Hitman's Hookup: A Bad Boy Romance (35 page)

I nodded.

"Thank you so much for your help. You've really gone above and beyond here," I spat at him sarcastically.

I turned around and considered wandering over to the bar. Then I remembered that I’d already consumed an entire bottle of red wine with no assistance. I was on my way to being reckless once again, and I couldn't afford to do that with Hailey hanging around waiting to record my every sentence and thought so she could auto-tune it and lay it over a bass line.

Instead I went back upstairs and opened the door to the penthouse. The giggling in there had reached tinnitus-causing volumes.

"Fuck, Hailey, could you shut your groupies the fuck up for five goddamn minutes," I yelled to her. She spun around. She was wearing a short, white satin teddy.

"We're having a party, Wilde. Don't be such a downer!" She cranked the music even louder. I realized with sinking horror that it was my song. All of the women started singing along, pantomime microphones in their hands. I fled before I had to hear even one lyrics.

I went into my bedroom and slammed the door shut behind me. That's when I saw eight Louis Vuitton steamer trunks piled onto every surface. The Cat Guy - I could never remember his name - was bent over a wooden tray filled with litter.

"Jesus Fuck," I said. "This is my fucking room!"

The guy stood up, looking panicked.

"I'm so sorry, Ms. Holliday told me that I was fine to unpack her things in here."

I walked over to the closet and started pulling down my own carefully lined-up outfits. I shoved them into a pile draped over my arm.

"It's not your fucking fault," I said to him, sighing. "It's Hailey. And if I say anything, she'll find a way to make it worse."

The assistant was still frozen with a scoop of litter in his right hand. I felt sick to my stomach, and the music was exacerbating the alcohol headache that had started downstairs at the front desk.

Maybe it wasn't alcohol, but intense stress. I would go to an early grave and it would all be because of a skinny, blonde, ambitious bimbo who looked twenty-two but was closing in on thirty. I bent down and grabbed my black suitcase off the floor, dropping the clothes into it and zipping it up.

"Have a nice time with all that," I said to Cat Man, stepping over him with my suitcase in my arms. "She better fucking pay you well."

Back in the living room, the choreography had begun.

"Awww, Wilde, leaving so soon?" Hailey asked, batting her long, fake eyelashes at me coquettishly.

Every time I saw her making that face for the press I wanted to ask the paparazzi if they knew they were looking into the eyes of Satan incarnate.

"Fuck you, Hailey," I said, instantly regretting it. All of the women started singing the chorus.

You said you'd fuck me wild

But you knew I was just a child

So I say to you, arrivederci Rome

You won't be the last guy to make me moan

So fuck you, fuck you, fuck y-

I slammed the door on the last line of the chorus and banged on Harrison's door. He answered it in his pajamas, which were striped and old-fashioned just like everything else he owned. He pushed his glasses up on his nose.

"Mr. Wilder, what do you-" he looked at the suitcase I was holding in my hand. For the first time in our relationship, he looked annoyed. He'd broken character. "Oh," he replied simply. Then he recovered with a small smile. "Come on in," he said, motioning inside with his arm.

I saw with a sinking in my stomach that his room was a queen-sized bed with a small sofa in the corner. I'm an asshole, but I'm not that much of an asshole. I would be sleeping on the couch. I wasn't about to make my miserable assistant leave his own bed.

"I've got the sofa," I announced before Harrison could offer. I knew that he was relieved because he didn't even pretend to offer me the bed in his place.

He did rush forward to take my bag.

"I'll hang these up again," he said, slightly impatiently.

I reached down to the modern sofa with a dark grey twill upholstery and was relieved to see that at least it was a pull-out bed. I began removing the cushions as Harrison slid his own hanging clothes across the metal bar, the hooks of the hangers squeaking against the pole as he did so.

"Sorry about this," I said. "It's just that Hailey-" I thumbed over needlessly to the room next door. "She sort of pushed me out of my own place."

