Take a Bow, page 12
He shook his head. “It’s Moonshot, and that’s not a done deal, and I don’t know if it’s the right move for me.” He was looking forward to the pitch from the producers, but he was keeping his hopes reined in.
“Seriously?” Jay’s eyes went round. “It seems like the perfect project after Hawk and Bone.”
“I know, but I’d be playing this one character for a decade. Probably wouldn’t be able to take many side gigs, if any. There’s not a lot of flexibility. Plus, they shoot in North Carolina.”
“So? That’s a hell of a lot closer to home than Eastern Europe.”
“Yeah.” Nash sighed. It was hard to put how he was feeling into words. To anyone on the outside, taking this gig—if he even got it—made perfect sense. It leveled up his career, and the contract would be more money than he’d ever seen, even in his most successful years. He’d forever be associated with one of the most popular franchises of all time. And he wouldn’t have to worry about where his next paycheck was coming from for quite a while. Then again, by the time he fulfilled the contract, he’d be almost a decade older.
It was hard to imagine how he’d be able to keep Mimi in his life on a regular basis if he was constantly in another state.
“We should get started,” he said instead of confiding his fears in her brother.
“Sure. Thanks for doing this.” Jay picked up his script again, his grip so tight, he was wrinkling the pages.
“Of course, I need it, too.” He opened his script. “Scene seven?”
“Yeah.”
Nash scanned the page. It was Parker and Will’s first scene together. The first episode was a combination of reintroducing all the original characters, filling in the audience on what they’d been up to in the last twelve years, and introducing the new generation that would bring the youthful energy.
His character, Will, had been living in New York City after getting his law degree and going to work as a public defender. He’d been mentoring a young gay kid named Danny, who’d gotten into trouble with the law. To send him down a different path, Will decides to bring him up to Cloudy Cove to live with his parents.
Meanwhile, Parker has been living in Cloudy Cove all this time, or at least since he and Amy finally broke up for good. The question that had plagued every Sawyer’s Cove fan since the series ended was, did Parker follow his true love Amy to Stanford, where she’d been accepted to college, or did he stay in Cloudy Cove?
The show was now revealing he did go, and they stayed together for six months, until the strain of his being a non-college student and her being so busy with school became too much for them and they broke up. She moved to San Francisco after graduation but has come back to Cloudy Cove to care for her sick mother. Parker works nights at a bar and has scraped together all his resources to help take care of a young cousin who needed to get away from a bad family situation. Badass beauty Lily Fine now teaches the next generation at Cloudy Cove High.
Nash thought the writers had done an incredible job of weaving in the new characters and giving the original five Cove kids convincing stories to tell. He knew the fans would be initially critical of anything the show attempted, but hopefully enough of them would take the new season on its own merits, rather than rate how the storylines stacked up to what they personally thought should have happened to the characters. He supposed they’d find out for sure when the show aired that winter.
It took him and Jay a few minutes to get into the rhythm of the dialogue. Their characters were seeing each other after years of no contact, and it was stilted at first, but that was okay. Will had gotten a bit more uptight, and Parker had become a bit more jaded. But they both had good hearts, and as Nash sank into the scene, he could feel Will’s regret at not having kept in better touch with his friend, at not having been able to help him when he needed him in the past. He remembered how Will always put other people first, that he had a bit of a savior streak, and he was impressed Selena and the other writers had picked up on that thread of his character and run with it.
They looked up at the end of the scene and smiled at each other. Jay had stumbled a bit over the first half of the scene, but he’d seemed to loosen up. He sounded like Parker, and he knew what it was like to have people leave you behind. Jay had always been able to connect with his character on a level Nash had envied. It wasn’t that he didn’t have anything in common with Will, though the guy was way brainier and had a much more advanced vocabulary than Nash ever would, but he didn’t embody Will the way Jay embodied Parker. Will was a suit he put on, and while he liked the suit and was comfortable in it, he was always relieved to take it off at the end of the day.
Besides, being a straight actor playing a gay character had always come with its share of complications. He’d seen the role as a challenge when it had been offered to him fifteen years ago, but now he wondered if he’d known the pressure he was in for if he’d have made a different choice about taking the part.
In theory, an actor should be judged on his ability to play the role, not on his identity. But that didn’t mean identity wasn’t relevant. Jay had used his experience as the child of a single mom to inform his role as Parker, whose dad had abandoned him as a kid. Nash had used his skills playing guitar to give Will a storyline about playing a song for his boyfriend.
But the writers had given Will amazing stories and memorable dialogue people had found inspiring, not Nash. He'd just said the lines they wrote for him the best way he knew how. Yet he got the credit for being this important gay character on screen. He’d never felt he’d earned the accolades. It was daunting to face all that again.
“So, you think we can pull this off?” Jay asked anxiously. He fiddled with the pages of the script, folding corners down and pulling them back up again compulsively.
Nash conjured up his most sincere expression. “Hell yes, we can pull this off. You’re golden. Keep doing what you’re doing. Besides, it’s eighty percent how you look, right? And you look like Parker Wild. Selena’s scripts will do the rest.”
