“This is Riley, head of IT,” Elliot said.
“And I’m her underling,” Noah said with a grin.
“Are you though?” Riley quipped, “because you never do what I tell you.” I instantly liked her. She had olive skin that glowed against the pop of her hair and bright, inquisitive eyes that shone with mischief. “Come on in.”
Elliot and I shuffled into what was little more than a box room, with multiple thin server towers, a row of cabinets and then a shelving wall full of neatly labeled storage boxes. A large desk crowded with computers and laptops was stained with coffee rings, while any free wall space was decorated with posters of almost every computer game I’d ever heard of, and many I hadn’t.
“This is where we keep all RJF masters, plus the office server,” Riley explained to me. “If you give us a minute, I’ll set you up with your equipment.”
Noah nudged Elliot. “Is it true you brought Parker Neil in to scoreWoodstock?” he said.
“It is,” Elliot said.
“That guy only scores for the likes of Nolan and Del Toro,” Noah said. “How did you convince him?”
“Pitched hard,” Elliot said with a shrug.
“So RJ has you involved in crewing up as well as writing?” I asked.
“RJ has me doing most stuff,” Elliot said.
“Elliot’s like RJ’s second hand,” Riley added. “And his third hand.”
“Third, fourth, fifth,” Noah said with a laugh.
Riley heaved a laptop onto her desk. “You’re gonna learn a lot from this guy,” she told me. Elliot’s reaction to this praise was merely to grunt and inspect the poster nearest to him. Riley angled the laptop towards me. “Here, choose a password.” As she looked away, I tapped one in. “Great,” she said when I was done. “Make sure you remember it, because I don’t keep a record of it.” I nodded and she carried on tapping away. “Okay, just going to check the email is working …” While Noah and Elliot chatted about film delivery technology, Riley showed me how to access the central storage drive for all the documents I might need. She pointed to one folder. “This is RJ’s locked file.”
“You have to get the password from me,” Elliot interjected.
“Okay.” I looked at him expectantly.
“Not now,” Elliot said with a scowl. “I’ll log you in when you need access.”
“You can’t just let me have it?” I asked in disbelief. What happened to being joined at the hip and all the trust RJ had been banging on about?
“If you need to access it, you ask me,” he said defiantly.
“Okay. You’re all set,” Riley said, handing over the laptop with its charger.
“Same here.” Noah handed me an iPhone still in its box. “Your email is loaded onto it, as is the calendar, I’ve synced that to Elliot’s seeing as you’ll be working together.”
“Noah.” Elliot’s voice was a growl.
“What?” I said innocently. “We’re meant to be joined at the hip, aren’t we?”
“Are we done?” he demanded to Noah and Riley.
“I release you!” Riley crowed. “Now, go forth and make movie magic.”
“Saywhat’s upto Vivian for me,” Noah said, earning a disgusted look from Riley.
Elliot paused in the doorway. “Noah, no offense, but if you think Vivian is ditching her multimillionaire fiancé for you then I’m seriously concerned for your mental stability.”
“Hey, man, he’s fucking ancient,” Noah said amiably. “What do you think, could I swoop in and offer a supportive shoulder for her to lean on when he inevitably disintegrates into dust?”
“Gross.” Riley threw a USB stick at Noah, missing by several yards. “Ignore this guy,” she said to me. “He has a thing for soulless harpies, please don’t judge the rest of us by him.”
Elliot and I left the pair of them bickering about the state of their love lives and headed back towards the main office.
