“What do I care? You dumped me.” Oh, but I did care. My brain leapt into a dance of happiness, or at least of less-depressed-ness. “Besides, the whereabouts of your dick is not my biggest problem at the moment.”
His voice dropped even lower. “Can’t discuss that here.”
“There’s nothing to discuss! I’ve done my part.” I stared at a smudge on his shirt. The force of his will urged me to look up into his ruinous eyes, but I wouldn’t. “If you can find some way out of this for me, I would surely appreciate it.”
At least he didn’t lie to me—didn’t say things like, ‘She won’t kill us’. Once upon a heist, I’d believed in pleasant fibs. No more.
He still held my hand. His thumb traced soft circles into my knuckles. A million spiteful words flitted around my head like angry bees, but I couldn’t seem to line them up long enough to form a sentence. So close. He kept inching towards me. I could get on tip-toe right now and kiss him. He’d let me. He wouldn’t let me go.
I’d never wanted him more than right now, and I’d wanted him enough before to do some pretty stupid things. “I have to go,” I squeaked, my breath coming shallow.
His hand tightened on mine. “I would die before I let something happen to you.”
Oh, God, the tears in his voice… “Let me go, please.”
He did. I swayed on my feet, dizzy. His mouth opened to say more, but I fled, unable to keep my cool. If I cried half my makeup off, I’d have to explain why when they fixed me. I ran through three galleries before I collapsed against the wall of a fourth and willed my eyes not to spring forth.
He’d never be safe with me.
I’d never be safe with him.
How easy that made things. Especially once we were dead. Ta da!
I took out my phone and watched panda videos for a few minutes until I no longer remembered the way his neck smelt, or how his hands felt tracing my ass. Panda videos are an acceptable cure for adult-onset icky emotions.
I meandered my way back towards my trailer. Just when I reached the steps, a PA named Sophia ran up to me. “Ms Lytton,” she began in a charming Scots accent.
“Samantha is fine. Or just ‘Shorty’.”
“I can’t call you ‘Shorty’—I barely have an inch on ye.” She smiled and cocked her head. “Your other assistant is here, but I don’t see her on the security list.”
My eyes bulged. “Other assistant?”
I froze. She froze. Now we were just staring at one another with the same quizzical expression. I blinked and tried to smile. “I mean, yes, let me go meet her. I mean see her.”
Sophia took off in the appropriate direction, and I hugged my arms around myself, wishing I had a sweater in the crisp evening air that suddenly chilled me. Who the hell was this woman?
… Of course.
I gritted my teeth until they hurt. The idea that Valerie would invade my private work space at
my
house sent me into a vortex of demonic rage. I actually stopped walking and closed my eyes until the bitter haze left my vision. I didn’t know how long I could resist slapping the shiny hair right off her. You don’t threaten to murder me and also have slept with my love before he met me and expect to get away with it!
That was when I decided that I would definitely live, if for no other reason than to royally. Fuck. This. Woman. Up.
Chapter Ten
Bad Help Is Easy to Find
I arrived at the security trailer outside the back entrance ready to chew up Valerie whole and spit her onto the ground and then stomp on the Valerie-goo with my foot.
But it wasn’t Valerie.
“Are you Samantha Lightbrite?” asked a total stranger in an American accent. Cute woman in her twenties—medium height, red hair and covered in freckles from her hairline to her ankles. She wore a hoodie and sweat shorts, and the blank expression of disenchanted boredom I’d often worn at my old day job.
“Hi, I’m Samantha Lytton.” I reached my hand for her to shake it. She pulled a trail of bubble gum out of her mouth and stared at it. Eventually, she turned her attention me. She mashed her gum into her mouth and extended the same fingers towards me. I yanked my arm back and awaited her response.
She chewed.
I raised my eyebrows.
Finally, the mysterious, elegant lady spoke. “I’m Shelley.” ‘Shelley’, the way she said it, possessed four syllables. “The agency, wait, no…your agent sent me.” Her voice fell flat, like a limp sheet. She rolled her eyes into her head trying to remember what she was supposed to tell me next. “I’m your new mon-sore.”
“My new what?”
She reached out and mimed graspy gestures with her hands. I shrugged. She burst into a frenzy of chopping motions with both forearms.
Ah ha! “You’re my masseuse?”
“Yeah.” That word contained three parts.
Pop, snap, pop!
went the gum. “Your, um,
agent
knew you were real stressed out, so she sent me to help.” She glanced at the head of security, who was currently riveted by this bizarre exchange.
FYI, no one would accuse my extremely hairy agent Bruce of being a ‘she’.
Sh-e-ll-ey continued, “You’d better let me help. With your…stuff. Or else you’re gonna
be in pain
.”
Wow. Well, I guess somebody has to graduate Undercover Thief school with a D average—not everyone can be the valedictorian. Yet her dull, monotonous voice actually made her threats more compelling. I swallowed.
In a few moments, I’d worked things out with security to give Shelley no-last-name access to the set. My heart thudded and sank as I led Shelley to my trailer. When I arrived there, Sam awaited us on the steps, already giving my ‘masseuse’ the evil eye. We went inside and formed a three-way standoff.
“I’m Shelley,” said Shelley.
“Why are you here?” Sam demanded, giving her a once-over that was in no way sexual, but definitely ominous.
“To make sure she steals the thing.”