“You’re saying I should just show up and look pretty?” Jay said dryly.
“But not as pretty as me. Or Crosby—he might have it in his contract that we’re not allowed to be hotter than him.”
Jay laughed. “Poor Crosby. It’ll be good to see him, though. What’s he been up to lately?”
“Theater, mostly, I think.” Nash thought about the last time he’d heard from the eponymous star of Sawyer’s Cove. “But from what I understand, it was pretty painless to convince him to do the show.”
“Cami told me he said yes almost right away.”
“Should be fun, getting the crew back together.”
“I don’t know why I’m so nervous,” Jay said. “Oh wait, it’s because I haven’t been on a set in twelve years.”
“You’re a natural. And we can rehearse more. You want to do the next scene?”
“Sure.” Jay turned the page. “And thanks. You’re a good friend.” He scanned the script and added blandly, “Even if you are screwing around with my sister.”
“Hey, now,” Nash said, his hackles up instantly. “You were cool last night—don’t give me a hard time about this now.”
“Sorry, sorry.” Jay looked at him speculatively. “It’s just weird. You two get along really well. Okay, Mimi gets along with almost everyone. But you don’t exactly seem that couple-y. And I guess I’m grateful, because my eyes don’t need to be exposed to that, thanks, but are you sure this is a good idea? Mimi doesn’t do relationships, man. And you’re not exactly known for your long-term monogamy.”
“Are you calling me a slut?”
“Far be it from me to call either of you sluts. But let’s acknowledge you both have a reputation for brief affairs. Very brief, in Mimi’s case. Which I’m sure is not news to you.”
“It’s not.” Nash tried to decipher how he felt about discussing this with Jay. He supposed the guy had skin in the game since he cared about both of them. But Nash was under no illusion if things did turn sour, Jay wouldn’t back Mimi up 150%. Which did give him pause. Was he prepared to lose Jay’s friendship if he and Mimi managed to blow this thing up?
“Look…” He didn’t quite know how to explain to her brother how being with her made him feel that wouldn’t be wildly inappropriate. “She’s awesome. You don’t need me to tell you that. And we get along. And we’re compatible in…other ways.”
He laughed lightly when Jay made a fake gagging sound.
“All I can tell you is, we have something I’d like to think would remain, even if the physical side of things stopped for whatever reason. So don’t worry, dude. I’m not expecting her to pull up stakes and be my international gal pal. I know her life is here. And she’s, like, the least likely person to put pressure on me for anything I’m not ready to give. She’s cool.”
“Yeah.” Jay looked like he wanted to say something else. “Okay. I guess I’ll trust you two can figure it out.”
“That’s very mature of you.”
“But I also want to say…Mimi is the coolest. But she’s also not used to people going out of their way for her. She’s the type who always makes things happen for herself. She put herself through college. She revolutionized the library. She’s half the reason The Cove is doing so well, with the great bands she’s brought in over the last few years. Don’t take her for granted, okay?”
Nash stared at Jay. Take Mimi for granted? Had he been doing that? He supposed he’d been taking up a lot of her time since he’d arrived in town. But he had this impulse to be with her, and it was hard enough to wait for her to finish her workday so he could see her. Maybe that was a little selfish. And here he was, taking off for four days and expecting her to be available when he got back. Jay was right. Their situation was kind of complicated. The problem was, he didn’t know how to fix it.
“Okay,” he said after a pause. “And thanks.”
“For what?”
“For trusting her with me, I guess. And I know that sounds paternalistic as shit, but what I mean is, it means a lot to me that you think I could be good for her.”
“I get it. And yeah. You’re pretty cool, too,” Jay said, with a genuine smile. “So don’t fuck it up.”
“Understood.”
Chapter Nineteen
Hungry for your peaches, hungry for your pie.
Honey, for a taste of you I’d even wear black tie.
“Peaches,” The Nash Speedwell Experience
Landed.
Traffic out of Boston though.
Might have to take a rain check on dinner.
How are you?
Mimi looked down at her phone. She was in her office, of course. She’d been in meetings most of the day, but had managed to drop in on the afternoon story hour in the children’s section. Seeing the happy faces had given her a serotonin boost she’d need to get through the last chunk of her day. She’d also been looking forward to dinner with Nash, who’d been out of town since Thursday night. Today was Tuesday. He hadn’t been able to get out of North Carolina yesterday and had told her he’d meet her for a meal to catch up, but now it looked like she’d have to wait another day to see him.
Which was totally, utterly, completely fine.
They’d often gone months without seeing each other. What was five days?
But Mimi had been restless and unfocused all weekend. She’d gone to the show at The Cove as usual Saturday night, then she, Jay, Cami, and Deb all had lunch on Sunday on Jay and Cami’s back deck. They were taking a deep breath before the actors started arriving in town.
Deb had a hectic week ahead of her as well, as they were putting most of the guest actors up at the Inn during the shoot. Much of the crew was already in town and at work; they’d been building sets in the old barn-turned-studio on the edge of the woods, where they’d built the original show’s sets.
