Indiscreet by Nicole French
24
“Holy shit! What is up, California girl?”
Two weeks later, I grinned as Calliope engulfed me in a massive hug outside of LAX. She looked as outrageous as ever in a bright pink maxi dress, giant hoop earrings extending down to her shoulders, and hair arranged in a massive, intricate pile of braids at the crown of her head. In my humble t-shirt and jean shorts, my hair tied back into a ponytail, I couldn’t even begin to compete with my friend’s style. She looked much more the part of a movie star’s girlfriend than I did.
“Look at you!” She held my arms out wide. “You’re so tan! How much time have you been spending by the pool, huh?”
“Oh, hush. Not that much.” I grinned. Maybe I didn’t have style, but I had been working out hours every day. There wasn’t much else to do besides that and write music when Will was on set, especially with the craziness of the press. So, I’d been doing plenty of both.
“Maggie.” Hakeem looked around and twirled a hand in the air, indicating we needed to get inside the car before I was recognized.
“Jeez, paranoid, much?”
I shrugged. He wasn’t, actually. In the weeks following the sailboat debacle, I’d been recognized often on the street, followed three times, and had more than a few threats sent by way of the studio. Running by myself––or even in our neighborhood––was a thing of the past.
“It’s the way it is right now,” I said. “Come on, let’s go.”
A few moments later, we were on our way to the house. Calliope was in LA to negotiate a new client’s record deal with Capitol, but she was staying with us instead of a hotel. “It’s on their dime, but I told them I have famous friends,” she said. “So you suckers might as well put me up.” I was more than excited to see my friend. Until I saw her face, I hadn’t realized how lonely LA had been.
“Have you heard from Ellie lately?” she wondered as Hakeem turned down Hollywood Boulevard. This was the part of the drive home that always made me nervous. The boulevard was almost always crawling with tourists and paparazzi, looking for famous people on their way home or somewhere else. Will and I had been spotted a few times, leading to two other fervent car chases all over Los Angeles until we finally lost them.
I pushed my sunglasses up my nose and shook my head. “She still won’t answer my calls. Lucas said she was at church again, talking about opening up the outer houses. But he said they still aren’t furnished or anything. She spends all her money at Curly’s.” I shrugged sadly. “It’s the same.”
I couldn’t deny that I was hurt. Here I was, almost two months after giving my mother an ultimatum, without speaking to her, and it didn’t seem to matter in the slightest that I was gone.
Calliope rubbed my shoulder. “Hey, she’ll come around. It just might take some time.”
Slowly, I nodded. “Yeah.”
“What about Oscar the Grouch? Has he been any better?”
She was, of course, referring to Will. Two weeks after the sailboat disaster, after Benny, Calliope, and a team of lawyers had been deployed to remove every trace they could find of me and Will from the internet, the hubbub over my unexpected strip show had died down a little. The press attention on Will, however, had not. While Garrett and Hakeem’s inventive driving skills continued to keep the paparazzi from figuring out exactly where we lived, they still seemed to hound him no matter where he was: the gym, the studio, and anywhere else he might go. He tried to run once with a team of three other bodyguards and ended up dashing into the canyon and scraping up his leg, much to the irritation of the makeup team.
Unfortunately, his recalcitrance only seemed to make photographers that much more curious. A crowd of at least fifteen of them had basically taken up permanent residence at the studio entrance, and so more than once, Will had chosen to stay there overnight instead of coming home. I had hardly seen him in days. And when I did…it was still like he wasn’t there at all.
Calliope grimaced as I recounted all of this and patted my hand. “And…what about the…you know?” She mimed putting back a shot with her hand. “Any more of that happening?”
Hakeem’s gaze flickered back to me through the rearview mirror, but he remained quiet.
I shook my head. “Not—not that I know of. But like I said…he hasn’t been around as much. The hours at the studio have been so crazy long, I’ve barely seen him.” I didn’t want to say that it kept me up at night, wondering if, while I was gone, Will was sitting around his trailer taking shots or doing worse.
“Which means viper lady has been around him instead?”
