.”
The image of Deidre in irons conjures the scene from book four in the series, Witch on the Wind, where Nieve confesses to witchcraft, and it doesn’t go well for her. Bobby frowns.
“Where’s my head at? I should have connected you two right away. She’s the perfect person to talk to about making the leap from novel to script.”
Add yet another out-of-body moment to this whole experience. Not only am I going to meet Deidre LaRochelle, but we’re going to jabber over shared insecurities. I waffle between Out of My League and In Over My Head as the title for my upcoming day.
When we head for his car, from force of habit, I walk to the passenger side, which in Ireland is the driver’s side.
He raises an eyebrow. “Ready to give left-side driving a go?”
“That road out to the studio didn’t appear to have sides.”
Bobby laughs. “You’ll find that a lot. Best advice for a beginner: if someone’s coming at you, slow down, move to the left, and let them blow by you.”
To my dismay, he settles into the passenger seat and waits for me to get behind the wheel.
He grins. “On my first day here, driving on a country road that makes the one to the studio look like a super highway”—he shakes his head—“I came face to face with a Guinness delivery truck. The guy waved at me to back up.”
I slip into the driver’s seat. “Did you?”
“If you could call it that. Backing up while I looked over the wrong shoulder and driving a stick shift made me weave like a drunk on a tightrope.”
I try to escape the car, but he puts a hand on my arm.
“I angled my way into a shallow ditch smack up against the hedge.” He raises a finger. “Not on purpose, mind you.” Bobby glides his arm forward. “The truck squeezed by so close, if my window had been down, I could have tapped every silver drum as it passed.”
“And this story encourages me how?”
He hands me the keys. “Take your shot, Bettencourt. If we face off with a Guinness truck, we’ll switch seats.”
Thankfully, Bobby’s black Hyundai is an automatic. Given the road to The Clan is private, I pull off a successful maiden voyage as an Irish driver.
As soon as I crunch onto the gravel parking lot—a.k.a. car park—and stop the car, Bobby springs out to examine the paint job on his side. Maybe I did get a little close to the hedges.
“Did I scratch it?”
Bobby licks his finger and rubs a hair-width streak on the shiny ebony door. “All good.”
My knees nearly buckle in relief when evidence of my driving “oops” buffs out. I suppose I should consider buying a cheap used car. I can’t expect Bobby or Patrick—and certainly not Jack—to drive me everywhere. “Got any leads on a used VW Golf I can blow my life savings on?”
He slings an arm around my shoulder in what seems like a brotherly gesture. “I’ll see if Patrick has any connections.”
Out of habit, my brain screams for him not to touch me this close to where people might see. For the last two years, I’ve been on guard with Treat at work or anywhere else we might run into to someone who knows us. An arm around the shoulder probably means nothing to Bobby. I’ve got to calm down.
I nudge my purse so it slides to my elbow, giving me an excuse to break free and readjust. “May I sit in on your meeting with Benj and Benny? Get the feel of the rewriting process?”
“Absolutely.” He holds the glass doors into the foyer open. “You will be the one typing up the changes.”
We make it all the way to the writer’s room without running into Jack. Benj and Benny hover by a counter in the corner, doctoring their coffees. Bobby shouts across the room to them. “Okay, you’ve got fifteen minutes. Sell me.”
A tempting spread of super fancy donuts flanks the coffeemaker. There’s a particularly delicious looking peanut butter chocolate one. I hope it stays unclaimed until we finish.
We huddle in the corner of the long table while B and B pitch changes. I’m impressed with the efficiency of the quick negotiations between the three. With minimal cross outs and notes in the margins, a new version is born.
Benj plunks the script into my hands. I’m about to make a clean getaway to my niche of an office when Jack strides into the writer’s room. The moment we share space, little quivers erupt all over my body.
Bobby glances at his watch. “Cutting it close, J. The van heads out to location in five minutes.”
It’s then I notice Jack’s getup. He’s wearing a black parka over a long tunic. His hair is especially blond. It must have been dyed, or at least touched up, this morning for the shoot.
Jack smiles. “The donuts are better in here.” He goes straight for my peanut butter and chocolate prize.