Harrison said nothing but continued to hang up my clothes in silence. Then after a moment, he spoke.

"You think they'll play the rap remix after this?" he asked. I realized this was the first time Harrison had ever made a joke in front of me. I laughed.

"Fucking hope not," I replied, walking over to the minibar and pulling out a bag of dark chocolate squares wrapped in cellophane.

I looked around the room and saw that half of the bedspread had been pulled back. On the nightstand was a copy of
Hamlet
, and a small glass of brandy sat next to it.

"Jesus, I interrupted the one hour a day you get to yourself," I said, running my hands through my hair and sitting down at the foot of the fold-out bed. The springs squeaked loudly under my weight.

Harrison continued to hang up my clothes, running his hands gently down the fabric to smooth each shirt. It was mesmerizing him watching him do it. I felt like I might nod off just from the care he was showing my clothes. "It's not a problem, sir," he replied.

"Call me Wilder," I said. "It's weird enough now that we're living together without you also calling me Mister."

Harrison turned around and looked at me as if attempting to figure out whether or not I was being serious. And I was being serious.

"Wilder," he replied. His voice relaxed by a millimeter as he said it.

"You ever meet a girl you couldn't have?" I asked him. It felt weird confiding in my assistant. But I didn’t have anyone else to talk to. Josh was shooting a documentary in Antarctica right now. I didn't even know what day it was there, much less what time. It would be a few more days at a minimum until our weekly call.

Harrison was all I had.

He finished hanging up my pants and zipped up my suitcase, sliding it into the bottom of the closet and shutting the doors. He wandered into the bathroom and I heard the tap run as he presumably washed his hands.

"No," he replied, coming back into the room.

"Oh. Are you..." the question hung in the air.

He laughed.

"No, I'm not gay. I'm just not ridiculous and self-flagellating enough to fall for a woman who isn't interested in being with me. Not since middle school, anyway."

I opened my mouth to respond to this - my first instinct to be angry flying right into my head. Then I just laughed instead.

"Can’t argue with that." I motioned to the bathroom. "You done in there for a while?"

"Be my guest," Harrison said. "I'll just be out here reading if you need anything."

There was an awkwardness for a moment.

"Hey. New rule: as long as we're in here together, you’re not my assistant. You can just be yourself. Say anything, do anything, just don't offer to help me. This is your space I'm invading. Just act like I'm a roommate, okay?"

Harrison stiffened.

"That's...going to be a little bit weird for me," he replied. "I hope you can understand that.”

"Just do your best. I'm not asking for perfection, just honesty and trust, okay?"

Harrison nodded. "If that's the case, then you need to know something."

I turned around from digging my toothbrush out of my suitcase.

"What's that?"

"You drink too much. You should cut back on that. People are starting to worry about you."

I contemplated this for a minute. I didn’t have a response. My body was starting to shake from anger. I walked into the bathroom, locking the door and turning the tap of the shower onto scalding.

Steam poured out as the jet stream of water hit the floor with a thundering roar. I stared at my slightly bloodshot eyes in the mirror, wondering if Olivia had noticed how much I'd had to drink.

I climbed into the shower, the hot water pummeling my body. I watched the body paint melt off of me, and couldn't help but think the scent of Olivia was washing down that drain with it.

It swirled around before finally falling through the silver grate and into the floor.

I thought about the sweetness I had tasted between her thighs, then commenced the best masturbation session I'd ever had in my entire life.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

WILDER

I stifled a yawn. I was sitting in the conference room of the hotel with the largest cup of coffee Harrison could find for me. The fold out couch had been a lot less comfortable than what I was normally used to.

Besides that, I had a three-in-the-morning wake up call for a workout. It was time to get back into my routine. My trainer had FaceTimed with me during the session. I couldn't do the math to figure out what time it was there, but I was mostly sure I was talking to her from the future.

This seven-in-the-morning meeting had been impromptu and called at the last minute. It was me, Fox, and his assistant director Janna. They both looked upset.

