Jay was having a play wrestle with Bruce when his phone pinged. He was finding texts quite triggering since his stalker had started to send him messages. Thankfully it wasn’t the stalker. It was Anastasia, Tasha Blake’s publicity manager.
The message read:
Need you on a vid conf RIGHT NOW. Link here
She was quite rude and also presumptuous; he could have been anywhere. He messaged back.
Hi Anastasia, Lovely to hear from you. Just in the middle of something but I will of course make my apologies and duck out to join in. All the best, Jay
Jay turned to Bruce. ‘Really sorry but I need to join a very important video conference call. By way of compensation, can I interest you in a chew stick? Would that be acceptable?’
Bruce barked and wagged his tail.
‘That’s awfully understanding of you,’ he said, fetching Bruce a chew stick.
Jay settled himself in his office as it was white and nondescript so he could be joining from anywhere in the world. He ran his fingers through his hair and rubbed his lips together a few times to give them some colour and when he felt he had left sufficient time so they wouldn’t think he had bugger all else to do, he pressed the link to join the call.
An unsmiling Anastasia greeted him, which only served to make him friendlier, to counterbalance her slapped-arse expression.
‘Hi, Anastasia, you’re looking amazing. How are—’
‘Tasha is joining us shortly,’ she cut in.
‘Oh OK. Great. Is everything all right?’
Her phone began to ring. ‘I need to take this,’ she said and turned her back on the screen.
Jay was now wishing he’d joined from his desktop because it was uncomfortable having to hold his phone at the same angle. He always found getting the right angle tricky. Too high and it emphasized his forehead; too low and they could see up his nose. He grabbed a few books and constructed a makeshift stand while making a mental note that a proper stand for this sort of thing would probably be a good investment.
He waited and listened to Anastasia’s side of the conversation. Whoever had called was getting a roasting. Another box appeared on the screen and a very tiny Tasha appeared.
‘Hey, Tasha. Great to see you. How’s things?’ he asked.
Anastasia spun around and shushed him loudly before turning her back again.
Tasha rapidly stuck up two fingers on both hands in a frenzied revolt, which made Jay snort a laugh. Tasha waved at Jay and he waved back.
‘You OK?’ he mouthed, emphasizing the question with a thumbs up and a big smile followed by a thumbs down and a downturned mouth to give her options.
Tasha grinned and mimed that she was thinking hard about her reply. She then held her palm flat and wobbled it.
‘Aww, anything I can do?’ he whispered.
‘Buy me more hours in the day?’ replied Tasha, matching his low voice.
‘Sorry, I’m up to my quota of deals with the devil,’ he said with a shrug.
Tasha laughed and Anastasia glared at her over her shoulder.
This was nice. He really liked Tasha. On paper she was his ideal woman and here she was chatting to him, although very quietly, like old friends. It was quite a change from when they’d worked onUndercover Bulletsand she’d been more than a bit stand-offish.
Anastasia finally ended her call and gave them her full attention. ‘I need to run some dates past you. Obviously you need to make film promo your absolute priority, but both your agents have said I need to check first before confirming.’ She did nothing to hide her disdain at this.
‘OK, great,’ said Jay. ‘Thanks for org—’
‘Launch week, we have press junkets on the Monday. Radio and all day back-to-back interviews across all majors on Tuesday.Lorraine,The One Showand Graham Norton are the Thursday but Graham’s will be aired the following day and I’m trying my absolute hardest to get us a premiere in Leicester Square. So keep the Saturday free. Got it?’
‘Oh, sorry, was I meant to be writing it down?’ asked Jay, searching for a pen and sticky notes.
