Fallen star, p.2
Fallen Star, page 2
“Of course you do,” Grace said. “My mistake, Scott.”
“I’m glad you all could meet.” Joe’s dimples peeked through his salt-and-pepper beard as he surveyed the three of them. “Since you’re going to be spending a lot of time together when production starts.”
Scott’s eyes bored into Grace with unsettling intensity. The dark, brooding mystique he’d adopted as his post-puberty persona was on maximum display, his hazel-green gaze narrowed and his angular jaw set in a hard line. Most actors looked smaller in real life than on-screen, but Scott had bulked up considerably in his time away from the spotlight, and he struck an imposing figure in person.
Grace’s smile grew even wider and more artificial as she stared him down, grateful for every one of the five feet ten inches that put her almost at his level. “Wonderful.”
“Can’t wait,” Carmen said beside her.
Scott turned to Joe, affecting his genial expression again. “Shall we get started?”
“Absolutely! Can I get you a water or anything?”
“No thanks,” Scott said as he followed Joe into the office. “I’m good.”
“He seems nice,” Carmen said dryly after the office door had closed behind them.
“Yeah, he’s a real treat,” Grace replied, turning to gather her purse. “I’m going home.” She’d seen more than enough of Scotty Deacon for one night, and would rather ingest a gallon of live bees than hang around until he came out of Joe’s office.
After bidding goodnight to Carmen, Grace collected her things and headed down to the parking lot. The production had rented a suite of second-floor offices in a dire-looking office park in Culver City, sandwiched between a Public Storage and a tile wholesaler. As she stepped outside, she saw an electric blue Tesla that probably cost more than the balance on her student loans parked diagonally across two spaces.
It had to be Deacon’s car. Because of course he’d drive something that flashy and park it like a total asshole.
That was who she’d be working with on a near-daily basis for nine weeks in New Orleans starting next month. The guy who couldn’t be bothered with common politeness unless the director was standing there, who’d assumed she was an assistant and tried to order her around like a servant, and who’d gifted her with a malevolent glare simply for refusing to be intimidated by him.
Scotty Deacon could get fucked.
2
Grace had been to New Orleans a handful of times before—for Mardi Gras once in college, for Jazz Fest a few years ago, and most recently last summer for an ill-advised bachelorette party that had turned into a forced death march around the French Quarter in high heels. It had always seemed like a nice enough place to visit as a tourist—French Quarter death marches with women she shouldn’t be friends with anymore aside—but she wasn’t sure what it would be like to actually live there for two months.
The production was using mostly local hires with the exception of a few principal cast members and department heads, and they’d put the out-of-towners up in rented accommodations around the city. The house the production company had rented for Grace turned out to be in Audubon Park—like, actually on Audubon Park itself. Literally, her front yard opened directly onto the park, which was not too shabby at all.
The house itself was small—just a cozy one-bedroom cottage—unlike the sprawling edifice immediately next to hers, which looked like an actual, honest-to-god castle, complete with gray stone blocks, Gothic arches, and leaded glass windows. The two houses appeared to have been built at the same time and shared architectural elements, only the castle was about eight times as large as Grace’s little house.
They were actually adjoining, the travel coordinator had warned Grace, connected by an interior door in a shared wall between them. But there were secure locks on both sides, she’d promised in her email, so there was no worry about uninvited visits from whoever happened to be living in the mansion next door.
It was still a little weird, Grace decided, eyeing the wooden door in her living room that connected the two houses. The “secure lock” was nothing more than a simple slide bolt that looked about twenty years old. But it was probably fine, as long as the people next door weren’t crazed ax murderers or total assholes.
The rest of the house was pretty great. It was fully furnished, and whoever did the decorating had a flair for mixing eclectic vintage and modern elements in a way that complemented the Tudor-influenced architecture. Besides the combined living and dining area, there was a kitchen and laundry room downstairs, and a bedroom, bathroom, and small office nook upstairs. Best of all, a pair of French doors in the bedroom opened onto a gorgeous balcony overlooking the park.
Grace dropped her bags next to the bed and ventured out onto the balcony, inhaling a lungful of the balmy Louisiana air. It was ridiculously lush and green here compared to Los Angeles or Arizona, where she’d grown up. The park was ringed by immense, billowing live oaks whose green limbs were festooned with strands of Spanish moss reminiscent of the Mardi Gras beads she’d seen hanging from the trees and street lamps on her drive through town. There was a shady jogging trail that ran past her front yard, and the bright green lawn beyond the trees was covered with picnickers taking advantage of the temperate spring weather.
Yeah, okay. Maybe it wasn’t so bad here.
She spent the next couple hours unpacking her bags and familiarizing herself with the house before hitting up the nearby Winn-Dixie for some groceries. When she got back, there was music coming through the wall from the castle next door—and not just any music, but some truly god-awful death metal—confirming the place was indeed occupied. Too bad. It would have been nice—and quieter—if it had been empty.
Grace had spent most of her adult life living in apartments and sharing walls, so she wasn’t inclined to begrudge someone the right to listen to their terrible music at a completely reasonable hour of the day. Anyway, she could barely hear it when she turned the TV on, so it was fine. Whatever.
