Shaking his head, Sandro slammed the door firmly shut on the memory of his and Bennett’s first meeting and forced a smile for Eli. “Tomorrow. Coffee. Super.”
Eli beamed and took his roasted vegetables into another room.
Oh-so casually, Roman plucked the remaining chicken skewer off Sandro’s plate and took a bite. “So. Want to tell me what’s going on between you and Bennett Jackson?”
“There’s nothing going on.”
“If you’re going to lie to me, at least come up with something better.”
But it wasn’t a lie. There was nothing between them, not anymore, and there never would be again.
chapter two
“What’s the plan for today?”
Bennett Jackson risked a sideways glance at his camera operator in the passenger seat and followed the directions on his GPS to Burlington’s Sport U Arena, home of the Vermont Trailblazers. Fowler Bugg, a wizened Hollywood vet who’d seen it all from behind the camera, as evidenced by the thick gray hair, quickly muted the phone hooked up to the car’s Bluetooth system. “Didn’t we go over the plan with David yesterday? Why’s he asking again?”
“It’s fine,” Bennett said, biting off a sigh. He’d landed in Burlington less than twelve hours ago and had already fielded three calls from his executive producer. Four, now. He unmuted the phone. “We’ll be observing today. Seeing where there are opportunities for us to insert ourselves into the Trailblazers’ practices and meetings without being too intrusive.”
“It’s literally your job to be intrusive,” David said matter-of-factly.
Bennett ignored that. If he had to explain one more time that putting four camera operators in the locker room, as David wanted, would only cause the players to censor themselves, he’d lose his ever-loving shit. Besides, according to the contract David had sent him, Bennett’s camera crew was banned from the locker room anyway.
Rectifying that was on his to-do list for the day.
“We’re still looking for the right storytelling approach,” he said, continuing with the same explanation he’d given David yesterday. “Right now, all we have is a bunch of random footage from the camera crew we sent in last month, and it’s . . .” He turned on the windshield wipers and tried to find a nicer word for boring.
“Uninspired?” David offered.
Bennett winced. Was that better or worse than boring?
As the combination director, editor, and associate producer, Bennett had been the one to send in the advance camera crew with instructions to film practices and games and, more importantly, interactions between the players.
So the boring, uninspired footage was on him.
But also on the Trailblazers because they had about a zillion rules about where Bennett and his crew could and couldn’t go within the arena. And if they couldn’t have the access to the players that they needed, the footage would continue to be boring and uninspired.
At which point, he might as well hang up his filmmaking credentials and call it a day. If a six-part docuseries about hockey wasn’t as exciting to watch as an actual game . . .
Then he had a problem.
“Sure,” he said, turning into the arena’s parking garage. “Uninspired. Which is why we’ll be observing practices and player interactions over the next few days, camera-free, to figure out the angle for the series and the best storytelling approach.”
“The angle is that they’re four-time Stanley Cup champions and that they’ve won the championship the past two years in a row. The story is that they’re the defending champions.”
The parking machine spit out a ticket. Bennett nabbed it with more force than strictly necessary, tucking it into the cup holder in the center console as the barrier arm lifted.
“That’s a story,” Bennett argued. “Not necessarily the story.”
“It’s also not the one you pitched to him,” Fowler muttered under his breath.
Bennett shot him a don’t go there glance as David said, “What was that?”
Fowler shot him a very clear are you going to shut him down or am I? look.
Amusement settling over top of his annoyance, Bennett backed into a parking spot. “Nothing. Listen, we’ve arrived at the arena, so I’m going to let you go. I’ll send you a progress update in a couple of days.”
“Tonight,” David said, the command holding a note of finality over the car’s speakers. “I want daily updates via email until I’m confident you’re taking this in the right direction. I don’t want a repeat of what happened with Chain of Command.”
