“Yeah, yeah, you know you’re always welcome here,” I begrudgingly admit before moving to the couch to sit beside her.
She smiles and tosses a blanket my way before grabbing the remote. “Okay, so I’ve narrowed it down to these movies. What’ll it be tonight?” She loads her choices onto the screen, and I frown. Neither seems appealing.
“Do you have anything else?”
“I’ve got90 Day Fiancé,Real Housewives, orThe Great British Bake Off.”
I scowl and open my mouth.
“Don’t you dare give me any shit about my reality shows.” Jill looks like she’s ready to commit murder with her eyes.
“Anything is better than watching that crap,” I groan.
“Yeah? Anything is better? How about playing the piano again?” She fires back.
“Touché,” I grumble.
The grand piano in my room has been nothing but an expensive dust collector for the last few months.
Music has been a part of the fabric of my existence from the time I could understand what it was. I’ve always needed to be listening to something in the background, and my fingers have always twitched, ready to play an instrument. When it became clear to me that it was frowned upon by my father, I ended up taking up smoking and various other habits to give my fingers something to do, and to quell the creativity inside that’s been trying to escape for as long as I can remember.
That well of creativity has run completely dry as of late. Whenever I sit down to play, nothing feels right. The notesseem to evaporate from my fingers before I get the chance to plunk them down, and whenever I try to even think up something new, white noise takes its place. Where there should be melodies, there’s static.
It’s been bad for months now, but it got even worse after a family dinner a few weeks ago. When I played piano to distract my father and get him to stop lighting into James when he said no to signing that contract again. While it worked and distracted Deacon long enough for James and me to get the fuck out of there, seeing Deacon’s face when he came down the staircase and saw me at the piano brought back a flood of memories of me disappointing him.
I don’t care about disappointing Deacon now. It’s honestly a given. But when I was little, I didn’t feel the same, and it hurt. A stupid wound that still oozes from time to time.
I shake my head, refusing to get into it with Jill. She’s been pushing me to try playing again. I just can’t bring myself to.
With a sigh, she pops open the lid of her ice cream and takes another bite. “Fine. You can pick, but don’t pick something shitty.”
I snatch the remote from her and purely out of curiosity, I search for and settle on the indie film Clover was the lead in. Jill raises her eyebrows but says nothing as the opening credits appear.
90 minutes later, my sister has a shit-eating grin on her face. “She was good,” she singsongs before popping up from the couch. Annoyingly, she’s right. While the movie itself was nothing to write home about, Clover was phenomenal.
Hours later when I crawl into bed, I’m still thinking about the fiery little redhead who did an incredible job with our scenes today. Not only was she doing a killer job with her lines, but she was giving me so much to play off of with my own. Acting together felt as intuitive as breathing.With her, it was easy to sink into my character’s skin and to perform so naturally it felt like the character was an extension of myself.
And the way her eyes lit up, and she got all sparky with me… that was interesting. I certainly wasn’t expecting her to have any attitude, and as fucked up as it may be, I kind of liked that she did. Seeing her so riled up was fun. I’m excited in a way that I haven’t been in a long time. Perhaps acting alongside Clover Daly won’t be so bad after all.
Chapter Eleven
ROMAN
My pen glides over the paper as I place my signature along the various lines. Signing away a bit of my freedom with each one. While Clover intrigues me, I’m still annoyed to be doing this.
Our family’s publicist, Janine, is bouncing her leg up and down excitedly beside me. It’s driving me fucking nuts, but I bite back saying anything to her. If I did, she’d just get all bent out of shape and then be an annoying little rain cloud dampening everyone’s mood. Janine nods reassuringly to everyone at the table each time I sign another spot on the page, as if to silently say, “Look, it’s really happening, he’s doing it.”
As if I have any other choice.
My hair falls forward, and I push it back after signing the last spot. I look up at Mahdi, one of Starlight Studios’ lawyers, and raise my eyebrows at him before pushing it forward toward Clover.
The discomfort is practically rolling off of her in waves. She’s sitting ramrod straight, like she’d rather be anywhere on earth than in this room. What the fuck is her problem? You’dthink she’d show a little excitement or even some gratitude after scoring a role that is far beyond her scope so far.
Our chemistry read went well, there’s no denying that. Yes, there’s something magnetic about her, but I still know she’s green for this role, and for doing the PR relationship. I’m going to have to carry her through it all, and the last thing I want right now is extra deadweight with all the pressure already on me for this movie to succeed.
Clover stares down at the contract for a few seconds too long, and her agent clears her throat with all the subtlety of a fire alarm.
“I believe this is the part where you sign your name.” I give her a hint, and oh, she does not like that based on the scowl that forms. With a smirk, I lean back in my chair and place my hands behind my head, allowing me to stretch.
