Costars (New York City Bad Boy Romance) (17 page)

“I guess,” she says. “What was that about?
Is everything all right?”

Yeah, now she gives a shit.

“I’m fine,” I tell her. “Hey, I was
wondering if there was any chance I might be able to pop in there a little
early and maybe chat with Tag Strawman—” yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s a
pseudonym, “—during the commercial break.”

“Yeah,” she says, picking up her phone
quickly. “That’s not a problem at all.”

I would have imagined that hearing only
one side of that conversation would have shown me to be the victim just about
as well as hearing the whole conversation would have, but the way she’s acting,
it almost seems like she thinks I’m the aggressor.

That nice dose of fear really got her
moving, though.

“You can head on back,” she says. “Here,
let me walk you there.”

While I ponder how she could have heard
any of what I was saying and find me suddenly intimidating, I follow the woman
back to the studio. She doesn’t even wait for the on air light to be off before
she opens the door to the studio.

“…and hey, look who just came into the
studio. It’s the star of what promises to be the hottest summer movie of the
year, Emma Roxy. It’s good to have you in the studio,” he says. “How are you
doing?”

Shit, I think I just talked my way into
starting the interview early. There goes my prep.

“I’m doing great,” I tell him. “I’m glad
to be here.”

“I was just talking about how actors in
the movie industry genuinely
do
have
things pretty rough in some ways,” he says. “You can’t go out of your house
without someone stopping you for an autograph—I mean, that’s never happened to
me, but I’ve heard that it’s just irritating.”

“It’s not so bad,” I tell him.

“Then you’re not that famous,” he says.
“I’m
tellin
’
ya
.”

Funny guy.

“So, have you had that experience yet
where you’re out on the town and someone just really starts to bug you—like
what’s your thing, what’s the craziest thing that’s happened to you because so
many people know who you are now. I mean, you’re still just starting out, have
you had that—or there’s something personal about your life you never thought
would get out, or…?” He leaves of with the word “or,” so it takes me a couple
of seconds to realize that he’s done asking his question.

“Yeah,” I tell him. “There hasn’t been a
whole lot of that sort of thing for me yet. Most of the people that I meet are
just really nice people who think it’s cool to meet someone they’ve been
hearing about, you know. It’s really, very flattering, very humbling.”

“Didn’t you just kind of contradict
yourself there?” he asks. “Flattering builds you up, being humble means to
recognize your lowness.”

“Well, it’s kind of both,” I tell him.
“It’s flattering that people see me and want to talk to me or wave to me when
they pass me on the street or whatever, but it’s also humbling because I’m just
a redheaded chick from the Midwest, you know. If anything,” I tell him, “I
guess it’s been kind of surreal.”

“Well that’s good,” he says. “Hang onto
that. A lot of the people I talk to come in here and they’re talking about fans
that are showing up on their doorstep or doing all these crazy things—I talked
to Aaron Wills a while ago and he said there was a huge fallout on his social
media when he announced that he preferred Chinese food to American food. It’s
so crazy. People were talking about boycotting his work and all this.”

“It’s weird what people choose to care
about,” I tell him. “If anything, that’s what I’ve noticed. Things that
wouldn’t even be a big deal if it was just someone you knew, but if it’s
happening to this celebrity or that, it seems like that can sometimes get a
little out of hand.”

“It sounds like you’re talking from
experience there,” he says.

“Not really,” I tell him. “Like I said,
most of the people I’ve met have been—”

“Notice how she says
most
of the people there?” Tag asks the unseen masses.

“—they’ve been really great,” I finish.

“I see,” he says. “So what’s it like
working on this film? I know you’re no stranger to the busy side of film, but
this really is kind of a breakthrough role, isn’t it?”

“Well, I think I’m going to wait until the
movie’s out and people see it to decide whether it’s my breakout role or not,”
I tell him. “But yeah, it is a different ballgame. There are some similarities,
but a lot of differences.”

“Has it been difficult to adjust?” Tag
asks.

“Not really,” I tell him. “Damian kind of
found me the first day and he offered to be my mentor, so that was pretty
cool.”

“That’s Damian Jones?” he asks. “He
offered to be your mentor, huh?”

“Yeah,” I answer. “To be honest, I thought
he was a bit full of himself at the time, but getting to know him, he’s a
really great guy.”

“So you’d say you have a good relationship
with Damian Jones on and off the screen,” he says.

“That’s a great question,” I tell Tag.
“You should ask him, because I have no idea what kind of relationship we…”

With absolutely no illusion that the on
air light is off, I still look up at it.

When I look back, Tag is sitting there
looking like he just won the lottery.

“So maybe it’s a little more than just an
off-screen friendship?” Tag asks.

Oh shit. I didn’t want this to get out,
and I know this isn’t going to help Damian decide anything positive about our
relationship.

Maybe I can walk it back.

“No, just,” I start, “we tease each other
a lot on set and so it’s hard to know if he’s going to be serious Damian or
funny Damian or…”

“Yeah, but that’s not what you said,” Tag
responds.

I’m really starting to hate this guy.

“I said that I don’t know what kind of
relationship we have,” I try again, “because you never know which Damian you’re
going to get on a given day. Sometimes he’s himself and he’s playing around,
other times, he’s in character mode, you know.”

“How long has this been going on?” he
asks, “your relationship with Damian Jones.”

“Our relationship—our
friendship
started not too long after we started filming. The whole
cast, really are great—”

He interrupts, “So you’re going to deny
that there’s any kind of sexual relationship between you and Damian Jones,
right here in front of thousands of listeners.”