Bobby turns to me. “We need ten copies of the new pages, and email the changes to everyone. Get Patrick to bring you up to the location when you’ve got them. See you in a few.”
With waves and thank-yous to me, Benny and Benj head out. I guess everyone is off to the location.
Bobby pauses at the door. “Coming, J?”
Jack waves him off. “Right behind you.” He becomes very involved with stuffing the donut in his mouth and grabbing napkins. He’s stalling, and I’m not the only one who notices.
Bobby looks from Jack to me, a line creasing his forehead. I brace myself for some comment, but Bobby’s phone saves the day. He takes the call and zooms down the hallway.
“Are you nuts?” I ask.
Jack stops chewing. “What?”
“What do you mean ‘what’? You came all the way to the writer’s room for a donut. Who’s going to believe that?”
“Everyone.”
I hug the script to my chest. “Did you see that look Bobby gave us?” That cloudy look on Bobby’s face is more confirmation that Jack and I are a bad idea.
“I always sneak in here for donuts. Maureen’s engaged to the pastry chef at the hotel in town. He keeps her supplied with these drops of Heaven.” He licks caramel-colored frosting off his fingers.
The chameleon that is Jack O’Leary has shifted into yet another version of his being. It might be the morning light shining through the picture window, or the whole gestalt of Jack in full chieftain son costume, hair, and make-up, but he’s altered. The bone structure of his face is more pronounced. His overall frame looks larger than it did last night in the stables. He’s kingly. Majestic. Savage.
He takes a step toward me. I half expect him to scoop me up in his arms and carry me to that fur-covered bed on the hot set. I hug the script tighter to squelch any more dangerous thoughts.
Instead of keeping my hands off him, which is the smart choice, I dab crystals of frosting off his cheek. They shine on the end of my fingertip like fallen stars. I pop the finger in my mouth. “Donut on your face.”
His eyes lock on my finger and then my lips. “A bit of sugar won’t matter once I’ve got dirt smeared across my cheeks.”
When he steps closer, I move back. “I’ve been thinking.” I blow a soft breath. “Probably too much about what we discussed last night.”
Jack scans the room and the hallway beyond before he captures the hem of my shirt and pulls me closer. “We discussed a lot of things.”
He smells like the grass of the fields outside the window, uncut and wild. A sensation of lightheadedness wafts over me. What is it about this man that propels me into the land of stupid?
I reclaim my clothing and move around the corner of the table. “The cat and mouse game with Meg…” My gaze drifts to the tabletop to avoid his eyes.
To my surprise, he walks over to the door. “You’re right. This is not playing it safe. Anyone could walk in.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“On the other hand, it’d be stranger if we avoid each other.” He taps a finger against his lips, and they go a darker pink. “We’ll go to the driving range tonight. You can doctor up my swing and then…” The suggestive smile on this primal being whips my senses into a whirlwind.
“We shouldn’t be alone. Your fans or Meg or Bobby will see us and think there’s more going on than there is.” This is the perfect moment to tell Jack whatever sparks are jumping back and forth here can’t flare into something that could burn both of us. Before I get a single word in, Jack snaps his fingers and points at me.
“That’s brilliant. I’ll ask Meg and Bobby to go with us.”
“That’s not—”
Jack’s pocket begins to ring. Why does it not surprise me the ringtone on his phone sounds like an old-school landline? It’s genuine the way he’s genuine. “I’ll have Bobby drive you,” he says, “and we’ll all meet up at the driving range.” He slaps the phone to his ear, grumbling into it. “I’m coming.” Jack stares at me, eyebrows raised in question.
He really is tone deaf to the degree of pressure he’s putting on me. “No” is the best choice here. Avoid the whole meeting-up-after-work situation. Apparently, my brain doesn’t convey this decision fast enough to my body because I nod to Jack.
His eyes soften, erasing the warring clansman image for a brief second before he’s off down the hall. The tunic—skirt, whatever the proper historic name for his low-hanging fabric is—swishes side to side. Oh, Lordy. I have got to tell him tonight that this thing between us is not going to happen before I wake up next to him in an Irish dawn.
