Mr. Hollywood’s Secret by Adora Crooks
Eric
We end up at a top-scale restaurant in the city center. While they prepare our table, Chrys and I head to the bar to have a drink.
I take the corner at the far end, near the kitchen. “I’ll have a—”
“Maker’s Mark. On the rocks. And I’ll have a Shirley Temple, please.”
I lift my eyebrows at Chrys. “How…?”
“You ordered it on the plane.” She taps the side of her head. “Memory of an elephant. I was a continuity supervisor for a while when I was trying to get my foot in the door.”
“And now you’re the tuna girl.”
The bartender returns with our drinks. She wraps both of her hands around her glass.
“It’s a hard life, but someone’s gotta do it.” She smiles around her straw. “We don’t have to talk about me.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“I spoke to Nico.”
Cue my heart, kicking like a caged rabbit inside my chest.
“Okay.”
“He’s doing fine, thanks for asking. He misses you.”
“I’m not doing this with you.”
“Doing what?” She lifts a hand. “Besides Nico, I’m the only person who knows. You have to talk to someone. Bottling things up is no good for anyone. Least of all you. My uncle bottled up his emotions, and now he has diabetes. True story.”
I stare at her a moment. “I’m going to make a couple assumptions about you,” I say.
She shrugs. “Assume away.”
“You’re great at auditions. You always get called back. But you never get picked for the headliner. Always the supportive friend. The caring mom. The hypochondriac sister.”
“Maybe, so what? It’s not a big deal—”
“Yes. Yes, it is a big deal. In Hollywood, your career is only half talent. The other half is presence.”
“I get that you work in front of the flashy cameras with million-dollar budgets…and I appreciate your advice. I really do. But when someone hires me, I don’t want it to be because I tricked them into it. I want the response to be more…”
“What?”
“Genuine.”
“What are you saying? That I’m all show?”
“No. That’s what you’re saying. That’s what you just said.” She eats the cherry off her stem, then points the stem at me. “My turn. I’m going to make a couple assumptions about you.”
I fold my arms over my chest and brace.
“You’ve never lost. Ever. To anyone. You think that makes you invincible, but it doesn’t. You don’t let anyone climb your tall walls, because if they do, they’ll see that you’re nothing more than a paper man.”
“A paper man?”
“Yep. Looks all big and tough, but one blow and you knock him over.” She cocks her head, poodle-like. “How am I doing?”
The waiter comes by, and I tell him, “We’ll take the check.”
She blinks. “But we haven’t had dinner—”
“Get it to go,” I tell her in a tone that leaves no room for argument.
* * *
We leave carrying doggy bags.
I’m in a rotten mood, I feel like a rotten person, and I just want to go to my hotel room and vanish.
But as soon as we exit, there are cameras waiting for us.
“Miss Hudson!” one of the cameramen exclaims, snapping his camera like she’s a dancing monkey, “Give us a smile, yes?”
She puts a hand on her hip, juts to the side, and poses. I have to hand it to her. The camera does love her.
“Yes!” the cameraman shouts. “Now, Mr. North! Come! You are in love, yes? It is the city of love! How beautiful!”
Chrys tilts her chin toward me, questioning. I know what her eyes are asking.
This is why I hired her, isn’t it?
I’ve kissed women before. Actresses I’ve worked alongside. Sorority girls I’d tried to impress in my frat boy days. That one woman at a tiki bar in Miami a couple of years ago, after a big fight with Nico, when I was drunk and frayed and hating myself.
It’s felt wrong every time. A deep, inexplicable wrong. A lie with lips, and teeth, and tongues.
So when she looks at me now, I know what’s coming, and I feel it—that knife twist in my gut.
But I play the game. It’s acting. It’s only acting.
I tilt in to meet her lips and kiss her for the camera. I rest my hand on her waist in a way that I know will play well for the audience.
This is a role, and if I’m nothing else, I’m a fucking good actor.
But then she does something that throws me. As our mouths meet, her nails comb through my hair, running up my scalp and down the back of my neck.
And that gesture takes the breath out of me, because in that moment, I see—
Nico.