“Cal…”
She held her hands up, as if in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. I don’t mean to suggest.”
“Yes, you do. But I can’t waste my time being jealous there.”
“Maggie, you literally overheard the bitch talking about how she wants to get your man. If it had been me, I would have broken her pretty, plastic nose right there.”
In the front, Hakeem chuckled, but assumed a straight face when Calliope turned to him. If I wasn’t mistaken, the handsome bodyguard was a little more interested than usual in my friend’s comments.
“What am I supposed to do?” I replied. “Track his every move? I trust Will. And he has enough people watching him without me doing it too.”
“I’d still like to give Posh Spice a taste of her own medicine,” Calliope said with a sympathetic pat. “What about He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named? Any more haunting of the set?”
I shook my head. That was the one relief we’d been afforded. As soon as he’d arrived on set after the sailboat debacle, Will had basically thrown holy hell at Corbyn about Theo showing up. Corbyn, feeling guilty that he’d mentioned our use of his sailboat to multiple crew members, instituted a full ban of the studio head’s son until Will was done filming. It was a diva approach, but one I appreciated. Finishing the movie on time proved to be more important to the studio than humoring its owner’s errant son. Theo hadn’t been heard from since.
“Well, at least there’s that,” Calliope said after I told her everything. “All right, then. So, what’s our agenda? Is there going to be press at this party, or can I go in my jeans?”
On top of her business agenda, Calliope’s trip coincided with one other event: the wrap party. Principal photography was scheduled to finish today, and in two more days, Corbyn, the director, was hosting a massive party for the cast and crew at his home in Beverly Hills. It would have been a relief, and maybe even something to look forward to if it weren’t for a few key things. First, the fact that both Amelia and Tricia were going to be there. Second, that we would all be photographed extensively. And third, that the studio was requiring press as part of Will’s promotional duties. Benny was even coming to make sure he cooperated.
I sighed. “Vanity Fair is doing an exposé on Will. It’s going to be a ‘week in the life’ feature. Which means I’ll be in it too.”
Two days ago, the reporter had come to the set and taken candid photos of him and me. Will had sunk into an abysmal mood and hadn’t emerged since.
“Well, let’s see if we can play that to our advantage, shall we?” Calliope suggested as Hakeem punched the code into the gate and began steering down the long driveway.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Calliope rolled her eyes. “You guys are such amateurs. You have an excuse, of course, but Will should know this game by now. The trick to getting the press off your back is to give them a little of what they want. Right now they think you’re hiding something. You guys run around acting like you’re protecting the nuclear codes. Get a stylist. Take a pap stroll or two. Let them see you at the farmer’s market or some boring domestic crap like that. Go shopping at Whole Foods and volunteer at a soup kitchen. Sooner or later they won’t care anymore and they’ll move on to the next drug-laced starlet who’s willing to flip their skirts for a few extra headlines. This profile could be a great way to normalize the two of you.”
I swallowed. “I don’t know. I really don’t think Will is going to be open to giving them more of himself instead of less.”
The car pulled to a stop, and Hakeem hopped out to open Calliope’s door with a flourish.
“Think about it,” Calliope said. “Now, give me a tour of this palace while you still can.”
* * *
Benny arrivedat the house after Calliope, and we all spent a few hours hanging out around the pool before Will appeared around five, grumpy as usual, but looking relieved. Filming was done, barring any reshoots, and he’d gone to the gym before stopping at the store on the way home. Or, in his case, sending Hakeem inside to get what he wanted.
“Hey!” I called out when he burst into the living room behind us.
But Will just headed straight for the kitchen and started unloading groceries from a paper bag. Benny and Calliope looked at each other and took long sips of their drinks. I, of course, was drinking water, but the two of them had been enjoying cocktails for the last hour. I frowned and padded into the kitchen.
“That bad?” I asked as I slid onto a stool.
Will huffed as he moved around.
“Will,” I said. “Hey.”