Mimi was curious about the production, but she’d been so busy with the library fundraiser approaching at a clip, she hadn’t had a chance to check it out personally. Jay and Cami guaranteed she’d be able to stop by once production was underway.
Even though nothing about her routine had changed, it didn’t feel the same without Nash. She’d gotten used to him, to teasing him and flirting and having long, meandering conversations about anything and everything. Texting wasn’t a substitute.
He’d been vague about his reasons for going out of town, but she understood it was for work—meeting with some producers or something—and he did say he spent a day recording the song he’d sung for her, and it had gone well. She’d smiled when he reported that. A new Nash Speedwell song was something to look forward to.
She typed out a brief text, telling him she’d take that rain check, then finished up her workday mechanically. Three weeks out from the fundraiser, they were close to being sold out of tickets, which was exciting. She only hoped the attendees would bring their credit cards and be willing to bid extravagantly on the silent auction items. Some of the auction proceeds would go toward the scholarship fund, and some would go toward the library’s general operating fund. There was no end to the ways she could spend money to enrich and expand the library’s programming.
It had been a couple of hours since Nash had texted, and even if there was no traffic, he wouldn’t have made it back yet. She thought about the evening ahead, going home to her tiny apartment, eating leftovers, and watching TV. She usually looked forward to her quiet, solitary evenings, but not tonight. She wanted to hear about Nash’s weekend and tell him about the progress she’d made on the fundraiser. They’d made out hot and heavily in the cab of his truck like teenagers the night before he left. She was feeling pretty good about her chances of getting to the next base with him.
Wait. She reviewed her feelings and realized something. She missed him. She missed Nash. Like, actively missed him with a fierceness she felt like a bone-deep ache. She missed him, and she wanted to see him, if only to make the pain go away.
She shouldn’t text him while he was driving, but maybe he’d pull over to get gas at some point.
How’s the traffic?
She’d just walked in the door of her apartment when her phone chimed.
We’re moving.
Home in thirty.
She smiled.
I’ll get some takeout and meet you at your place?
She sent it before she could think better of it. Maybe he’d think she was needy or clingy or some other word that made her squirm with mortification.
Or maybe he’d just think she wanted to share some takeout with him.
In any case, his answer came right away.
Sounds amazing.
See you soon.
❤️
She stared at the screen of her phone for a second, frozen. Heart emoji? WTF? She took a deep breath and felt her own, real, live heart racing in her chest.
“Okay,” she said to her empty apartment. That was a puzzle for another day. Right now, she was starving and had some takeout to order.
Chapter Twenty
Take me or leave me, I’m all I need, but together we’re better, we can make harmonies.
“Untitled” for Rainbow Canyon, The Nash Speedwell Experience
Mimi’s car was parked in his driveway, and she was leaning against the driver’s door, clutching a paper bag, eyes on her phone. She looked up when she heard his truck, and she smiled.
A grin spread across Nash’s face, stretching out his cheeks and probably making him look ridiculous, but he couldn’t help it. He was so damn glad to see her. He’d been in stop-and-go traffic for three hours, on a bumpy, crowded flight for hours before that, and had been heartily sick of his too-firm hotel bed before that. He wanted his comfortable bed with its gorgeous view, a cold beer, a hot meal, and his girl. Not in that order.
And there she was, sexy in a sleeveless blouse and cut-off jean shorts and a pleased with herself expression as he climbed out of the truck, grabbing his bag and guitar from the back. He stopped in front of her, gave her a quick peck on the lips.
“Let me wash the airplane off me, and then I’ll give you a proper greeting.”
“Counting on it,” she said. “I’ll plate up dinner.”
She followed him into the house and went straight for the kitchen. He liked that she felt at home in his place, as temporary as it was. He dropped the Gibson off in the living room and went upstairs to shower and change in record time. He avoided thinking about Mimi and her perfect, generous mouth while he was soaping up in the shower, lest he get sidetracked. Instead, he turned the tap to cool and rinsed as quickly as possible. He was back downstairs to hear her crack open a can of beer. She had pulled pork, mashed potatoes, pickles, and macaroni and cheese on two plates and was taking a chug from her can.
“Got one of those for me?” he said, pointing to the can.
“Yeah, I got a six-pack.”
He grabbed one from the fridge himself, then sidled up to her, boxing her in against the island counter, slotting his hips against hers. She grinned up at him, set aside her beer, and responded to his vibe by settling her hands firmly on his ass.
He nuzzled the side of her neck, nipping kisses against the warm, woman-smelling flesh. He licked her pulse, and she let out a breathy gasp. He captured the tail end of the gasp with his mouth, sucking the air out of her, sticking his tongue right inside. She opened to him immediately, and they kissed hard and deep, hips grinding together, her small, perky tits pressed against his chest.
Her entire body molded to his, and he swore he could feel her heart beating against his ribs. He pressed in harder, wanting less space between them, wanting to feel her warm and wet all around him. He wanted to be inside her, like, yesterday, and when he realized his hands were going for the snap of her shorts, he stopped and pulled back with a mild curse.