The music finally shut off around nine, which she took as a positive sign that her neighbors were decently considerate. She stayed up another hour and a half to watch The Daily Show, then got into bed and spent some time reviewing the scenes they would be shooting tomorrow.
It was the first day of principal photography, and she was always anxious before her first day on a new set. She liked to make extra sure she was extra prepared.
Which she was. She totally had this. It was going to be fine. It always was. What she really needed to do was stop psyching herself out and get a decent night’s sleep.
Grace made herself close her laptop and turn out the light. She lay in the strange bed and stared up at the swirly patterns in the plaster ceiling of the unfamiliar house. The wildlife sounds in the park had really ramped up since nightfall. Above the din of the crickets she could hear a chorus of frogs and an owl and—what even was that weird clicking sound?
Jesus, was that an insect? How big was that thing? She probably didn’t want to know.
The sheets on the bed were scratchy and they made her skin feel raw. It was possible she was allergic to the detergent. Or maybe it was the air. The whole city was basically covered in mold, and god only knew what kinds of weird plants they had here. Just her luck, she was probably allergic to the entire state of Louisiana.
The mattress on the bed was too firm, and it kind of slanted to one side, which made her feel like she was in persistent danger of rolling onto the floor. As Grace lay in her slanty bed trying to sleep, she thought about the way the light in the bathroom had flickered when she first turned it on, and wondered if it was the sign of an electrical problem that could cause the house to catch on fire while she slept. You never knew what kind of wiring nightmares were hiding behind the walls in these old houses.
What if the local crew didn’t know how to do their jobs tomorrow? What if none of the cast knew their lines? What if she screwed something up and let everybody down?
Maybe she should pull up Google Maps and double-check the directions to the soundstage one more time. Just to make sure she knew how to get there. Just in case.
No. Stop thinking. Just relax and go to sleep.
She took a deep breath and counted slowly to five as she exhaled.
When she got to four, the death metal started up again next door, even louder than before.
Unbelievable.
Grace rolled over and reached for her phone to check the time. 12:08. On a weeknight, for crying out loud. What kind of monster blared death metal after midnight?
Grumbling under her breath, she dragged a hoodie on over her T-shirt before stomping downstairs to give her neighbor a piece of her mind.
“You’re going to be on your best behavior, right?”
Scott pressed the phone to his ear, scowling as he stared at the unnecessarily large painting of a nude woman that was hanging in the living room of his rental house in New Orleans.
“We already had this conversation,” Scott told his agent, trying not to sound as irritable as he felt.
“And now we’re having it again.” Sabrina Keeling’s English accent was clipped with impatience. “I want to make sure you understand what an enormous favor Joe and Nichole Lincoln are doing you by giving you this chance. I cannot underestimate exactly how indebted to them you are. No one else was even willing to have the conversation, much less hire you.”
“I get it,” Scott mumbled, turning his back on the ridiculous nude.
“If your mate Scarborough hadn’t put up the bond—”
“I get it.”
“Is this the patented Deacon charm you’re planning on taking to your first day on set tomorrow?”
Scott gritted his teeth. “No, this is my stop hounding me, Sabrina voice. I’m stressed out enough as it is.”
He was fucking terrified, in point of fact. Christ, he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d gone to work sober.
“Good,” Sabrina said. “I want you to be impressed by the precariousness of your situation. I worked hard to make this happen, so don’t make me look like an arsehole.”
“And I appreciate that, but—”
“Why can’t you just stop there? ‘I appreciate you, Sabrina.’ End of sentence.”
“But,” Scott persisted stubbornly, “let’s not pretend the extra press generated by my comeback isn’t going to give Joe Lincoln and his obscure little film a nice PR boost.”
“Only if you don’t fuck this up. You fall on your face, Scotty boy, and both you and Joe Lincoln will be paying the price together. And do you know what people love even more than an underdog? Watching an underdog crash and burn.”
Great. No pressure. Scott really needed to find an agent who was better at pep talks. Except Sabrina was the only agent who would touch him after his flameout, and she’d only taken him on as a favor to Robbie, who was one of her clients. They’d both stuck their necks out for him, and if he blew this it would make all of them look bad.
“I’m clearheaded, focused, and serious about the work,” Scott said, tamping down his resentment as he paced across the house to the kitchen. “Things will be different than in the past.”
“Glad to hear it.” Sabrina’s tone softened slightly. “Try to get some sleep. And knock ’em dead tomorrow, darling.”
Scott bid her goodbye and shoved his phone back in his pocket. Sabrina was right. He needed to get a good night’s sleep tonight, but the chances of that were pretty much nil. Not when he was this wired. His brain was racing a mile a minute, fixating on all the ways tomorrow could go wrong.
This was his moment of truth. He had one chance to prove he could still do this, and if he fucked it up, no one would ever give him another shot.
Hell, he’d barely even managed to get this shot. Nichole Lincoln had taken a lot more convincing than her husband. Scott had basically had to grovel to win her approval, and that was after Robbie had agreed to sign on as an investor in order to foot the bill for Scott’s insurance premium.