"What'd I do this time?" I asked.

Fox looked even more tired than I was. I thought I saw a hint of light disappointment cascading across his eyes.

"Nothing, Wilder," he said, getting up out of his seat slightly so he could reach the silver platter filled with pastries that sat in the middle of the table. His own assistant had likely ordered it. He took a large bite from a croissant. "Nothing intentional anyway. It's just that we reviewed the tapes from yesterday's filming. And we have a problem."

I furrowed my brow. "What's that?"

"You and Hailey. You have zero chemistry. You actually have barely concealed contempt that's coming through the lens and she is one of the most wooden actresses I've ever had the displeasure to work with in my long, long career. She's
terrible.
She can be a bad actress - we can work with that, but if there's zero chemistry, there is absolutely nothing to go off of. I need you to work with her behind the scenes."

I nearly choked on my coffee. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me right," Fox said, sighing and pushing the platter back to the middle of the shiny table. "You need to work with her. If we can get her to not
act
in front of the camera, but just be in love and interested with you and then we can capture that, we might have something. You’re a good enough actor to manufacture the chemistry and pull that out of her. Plus, you've fucked. I know that for a fact."

He leaned back.

“Come to think of it, that might be why you have no sizzle onscreen.” Fox shrugged. “The horse is out of the barn at any rate.”

I started to protest but he held up a hairy hand. "I know there’s still some passion there. Nobody writes a song like she did without passion. She was pissed at you. I need that passion again, somehow, some way." He nodded at Janna.

"I figure if we pull the cameras away from both of you and shoot from a long distance, she might be less self-conscious," Janna said in the quiet, assertive manner that she was famous for.

I laughed. "Hailey? Self-conscious? You’re fucking joking, right?"

Janna barely refrained from rolling her eyes. "You know what I mean. Less...aware. Less
acting
, more
being
."

I chortled. "You've never been around Hailey. I'm pretty sure she's acting even when it's just her and a mirror. It's like seeing a Boggart in its natural state. It just doesn't happen."

Fox looked at Janna curiously. "Harry Potter reference," she replied, waving her hand and turning her focus back to me. "We just need you to try."

I rubbed my hands over my eyes. "I don't think that will work. But I'm willing to give it a shot. What choice do we have?"

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

WILDER

“You’ve got to be fucking
kidding
me,” I yelled, punching my fist into the wall. “Goddammit, Hailey.”

I ripped my script in half. Hailey almost seemed amused at my frustration.

“You should calm down,” she replied airily. “I’d hate for you to be one of those men in their twenties who has a heart attack from alcoholism and stress.”

I glowered at her and walked over to the mini-bar, pouring out a glass of vodka and slamming it back. I had to be drunk to be around her. She was insufferable. I slammed the glass on the table.

“I need you to do this, for this movie. I’ve poured money and time into this.”

Hailey rolled her eyes.

“Oh, not
money!
” She gasped dramatically. “You have another hundred million where that came from, sweetheart.”

She reached over and picked up her cherry red acoustic guitar, strumming the chords absentmindedly.

That was when I realized that the guitar wasn’t the only thing in this room she was playing. I almost laughed when the full realization came down over me.

The key word there was
almost.

I stormed over to her, sitting on the ottoman. It was all I could do to not grab the guitar and smash it, then lift her off the sofa and shake her. I took a deep breath to calm myself. We were like dynamite and fire. This is why we always fell apart and crashed back together in an endless loop. I couldn’t count the number of times we’d broken up with one another.

“You little fucking-“ I took another breath.

“Say it, Wilde. You might give me the hook for my next song.” She blew me a kiss and went back to strumming the guitar.

“You can act. I know you can. In those music videos of yours. You cry and scream and rage and play coy…
you can act
. Which makes me fucking wonder: why aren’t you?”

Hailey smiled, her fingers still moving across the fretboard.

“I was wondering how long it was going to take you to figure this out. The alcohol must be pickling your brain. You used to be quicker than this.”