Costars (New York City Bad Boy Romance) (6 page)

Chapter Five

The Guru

Emma

I can’t believe I’m doing this. I really
can’t.

“Damian?” I ask, tapping my costar on the
shoulder.

“Yeah?” he answers, turning around. He
turns back to the pair of his groupies that apparently work on the sound staff,
saying, “I’ll talk to you later,” and he turns back toward me.

“You remember how you said that you’ve
been in the business long enough to know how to deal with certain things?” I ask.

“You
did
do porn!” he exclaims. “I knew it! Pouty lips like that, there’s no way some
skeevy producer doesn’t pick you out for a role in his buddy’s next project.”

“No, I’m not—Damian, I didn’t do porn,” I
tell him after managing to get him to stop bouncing with excitement.

He stops bouncing.

“Oh,” he says. “Well, that’s a shame. I
was really looking forward to a viewing party. Oh well,” he says and claps his
hands, “how else can I be of service to you today?”

“Well, it’s not porn…exactly,” I start.

A smile creeps back up Damian’s face.

“It’s nothing too bad, really,” I tell
him. “I had a boyfriend a year or so ago who took some naked pictures of me and
now he’s trying to blackmail me with them and he’s given me seventy-two hours,
twenty-six of which have passed, to decide whether I’m going to pay him $5,000
a month for the next seventeen years or if I’m going to end up on the front
page of every tabloid for the first time in my career, only it’s not going to
be some kind of bad gossip or award win that’s going to put me there on the
covers. No, it’s going to be those stupid pictures that my stupid ex took
almost two years ago, and I’m going to be a fucking laughing stock for the rest
of my life.”

I realize that I’m breathing a little
heavy, so I do my best to relax.

“That’s quite the story,” he says. “You
know the guy’s got the pictures?”

“Of course he has them,” I answer. “He’s
the one that took them. It was his camera.”

“Yeah, but have you
seen
the pictures?” he asks.

“Well,” I think back, “no. Come to think
of it, I
never
saw those pictures.
You think he’s just trying to lie his way into seven figures?”

“I don’t know,” Damian says. “What I do
know is that I wouldn’t even consider paying that kind of cash unless I knew
for a fact he had the pictures and copies.”

“He said that he’s already attached the
photos to two emails, one to the LA Times and one to E! He told me that if he
doesn’t put in a password every so often, they’ll send on their own. Is that
even possible?” I ask.

“Actually, it is,” Damian says. “It’s
pretty easy to set up, too, but that’s neither here nor there. I’d say the
first thing you need to do is contact him and have him give you proof the
pictures exist and that he has them.”

“What happens after that?” I ask.

He’s being quite helpful right now. It’s
kind of making me nervous.

“That depends on him, really,” Damian
says. “If it turns out he doesn’t have the pictures, you call him an asshole
and hang up on him.”

“If it turns out that he
does
have the pictures?” I ask.

“Well, that depends on you, really,”
Damian says. “Just how racy are the photos?”

“I’m naked in them,” I tell him, “but it’s
not like I’m doing stuff with anyone.”

“Are you masturbating in the photos?” he
asks.

“I really don’t think that’s any of your
business,” I snap.

“The reason I’m asking is that some
pictures of you naked might actually help your career, but pictures of you
naked and masturbating are going to alienate a whole lot of people,” he says.

“What difference does it make?” I ask.

“For some people, it’s the difference
between heaven and hell. Can you imagine?” he asks. “Anyway, so are you
flicking the bean or not?”

“Not,” I tell him. “I’m just naked in the
water.”

“Can you even see anything?” Damian asks.

“Well, again, I haven’t actually seen any
of the pictures, but I don’t think much is left to the imagination,” I tell
him. “It was low tide.”

“Okay,” he says. “So, you’ve got an ex
who’s blackmailing you with some old nudie pics you had him take back when the
two of you were a thing. You haven’t seen the pictures, you don’t know if they
actually exist, but even if they do get out, there’s no sexual contact going
on, only nudity. Fuck it,” he says, “I’d save my money and wait for the book
offers to start rolling in.”

“Book off—” I start.

“People are into weird shit,” Damian says.
“A lot of people are going to say that being betrayed like this humanizes you
and a lot of other people are going to say that it humanizes you too much, that
your mystique is gone and they’ll call for you to drop out of the spotlight.
There are going to be parents groups and church groups that condemn you for
acting in a manner that’s immoral and sets a bad example. While women are
generally going to be understanding and sympathetic, there are going to be a
lot of them that start calling you a skank.”

“What about men?” I ask. “We’ve covered
just about every other demographic. How would they react to those pictures?”

Damian smiles and says, “How do you
think?”

Well, this is just great.

“Overall, this really isn’t going to hurt
you that much. You’re going to have a lot of people in the media turn on you,
but even more will hop on your bandwagon, either because they want to fuck you
or because they want to make some cash off the fact that you got fucked,”
Damian says. “Overall, though,” he repeats, “this really isn’t going to hurt
you that much.”

“So you’re saying I should just tell him
to go screw himself and let what happens happen?” I ask.

“I’d start by finding out whether those
pictures are real or not,” he says. “Pay attention. So that’s the worst case
scenario of you not paying him off. If you
do
decide to pay him off,” Damian continues, “you run the risk that he ups the
price on you or that the million only gets you some, not all of the pictures or
that he otherwise tries to screw you. Best case scenario, he keeps his mouth
shut, keeps the pictures in his drawer, and you end up paying him a shitload of
money. Yeah,” he says, “I’d say you’re pretty well fucked.”

