Dazzled (14 page)

Oh. Yeah, the PA should have been on that. I’d have to have a word with her.

Miles dropped the script on the couch and ran to his bedroom. I followed at a more leisurely pace, not being particularly bothered that he was going to be a few minutes late. I mean, it was his last session with her, so it hardly mattered.

I opened my mouth to expound on that theory, when the words dried in my throat. He had his back to me, and was naked except for a pair of tight fitting boxer briefs with the word
Wicked
printed across the backside.
Thank you, Ellen
. God, I wanted to pinch that pert arse, run my hands up the hard lines of his back, and massage his defined shoulder muscles. Then lick them. Maybe nibble a little. Or a lot.

“She’s going to kill me,” he muttered to himself.

Oh, you’d better believe it, baby! I’d ride you till you passed out from exhaustion, feed you a bacon sandwich, hose you down and start again.

Oh… he was probably talking about Hilda, not me. Bloody hell. I really needed to get my head in the game. I was here to help him, not ogle mindlessly, although…

“I’ll come with you,” I said.

He jumped slightly, not realizing I was standing in the doorway, then frowned.

“It’ll just be sweaty and boring,” he replied.

Yeah, hate that… Miles, all sweaty.
Mmm.
Get a bloody grip. No! Not like that!

“And, um, I jog to the gym.”

“Bugger that!”

He grinned. “I thought that’s what you’d say.”

I watched as he pulled on another pair of sweatpants that hadn’t felt the wrath of my scissors, an Al Stewart t-shirt with cover artwork from
Russians and Americans
, and his running shoes. He winked and ran out of the door.

Miles

I thought Hilda would take it easy on our last day. Yeah, I was wrong about 180 degrees.

“Come on!” she yelled. “Move your ass! Faster!”

Fuck, I was really glad I’d brushed off every offer she’d made for us to get together. I mean, hell, I could just imagine her shouting stuff like that during sex – it would really put a man off his stride. But whatever I thought about her personally (and not much of it was good), she was one helluva fitness trainer. Although, maybe wanting to do the work just to get away from her was not the kind of motivation most trainers used. I hoped.

One hundred and fifty excruciating minutes later, we were done. I was definitely done. I wasn’t even sure how I was managing to live without a life support system, or oxygen at the very least.

I was nearly on my hands and knees as I hobbled toward the men’s locker room. My t-shirt and sweatpants were ringing with sweat and I probably smelled like a skunk.

I set the shower to lukewarm and let it pour over my head… until I heard Hilda’s voice a few feet away.

“So, Miles. Last day an’ all. How about that veggie juice?”

What the fuck?

“Jeez, Hilda, I’m naked in here!”

“Oh, get over yourself, Miles. I’ve seen it all before, baby. I used to physio for the Oregon Ducks.”

Who? What?

“When you’ve seen one dick, you’ve seen them all.”

Did she say ‘dick’ or ‘duck’?

“Um, right.”

“But I prefer one-on-one these days.”

Holy crap!

She paused. “So, get your pale ass out of the shower and we can head on out.”

“Actually, Hilda…”

“Don’t even think about blowing me off!”

Shit
. “Okay, sure, but just for half an hour. I have a shed load of things to sort out before tomorrow.” I waited, but she didn’t reply. Perhaps she’d gone?

I turned off the water and peered around the shower stall. I nearly jumped out of my skin when Hilda handed me a towel, a scary-ass smile on her face.

“Bloody hell, Hilda! Give a guy some privacy!”

“You Brits are so adorable,” she laughed. “I love all that shy guy stuff – it’s cute.”

“Yeah, whatever, just… go, will you?!”

She was really getting on my nerves.

But when I left the locker room, Hilda’s eyes had narrowed to slits and she was giving a death stare to someone on the other side of the room. I turned around and saw…

“Clare! Hiya! I didn’t know you were coming here,”
but thank God you did.

I was pretty certain she’d saved me from a fate worse than death. I was such a wuss.

“Yeah, well, you ran out this morning before I’d finished my breakfast,” she said, pointedly.

Hilda scowled, and for once I was quite happy to let another woman believe that I was dating Clare.

“Think I’ll take a raincheck on our
date
, Miles,” said Hilda. “I’ll look you up when you get back to LA.”

I half expected to see Clare disappear in a cloud of dust particles from the way Hilda was glaring at her.

“Um, right,” I offered vaguely, and Hilda’s lip curled.

She reminded me of an Alsatian that had lived next door to my mum when I was a kid. I actually took a step back in case she decided to bite. Hilda freaked me out.

She stalked out of the room, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Tell you what, Clare, you have great timing,” I said.

She shook her head in disbelief.

“Miles! When are you going to toughen up? She would have had you for breakfast and spat out a bunch of bones at the end!”

“I know,” I said, hanging my head. “I’m pathetic. I just, you know, I hate being rude to people.”

Clare looked at me evenly.

“Well, it’s not really fair of you to leave it up in the air. All this time, she probably thought she had a chance with you.”

“That’s bullshit! I never gave her a single ounce of encouragement.”

“Are you really that dim?” Clare snorted. “That’s not enough – you have to be really clear. Just say something like, ‘I’m flattered, but we’re going to be keeping it professional’.”

