Sliding the phone into the pocket of her skirt, Paige showed no outward sign of interest in what was about to happen. She went so far as to take a bite out of her apple while impassively eyeballing the approaching actress.
Whatever.
“You might want to get control of your meal ticket, my dear.”
Paige slowly chewed, quite enjoying the yummy fruit while she considered the situation in front of her. She had to give the lady props—she didn’t beat around the bush.
Did it hurt, she wondered. All that junk they injected and inserted to make her face look so sculpted and perfect? What about when she brushes her teeth. How exactly did that work?
Maybe there was some kind of jack—like the one in the trunk of her car—that slid into the mouth and cranked till her jaw opened and a brush could get in there. A mouth jack for the Botox impaired. The thought was deliciously funny. So funny, that the visual quickly morphed into wondering how in the hell she blew half the high-powered dicks in this town without hurting somebody.
As fantastically droll a thought as that was, she had to remember she was on the receiving end of the woman’s bad temper. Best pay attention in case things got out of hand.
Taking another quick bite, Paige shrugged off Joann’s comment. “Gideon Shaw doesn’t need controlling. I would have thought you’d know that by now.”
“Oh, don’t play word games with me, honey. You know exactly what I’m talking about. This town has a long memory, and …”
She interrupted. Rudely. Couldn’t help it. “You’d know all about that, I suppose.”
Whoa! Voldemort himself couldn’t have produced a more smoldering look. Luckily, Paige came equipped with her own superpower; a guardian spirit named the Goddess Ignora.
Shrouded within the Cape of Disdain, a unique metaphorical gift for all believers in the power of ignoring, she stared down the aging actress without blinking an eye.
“You’re fucking with the wrong bitch,” Joann ground out.
And with that, she whirled around like she was hitting a mark, straightened her shoulders, and marched away stage left while Paige bit her lip and tried not to snicker-groan.
Aaaargh. She needed some Advil and a big Diet Coke. Fuck the apple. Cramps were bombarding her belly and that dull ache in her back? A full-on hot dagger.
Some banner day this was turning out to be. Between the assistant crushing all over their boss, to Mickey and his blogger worries, and now an angry, pissed off actress in her face for no real reason, Paige was not having a very easy time of it.
Happy friggin’ birthday, Edward.
“C’mon people. How ‘bout you all get fucking real. I said bystanders. Not a teeming crowd of twenty-something looky-loos.”
A loud boom sounded as Markus, their director, kicked over a vacant tripod with his heavily booted foot.
“Reset the whole fucking scene and find Karen for me. I want her to get casting on the phone and blast them a new asshole.”
Edward looked up as soon as the ruckus started. Huddled in a chair at the edge of the soundstage, he’d been studying lines, creating a personal visual storyboard as he worked out the next scene.
Annoyed by the disruption, he cut off an angry grunt, watched the commotion unfold, and mentally shook his head. Markus was having a hissy fit, something that was neither good … nor helpful.
Just fucking great.
An experienced director losing his shit on set didn’t happen every day—for obvious reasons. You didn’t get to the top tier in this business without having gained the coping skills to deal with talent meltdowns, technical fuck-ups, and crew flubs. Being a diva was one thing. After all, everyone was a diva in one way or another. But yelling, swearing, and manhandling equipment? Yeah … that shit signaled bigger problems.
Well, fuck. This shoot was heading for the crapper at an astonishingly swift rate.
Edward tilted his head to watch the director’s angry retreat. His wildly flailing arms let him know the storm hadn’t passed yet. Everyone else in the vicinity scattered, looking like mice running in circles. It was all pretty amusing until he remembered where they were.
Dismissing all of it with a jerky headshake, he slid from his chair and headed away from the drama on set and in the direction of his personal sanctuary. Thank god for the star treatment.
Still in costume, he stomped along courtesy of the heavy work boots his character favored. They were serious shit kickers that reminded him of the mountain boots from his time in Iraq, which were currently shoved in a box and kept in a storage unit.
Several people gave him a cursory nod as they passed, but he kept his head down and plowed on. Try as he did to keep focused and stay above the never-ending industry bullshit surrounding him, what was happening right now made for restless, sleepless nights. The movie was falling apart, and though he was pretty sure this crap storm could be taken care of post-production, it pissed him off that it was happening at all.
Edward did not like drama, and he didn’t mean scripted drama—that shit was his bread and butter. No, what got his teeth grinding was people’s propensity toward being a scene, making a scene, having a scene, instigating a scene—creating any kind of scene that attracted the paparazzi.
To him, the bracelet janglers, high-pitched gigglers, nipple-slipping cele-brats and all-around circus performers clogging the entertainment culture were an unimaginative sideshow. None of that crap was original, and he was not interested in replaying the same tired shit over and over. Spend a couple of years spitting out the dust from an inhospitable land hosting an endless war and you’d understand why. Unfortunately, he worked in a business where avoiding that kind of nonsense was virtually impossible.
The movie and atmosphere on set were falling apart for a dozen reasons. Too many egos had made for a difficult shoot, which, thank Christ, was wrapping up.
One of the producers was an obnoxious asshole and, despite a fabulous screenplay, the author of the original work was constantly in Markus’s face.
Then, the two leading ladies had ended up hating each other. Nothing like an established, mature female lead in the second position, playing the parent of whatever fresh-faced up-and-coming starlet was burning up the screens. Jesus. Talk about drama. Joann had tried nicey-nice at first with her on-screen daughter … the lovely and surprisingly talented Phaedra Bellamy. But Phae turned out to be the opposite of a vacuous ingénue, and Jo rather quickly realized the young girl could act circles around all of them. Poor Phae. From that moment on, Jo had been a complete cunt. And though her attitude seemed way more personal than reasonable, he’d managed to stay out of it.
Climbing the stairs into his massive trailer, he pulled the door shut and breathed a deep sigh of relief. No matter where he was or what shithole he was in, the space he officially occupied became a Zen retreat where he went to find himself.
Home was important to him, and since he didn’t have a permanent residence other than the requisite Malibu beach house, he tended to bring that homey thing with him. He was a Cancer after all … didn’t the crab carry his home upon his back? Yeah. That was him.
It helped that the studio was licking his ass every step of the way—the price of keeping someone from the A plus plus list happy. Looking around at the insanely expensive motorhome that had more square footage than a multi-room apartment was a reminder that he was very much in the driver’s seat where his career was concerned. And Paige Turner had as much responsibility for that as he did.
He’d be skimming pools and fending off the advances of the Beverly Hills stay-at-homes if not for her. From the moment she came into his life, the quirky brunette had quite simply changed everything.