“I think the real worst case scenario
would be the pictures get released and nobody cares,” I mutter.

“There’s always that,” he says. “I really
don’t think you’ve got to worry about something like that happening, though.”

“
Why’s
that?” I
ask.

“So,” he says, “we’ve got a few minutes
before we’re halfway through waiting for the next scene to get set up. Why
don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself?”

“What? Why?” I ask.

“Call it a favor for a favor,” he says.
“So, what happened with the guy who’s blackmailing you? I can’t imagine he was
that good of a boyfriend if he’s the kind of person that’s willing to do this
to you.”

“He wasn’t,” I answer. “He wasn’t a very
good person in general, actually.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Damian says.
“Isn’t that a weird kind of response to the situation? What else is there to
say, though? After a while in the dating world, everyone dates a few people
that should earn them a sorry, I guess. Were the two of you serious?”

“I was,” I answer. “I think. I don’t know
that I was really all that serious about making it work with him. It was more
that I was terrified of not being able to make a relationship work at all. I
was just out of high school, and I was really insecure because I hadn’t really
dated all that much, and why the hell am I telling you this?” I ask.

“I’m in the room,” he says.

Something in the way he says it convinces
me to keep going, so I talk for a while about the nightmare that dating Ben
really was and Damian just keeps nodding as I go.

“I don’t know, I guess if nothing else, he
taught me that true love is a myth,” I conclude.

“Why do you say that?” Damian asks.

“We all just put whatever we want to see
on whomever we’re with,” I tell him. “Most of the time I was with Ben, I didn’t
see him as a neglectful, emotionally abusive dick. I saw him as the man that I
loved, a man who was so patient with me that even when I was making all of
these mistakes in my life, he would still take the time to tell me where I
should go from there. It’s a rosy version of the truth, no doubt, but for a
while, it was my only truth.”

“I guess you could say that we have a
tendency to put our hopes on those we’re with,” Damian says, “but I don’t think
that rules out love.”

“What’s love, though, if you’re never sure
if your feelings for someone you’re with are there because of who it is they
actually are or because they just happen to be fitting your narrative closely
enough that you can scrawl out some of the details that you’d rather ignore?” I
ask.

“I would imagine being conscious helps,”
Damian laughs. “All it takes to see whether or not you really like a person is
to spend some time with them. Either you’ll find yourself making excuses for
their behavior or you’ll find yourself actually enjoying it. It’s really not
that hard.”

“If it’s so easy,” I tell him, “wouldn’t
that mean that I should have developed a solid idea about whether or not I like
you by now, too? We’ve spent some time together alone.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Damian responds.
“Dinner, maybe, I guess, but I really doubt you were sitting there with that
question on your mind.”

“Jones!” someone behind me calls out and I
turn around.

Trey, one of the set’s security guys is
waving Damian over to him.

“Well, uh,” Damian says, “I’ve got to
go—I’ll talk to you later.”

“All right,” I tell him. “Thanks for the
advice, I guess.”

He didn’t really help me figure anything
out, but he did seem to put some effort into trying.

“How much longer do you have to decide?”
he asks.

“A little less than two days,” I tell him.

“Okay,” Damian says. “Let’s talk about
this more before you make any definite choices here. Until then, see if you can
work out a way to see if he has those pictures for yourself. There’s no sense
dragging this whole thing on if he doesn’t actually have the goods.”

“Thanks,” I tell him again. “I really do
appreciate it.”

“Roxy!” Dutch calls out from across the room
and I walk over to talk to him as Damian makes his way up to the security guy.

“Hey, Dutch,” I say as I come close enough
to the director, “are we ready for my next scene yet?”

“Not quite,” Dutch says. “You do know that
we’re going to be shooting your big scene with Damian next week, right?”

“My big scene?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Dutch answers, “the intimate scene
between your two characters.”

“Okay, yeah, what about it?” I ask.

“I’ve never worked with you before,” he
says, “so I don’t really know everything you can do. One of the things that’ll
kill a movie like this faster than an outbreak of salmonella in the popcorn
butter is a romantic pair that doesn’t look good showing their affection with
one another.”

“What are you suggesting?” I ask.

“Jones has been in this business a while,
and I’ve even had the chance to work with him a couple of times. He knows what
I like to see from a pair,” Dutch says. “The two of you should set up time to
go over your mannerisms that way.”

“All right,” I answer dismissively.

“I’m serious,” he says. “I can’t have a
romantic comedy where the guy and the girl look like they’re kissing their relatives.”

“Look, I know that I’m not all that
experienced in major films,” I say, “but wouldn’t it work just as well if I
talk to an acting coach?”

“Look,” he says, “I don’t care about your
performances after this movie. What I care about is that the two of you look
good kissing and all that other stuff.”

“So what do you suggest that Damian and I
do to make sure we’re on the same page?” I ask.

Dutch smirks and chuckles, saying, “I’m
sure the two of you can figure something out. Whatever you do, just do it
before next week. I really can’t afford to hold up shooting because the two of
you don’t know how to look like you’re actually comfortable kissing each
other.”

With that, Dutch spots someone else that
he needs to talk to more pressingly than me and he runs off after him.

All around, people are going.

Everywhere around me, people are walking
with purpose, performing their tasks, moving on to the next one: All of them
have something to do.

Me, on the other hand? I’m in between
takes and the only thing I have to do right now is figure out a way to make it
look like Damian and I have the kind of physical chemistry that will translate
onto film.