He stopped and turned around. “They’re fucking vultures, you know? And it’s not just the press. It’s everyone in this fucking city. Everyone is an informant, calling in tips for a few extra bucks. I can’t even work out without walking outside to a fucking mob.”
I cringed. On a scale of one-to-ten, mobs were about an eight.
I put a hand over his. “Well, you only have to stick around for a few more weeks, right?”
He nodded. “Max says I have to attend three more premieres as Oscar season starts, and then I’m done until we start promoting next spring, barring any reshoots.” He let out a big breath, like he was expelling the stress of the day. “I can’t wait to get the fuck out of here.”
Calliope and Benny wandered in from the pool, both a little unsteady after the effects of two mojitos each, courtesy of Benny’s mixology skills.
“What’s that you have there?” Benny asked, pointing to the paper bag Will dropped in the outdoor kitchen. “Someone’s about to binge, I see.”
Will looked up gleefully and continued pulling out groceries.
“I had Hakeem run to the store while I was at the gym,” he said. “To get me all the stuff I’ve been banned from eating.” One by one, he pointed at the things on the counter. “Salt and vinegar potato chips. Snickers bar. Ice cream. French bread—we’re having French toast, bacon, the works for breakfast tomorrow, babe.” He continued pulling them out until there was a massive pile of mostly unhealthy food on the outdoor table.
I grinned. “Cheat day?”
“More like a cheat week,” Benny pronounced. “Motherfucker wants a dad bod.”
Calliope choked on her drink. “Oh good lord, please no.”
Will chuckled. “How about a cheat month?” he asked as he leaned over the counter. “You think the paps will be interested in taking pictures of me with a big belly?”
I giggled. Will had the metabolism of a fifteen-year-old. I seriously doubted he could be anything but trim.
“How about you, Lil?” His eyes gleamed, and I grinned, happy to see that spark that had been so absent for the last few weeks. “Would you take me with a beer belly and a double chin?”
I smiled shyly. “I’ll take you however you are,” I said quietly. And it was the truth.
“Come here.”
He tugged me close and nuzzled my hair, then gave me a kiss that lingered a little more than strictly necessary. I sighed. Gratitude. That’s what I felt.
“Which makes me the luckiest bastard on the planet,” he murmured. “All right, I’m going to put the frozen stuff away. And then we’re going to celebrate the end of this shit show.”
* * *
Because of the press,Robin had been deployed for another round of primping and styling for the party, so Will was only able to put down a bag of chips and a Häagen-Dazs bar before he was forced to get ready like the rest of us. It was for the best. After months of squeaky-clean eating, the rich food made him feel sick.
Much to both Robin’s and Benny’s irritation, Will had staunchly refused to wear anything fancier than his favorite old Levi’s and a concert t-shirt, but begrudgingly allowed Robin to style his hair. I, however, had accepted a little red dress and black strappy heels when Robin informed me that despite Will’s stubbornness, most of the people at Corbyn’s would actually be dressed for a legitimate party, not a backyard barbecue. My hair, still in its customary ponytail, had been tousled and teased into a curly mass. Robin had finished the look off with a gold chain and some hoops—relatively similar to the stage looks I had once worn. Unlike at the premiere, I actually felt more like myself. And when I walked into the living room, where Will, Calliope, and Benny were all waiting, Will’s reaction was the only one that mattered.
“Holy shit,” he muttered as he pushed off the couch. “Woman, you are going to give me a heart attack.”
I fingered the short, silk hem. “Too much?” It was definitely brighter than the looks I usually favored, but I couldn’t deny that Robin had a great eye for color.
“Absolutely not,” Calliope said sharply from the sofa. “You look fantastic, babe.”
Will pulled me close and drifted a heated gaze over my entire body. “You look perfect,” he pronounced, quiet and fierce. Then a sly half smile emerged. “Maybe we should keep the party here, huh? I could probably make it entertaining for you.”
I pushed him lightly on the chest, though I was already blushing. “You’re going to get into even more trouble with Max if you do that. We have to go.”
He rolled his eyes, but hugged me closer. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get this garbage over with. And then we are coming back here so we can celebrate the real way.”