Scott could feel the doubt starting to creep in, eating away at his self-esteem. He’d spent so much time the last few months trying to convince people he could do this, he’d almost started to believe it himself. But now that he was actually here and facing the imminent reality of his first day on a movie set in four years, all that false confidence he’d been projecting had started to abandon him.
Everybody was worried about him showing up for work, but showing up was the easy part. Scott knew he could do that. It was what came next that sent him into a cold sweat. Because once he was there, he had to actually be good at it.
What if he went in tomorrow and sucked?
What if he needed the drugs to fuel his art, and without them he was nothing?
What if his so-called “talent” had been a side effect of the high, and now that he was clean, everyone would realize he’d never been any good at a single fucking thing his entire useless life?
Fuck. He needed to put a stop to this spiral before it got any worse. The trifecta of stress, sleep deprivation, and Sabrina’s well-intentioned chiding was doing a real number on him.
This right here was why he needed to start working again. He needed the distraction, needed to keep his mind occupied and his body active to stave off the negative thoughts before they could take control.
So Scott did what he always did when the demons started whispering in his ear: he went to work out. Exercise was the only thing that drowned it out. The focus, repetition, and loud music pushed the unwanted thoughts out of his head, and the physical exhaustion afterward helped keep them away, for a little while at least.
The large, parquet-floored front room of his rental house, which appeared to have originally been designed as a ballroom, had been equipped as a home gym for him. A decent space to work out had been one of the few stipulations Scott had put into his contract—for this very reason. He needed someplace he could blow off steam in the middle of the night when insomnia struck.
He’d already worked out once today, but clearly that hadn’t been enough. Maybe the second time would be the charm that would let him get some sleep tonight.
Pulling up his workout mix, Scott cranked the volume on his speakers loud enough to make the windows vibrate and drown out all the noise in his head. Then he grabbed a jump rope and started counting, losing himself in the rhythm.
It took him a minute to realize the off-beat thumping he kept hearing beneath the bass was someone banging on the door. And another few seconds to figure out it wasn’t the front door they were banging on, but the one in the living room that connected to the smaller house next door—the one he’d thought was empty.
Shit, and it was after midnight too.
Scott wiped the sweat from his brow as he slid the bolt back, fully prepared to apologize for the loud music.
Except it was her.
Grace Speer, the woman who’d unknowingly eviscerated him with an offhand comment in the production office last month, was not only his script supervisor for the next nine weeks, but also apparently his next-door neighbor.
Fucking fantastic.
From her expression, he could tell she was just as surprised and disconcerted by this development as he was. They regarded one another warily as the music continued to blare in the front room.
He’d only seen her one other time since their ill-fated first meeting in the production office: at the table read, during which Scott had successfully avoided speaking to her or making eye contact. But her face was forever emblazoned in his memory. Particularly those stormy blue-gray eyes that seemed to stare right through him.
Those same sharp eyes were staring him down right now, even as her teeth bit down on her lower lip, betraying a hint of uncertainty. Her statuesque figure and graceful features could have been crafted by Michelangelo. She was certainly as cold as a marble sculpture, although at the moment, in an oversized USC sweatshirt, fuzzy pink socks, and flannel pajama pants adorned with what he was pretty sure were hedgehogs, she was slightly less intimidating and probably unaware that her chin-length ash brown hair was sticking up rather hilariously on one side. If they’d never met before, Scott might be tempted to call her cute—or even, if he was feeling generous, beautiful.
Her lips moved, but her words were lost to the boisterous guitar riff emanating from the speakers. “What?” he said, frowning at her.
“The music,” she shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Could you turn it down?”
Right, the music. He was the asshole blasting loud music late at night when normal people were trying to sleep.
Fumbling his phone out of his pocket, he tapped the screen and the music shut off. “I didn’t know anyone was living next door,” he offered as an apology.
Grace’s full lips pursed in irritation. “Well, I am.”
They stared at one another across the threshold between their respective rental homes. A bead of sweat trickled into Scott’s eye, and he reached up to wipe it away with his forearm.
It occurred to him that the next two months would be a lot more pleasant if he could befriend this woman who had such a low opinion of him, and who he’d be working with closely every single day. At the very least, he should apologize for the music at this late hour when they both had an early call time tomorrow.
He just…couldn’t bring himself to do it. Apparently he still had some nursing to do on that grudge.
“Thank you,” Grace said icily, when it became clear Scott wasn’t going to say anything else. “Goodnight.”
And she shut the door in his face.
3
Grace was not a natural early riser, but her job frequently required it, so she’d learned to adapt accordingly. Coffee was an absolute must.
When her alarm went off at five in the morning, she could already detect the heavenly scent of French roast wafting upstairs from the coffee maker she’d programmed the night before. She didn’t like running late or rushing around, so she always factored in extra time to calmly sit and enjoy her coffee while she psyched herself up for the day ahead. It was a necessary part of her routine, and the balcony off her bedroom made a perfect spot for her pre-dawn meditation and caffeine infusion.