It really doesn’t sound like a question.

“We’re coworkers,” I tell Tag. “We get
along; that’s all I’m saying.”

“Well, hopefully we can get Damian Jones
in here one day to see if he’ll tell us a little more about this relationship
the two of you have. Until then, we’ve got to take a quick commercial break.
I’m talking with Emma Roxy, star of the new film with her possible lover,
Damian Jones. When we get back, we’ll see if we can get Emma to open up a
little bit more about her relationship with Damian Jones. This is KTNA,” he
says.

The interview was supposed to go from four
o’clock to four-fifteen, but I got in this room at three-fifty and it looks
like he’s going to keep me for the whole fucking set. Being early has just
bought me ten more minutes dodging questions about my relationship with Damian.

I don’t want people to think that I’m only
in this movie because I’m sleeping with Damian, but even more than that,
I
don’t want to feel like that’s the
only reason I am where I am, and it’s really starting to get harder and harder
to avoid.

“Well that was a segment for the
archives,” he says. “I’m sorry I pestered you so much there, but you’ve got to
understand what that kind of insight is when you do what I do. I couldn’t just
let it slide.”

“I didn’t even say anything,” I tell him.
“I didn’t even get to finish my sentence and then you saw whatever you wanted
to see in what little you didn’t interrupt.”

I’m hoping that’s going to work.

“Yeah, well either way,” he says, “we’ve
already brought up the topic, and I don’t know if you can see these flashing
lights from where you are, but that is every line to the radio station in use,
and I’m willing to bet that every single one of them is calling to ask you
about your relationship with Damian Jones.”

“I’m done talking about it,” I tell him.
“If you ask me any more about it, I’m not going to answer.”

Maybe I should have threatened to walk
out, but I’m still hoping to do a little damage control and I can’t do that if
I make the threat too much to follow through with.

“I won’t ask about it again,” he says.

I should know that’s not the end of it,
but stupid me, I just say, “Thank you.”

The commercial ends and Tag gets back on
the microphone. “And we’re back with Emma Roxy. Now we’re going to go to the
phones and get some of your questions for our guest.”

I really should have seen that coming.

“It looks like we’ve got Marley from Las
Cruces on the phone. Hi, Marley. What’s your question for Emma Roxy?” he asks.

What an asshole.

“Yeah,” Marley from Las Cruces says, “I
was calling about that thing you said about you and Damian. Like, is he a good
kisser?”

This is going to suck.

I get through the interview all right, I
guess, but every single question is about Damian. It wasn’t even that bad a
slip of the tongue, but when people are already looking for something, they
have a tendency to find it pretty quick.

Once the interview’s over and we’re back
at commercial, Tag claps his hands and says, “That was great. I bet that’s the
best ratings we get all month.”

“Yeah, thanks,” I tell him and walk out of
the room.

Maybe I should be a little less obvious in
regard to how pissed I am at this
fuckhead
right now
because there’s a good chance and tells his listeners if I’m not, but I really
just want to get the hell out of here and it needs to happen right now.

When I finally get home, I gather my
courage and look at my phone.

Forty-seven missed calls.

For a period lasting no longer than an
hour, that’s a personal record for me.

I look through the missed calls for one
name in particular, but it’s heartwarming to know that so many people I know
were listening in. Really, that’s what I’m taking out of this.

I’m not being sarcastic.

Seriously.

Right, well bullshit aside, I find the
name that I was looking for and I press the screen to call him back.

“Hey, so we’re coming out of the
relationship closet, huh?” Damian asks as he answers the phone.

“I’m sorry about that,” I tell him. “I
said one stupid thing and then the DJ wouldn’t let go of it and the callers
just made it worse. I really am sorry, I didn’t mean for it to go that way.”

“It had to happen sooner or later,” he
says. “I bungled the fuck out of a scene today and afterward, Tammy came up to
me to inform me there’s a rumor going around about us.”

“Yeah, she told me about that too,” I say.

“Yeah, so all things considered, I guess
it was inevitable. Still, it would have been nice if we’d actually gotten to
make that decision ourselves, but I can think of worse things than being in a
relationship with you,” he says.

There’s a knock on my door.

“I’m actually kind of surprised to hear
that,” I tell him as I get up from my chair and walk toward the entryway. “This
morning, it didn’t seem like you were open to any kind of discussion, much less
a solid decision.”

“I guess I just needed a little push,” he
says. “But you know about Danna and you know that there are going to be times
when I’m going to have to be with her and help her and stuff, so really, we may
as well have come out with this already.”

Okay, that’s a little irritating.

“I really wish we could have gotten this
far this morning,” I tell him and unlock the deadbolt. “If we’d come to some
sort of understanding, Tammy’s gossip thing probably wouldn’t have been on my
mind so much and I wouldn’t have been so irritated with the girl at the desk
and… I would… Damian, I’m going to have to call you back,” I tell him and hang
up the phone.

“Want me to come over?” he asks. “You’re
probably in for a shit storm.”

“Yeah,” I tell him. “I think you’re right
about that.”

I’ve opened the door and, standing on the
other side waiting for me to answer is the last person in the world that I want
to see.

No, it’s not Ben.

It’s my father.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. “I told
you that I didn’t want to see you again.”

“Now is that any way to greet your old
man,” he says, stinking of the same cheap whiskey he used to drink when I was
growing up.

“You didn’t drive, did you?” I ask.