Fuck, I needed a cup of coffee. And a cold shower. But I was likely to get only one of those things anytime soon.
“You okay in there, Bee?” Cammy called through the closed door.
“Coming,” I called as I rolled my shoulders back, trying my best to emit got-my-shit-together energy as I strolled out the door. “Do we have time to swing by craft services?”
She brushed past me in a hurry to get the door for me and my dress, which felt more like an entourage than any piece of clothing should. “Officially, no, but unofficially, no one can make this movie without you, so if you need coffee, we need coffee.”
The rush of cold morning air immediately turned my sweat into a cold chill as Nolan’s eyes caught mine from where he stood down the street, talking to Pearl. Or rather, where Pearltalkedathim while Nolan’s hungry gaze followed my every move. “Yeah, I’m gonna need that coffee.”
“Pearl, Nolan! Do either of you want anything from craft services?” Cammy bellowed down the street.
Pearl shook her head as she pulled up the hood of her floor-length lilac puffer coat. “I usually don’t eat before I’ve had my morning kombucha.”
“Nolan?” Cammy asked.
“I can always eat,” he said, catching his lower lip between his teeth.
This morning we were filming the scene where Felicity said a tearful goodbye to the duke in the gazebo at the center of town, after accompanying him to his Christmas ball the night before only to decide she had to return back to modern times to apologize to her sister for stealing their deceased mother’s gingerbread recipe.
In between takes, Luca slithered into the crowd of crew members and tilted his sunglasses down in my direction with a grimace. I was pretty sure that was his attempt at apologizing. By the looks of it, though, his hangover was punishment enough.
“I guess it’s a good thing we didn’t tag along with them last night,” Nolan said under his breath as Maya patted my under eye with a tissue before retouching my makeup.
I’d surprised myself (and, I think, everyone else) when I was able to muster honest-to-goodness tears on camera. Gretchen assured me we had several products on hand to stimulate the tears, but all it took was imagining what would happen ifNolan weren’t the only person who recognized me on set. Or maybe that wasn’t it. I don’t know, but over the last few days, I could feel something inside of me that I’d been pushing away for years begin to rise to the surface.
When Teddy called me about this job, I thought I’d come here, deliver a few cheesy lines, and wear some pretty dresses. But I didn’t expect for this unsettling yet thrilling vulnerability to take hold of me every time the cameras started rolling. I could feel myself really and truly starting to want this, and that terrified me.
We did two more takes of me blubbering and Nolan staring into the distance as the duke morphed back into his chilly self in the face of heartbreak before Gretchen called, “Cut! This is looking great on my end. The connection between you both is so on point.”
Nolan glanced over to me, but I kept my eyes trained on Gretchen.
“I think you two are on your own for a few hours but check in with Cammy before you disappear. We had a few last-minute changes to the call sheet. One of the horses had a dental exam yesterday and is still feeling a little woozy.”
“So no horses tonight?” I asked with relief. I didn’t have a problem with horses. It’s not like I wanted to see the hooved demons get shipped off to the glue factory. I just planned on doing everything in my power to avoid them. A shiver rolled through me as I imagined their creepy humanlike teeth... just chomping.
My question went unanswered, but Cammy was already shoving new call sheets into our hands with updated scenenumbers. “You’re both free until three. Go wild,” she deadpanned.
I clutched the sheet to my chest and marched over to Luca, who stood waiting with the puffy, insulated shawl-blanket I wore between takes.
“Good morning,” I said, trying and failing to sound brisk.
“Is it morning?” he asked as he searched his head for his sunglasses.
“They’re on your face,” I told him as I stepped past him with the shawl pulled tight around my shoulders. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
He nodded. “Tuesday night is half off apps and Jell-O shots at the North Pole.”
“I was thinking more along the lines ofsorry, but that certainly does explain your no-show this morning.”
“Iamsorry,” he admitted. “Things got... sloppy last night.”
“Sloppy bad or sloppy good?”
His lips split into a slaphappy grin. “Sloppy good. Real good. Like best-I’ve-ever-had good.”
My jaw dropped. “You and Angel?” Finally. The two of them had been making fuck-me eyes at each other for the last year. I guess all either of them needed was to get the hell out of Los Angeles.
He nodded. “And then that after-sex sleep hit, and before I knew it I’d slept through three alarms. It didn’t help that my phone was technically on silent and inside the pocket of my leather Balenciaga fanny pack.”