“Oh, that’s good. Okay, I’ll remember that one. Thanks, Clare.”

She was right – I was an idiot. God, it would be nice to just meet an ordinary girl for a change, you know? Have a few dates, get to know her slowly. Not just some random hook up where you got a strange tongue rammed down your throat. Well, okay, sometimes that was good, too, but that had usually only happened when I was drunk, and it was almost always a mistake. Um, make that
always
a mistake. Except that time with the Swedish air stewardess – she was hot. And maybe one other time.

Clare was watching me curiously.

“Are we going, or what? You have a script to learn.”

“Yes, boss.”

We’d dissected the script so many times I could see Clare’s eyes crossing at the thought of
yet another
read through. She didn’t complain; she didn’t have to – I could see it written all over her face.

It had been hard work, but it was getting easier. I didn’t want to come over as near illiterate when I started rehearsals with Lilia and Jo-Anne, fumbling and fluffing my way through the lines. I just hoped that there weren’t too many rewrites on set, or I was screwed.

I’d made a load of notes on the script, too – ideas about how I’d play the character – as well as thinking about some kind of back story for him, for Nuriel. Believe me, that wasn’t easy. I mean, he was an angel – literally, wings, harp, Birkenstocks, the whole gig. Okay, well, not the Birkenstocks and I hadn’t seen a harp mentioned, although the guy was supposed to play the guitar. I could just about fake that. I’d played guitar before I took up the sax. I was a bit rusty, but good enough to fake it in the movie. I hoped. I’d bought a cheap guitar from a guy I found on Craigslist, then spent a few days practicing. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it.

“Hey, play me that Sam Callahan song,” said Clare, the first evening I’d brought the guitar home.

I’d met Sam when we were both gigging at the Venue in South East London one night. He was a cool guy – wrote some great lyrics.

“Yeah, okay. Which one?”

“The one about being crazy in love. That’s my favorite.”

I ran my fingers along the neck of the guitar, pulling the tune out of my memory, digging it from the dark matter that made up my brain cells, and started to play.

Sometimes alone, I felt so lost.

You were all that I wanted.

And it felt like everyone thought it was wrong being together.

But we can do most anything.

Whatever we want to.

Just lean on me and I’ll rely on you.

I know, know it sounds insane,

But girl, girl, you do something to me.

You gotta know I’m crazy for you,

And if you’re crazy for me,

We can be crazy together,

Baby, there’ll be no in-between.

I tell you there’s no holding back,

and I’ll only say words that I mean.

I wanna be crazy forever,

So say you wanna be crazy with me?

Clare’s eyes had this sort of drowsy look about them when I finished. I think that meant she liked it, even though I was pretty rusty.

“I love that song,” she sighed. “It’s so sweet. And Sam’s pretty hot, too.”

“Yeah, whatever,” I mumbled.

But it didn’t matter what I really sounded like when I played in those scenes for the movie – they’d add the soundtrack later anyway. Whatever I could do to prepare seemed like a good idea.

At least I wasn’t so nervous about taking my shirt off on camera now. Jo-Anne had said that there’d be a personal trainer available to help me from blobbing out on the shoot. Not Hilda, thank God, although I had to admit she’d really whipped me into shape. Yeah, it was the whips that worried me. Actually, no, that wasn’t true. Just being alone with Hilda scared the shit out of me.

Thank God for Clare.

The next morning I felt strangely calm as we packed our bags ready to go on location. I could see Clare watching me out of the corner of my eye, waiting for me to freak out. But I didn’t. Maybe because it felt like there wasn’t anything more I could do. I was as prepared as I could be. I knew my lines, I was in shape, and my head was in a good place. For the first time I felt like I could do this.

Yeah, that lasted until the studio car arrived.

I wished it was Earl who was driving us, but he preferred to stick to jobs in LA. He said he didn’t like being away from his family. It made me feel guilty for not phoning mum more often. I made a mental note to do that as soon as I could.

The new driver didn’t speak much. I was even considering the possibility he was mute, but then I heard him talking on his cell phone, so I guess he just didn’t want to talk to me. Or Clare. She was enjoying herself, looking out of the window and chatting away.

“We definitely have to do this drive when you finish filming. It would be unreal: you, me, a car, and miles of California highway to cruise. Imagine the mayhem!”

That didn’t sound half bad, and I hoped we could make it happen. Clare had missed out on the summer beer fest circuit around
Europe with Nazzer and Paul – I hoped that a trip down the Californian coast would make it up to her. And it did look damn beautiful. I was surprised how wild the landscape was, just a few miles out of LA.

We arrived at
Petaluma late in the afternoon and I was looking forward to having a cold beer at the hotel when we got there. It was hard to remember that I was still underage here, and I really hoped that the staff at the hotel would turn a blind eye.

I eyed the driver, wondering if he was the kind of guy I could ask to buy beer for me – I mean, if I gave him the money. He wasn’t the friendliest ever, but it was worth a try.

We’d turned into a long, private drive that led to the hotel when Clare nudged my elbow.

“Hey, look at that,” she said.

There must have been more than fifty young girls standing in the boiling sun. They were all carrying homemade posters with ‘Nuriel ♥ Esther’ printed on them in crayon and decorated with glitter, and I could see several of the older ones were carrying copies of the book
Dazzled
.