Snap, pop!
I plopped onto the couch. “What thing?”
“The…art thing.”
Sam turned to me. “That narrows it down.”
“Good thing Valerie sent an expert.”
Shelley flopped onto the other end of the sofa. “You’re stealing it, not me. But if you don’t steal it, you’ll deal with me. That would be bad.”
Not just ‘bad’, but ‘baaaa
aaa
aaad’. Shelley took out her phone and began ignoring us. “This game is haaaaa
aaa
rd,” she said to no one.
Sam cocked one eyebrow and jerked his head towards the bedroom end of the trailer. I nodded and followed him. Shelley made no effort to stop us.
“Who the hell is that person?” I asked the moment he shut the door.
“I don’t know. She wasn’t on the payroll when I was on Team Valerie. I think a lot of things have changed.” He pursed his lips and looked me in the eye. “I guess we really have to do it now.”
“Who’s we? And didn’t we always?”
He sighed and leaned against the door. His brain was forming strings of possibilities behind preoccupied eyes, like one of those old machines that spat out stock ticker tape. “This is fine. I’ll steal the cape and try to keep Genius in there away from you.”
“Thanks so much.”
Squinting at my sarcasm, he took a step towards me. I automatically took one step backward and fell onto the bed, suddenly hyper-conscious that we were alone in a room together with a mattress. Not a comfortable mattress, but beggars can’t be spontaneously slutty.
We both blinked shifty eyes everywhere but towards each other. “Well, that was a great Blackmailed Anonymous meeting.” I stood to leave. He didn’t move. I sat back down and pulled the zipper of my jumpsuit a little higher. “So…when are you going to do it?”
“In time.”
“Oh, good. Time. Excellent unit of measure. And so specific.”
“You want me to get specific?”
“No, let’s be obtuse some more.” My voice dropped. “The eagle poops at midnight, pass it on.”
His green eyes glinting, he leant down to my height and said, “Specifically? That tight, black spandex looks so damn hot on you it should be illegal.”
I gasped, my mouth dry and watering all at the same time. Oxymoronic reactions were the only kind appropriate for him—heavy on the moronic.
What is a girl to do when her ex says something insanely sexy, and also completely true?
a) Throw him on the bed and make him prove it.
b) Throw him on the bed and make him prove it while reciting Byron to you.
c) Tell him that NASA made your outfit. And then pretend that you were the only two space people on Saturn, so you must get busy and repopulate the planet.
d) Run away.
I chose the path of least resistance—I ran away. Well, after I’d wormed my way around his hot, muscular body, and his warm, lusting gaze, and the giant, tawdry hands reaching for me and—oh, Lord. I eventually escaped.
In the next room, Shelley was still stuck to her phone like her palms were made of suckers. She and Sam deserved each other. I slammed open the door and proceeded down the steps.
Shelley bumped into my back at the bottom. She nearly lost a flip-flop. I nearly bit it in my fancy, spiky boots.
I righted myself with minimal disgruntlement and walked a few paces. She followed. “I have to get to set,” I said.
“Yeeeeaaaahhhh.”
I walked a few more paces. She followed. I rounded on her, my hands bunched in fists. “You don’t have to come with me. Nothing is going to happen right now except me working.”
She chewed for a moment while confusion rippled between her brows like wake from a particularly stupid jet ski. “But I’m your massacre.”
“Yes. Yes, you probably will be my massacre.” No recognition flickered across her blue eyes. I shoved my frustration and rage a bit further down into my intestines and kept walking. It hurt a little, truth be told—if I bottled up any more emotions I’d need an antacid drip. Or a massage.
No doubt the
massage
Shelley would give me would have dire consequences, and, now that I ‘employed’ a ‘masseuse’, I couldn’t receive an
actual
massage from an actual professional without it seeming weird. So not only was I massage-less, but I would stay that way! Oh, the indignity of it all when a semi-famous person couldn’t get her every whim catered to! This was the sort of gross injustice that led to a person saying, “Don’t you know who I am?”
I chuckled to myself as I hopped around the lighting technicians to avoid getting in their way. I’d never experienced a massage in my life until about six months ago, because of being poor. Anyone who tells you that money doesn’t lead to happiness is a rich asshole hoping you never find out how much they’re lying, you plebe.
* * * *
Around dawn, the production packed up and moved so the museum could resume normal business. I waved bye to cast and crew and dragged my tired bones out of the palatial building and towards my trailer. Both Sam and Shelley dogged my steps, as they’d done all freaking night long. Mine was the worst entourage since the TV show
Entourage
. Their eyes glinted from the dark while I worked, their hands bumped into mine at the catering table, and their desire to follow me into the bathroom really went too far, although Shelley had given me a panty liner. But I swore—the next time someone got between me and a bag of buttered popcorn, there would be hell to pay.
This time of morning was the best. My body sank with exhaustion from giving it my all the whole night, and the promise of dinner and sleep loomed bright.
Plus neither of the back-stabbing burrs followed me home.
Danny caught me up while I was on the way to gather my things. He stopped and grinned at me, and I cannot pretend that his regard, which had got more and more intense, left me unfazed. I couldn’t help returning the smile, even though it sent Sam into some sort of muscle spasm.
I pulled my co-star aside, away from my gang of thieves. Sam made an immediate move to follow, but a bunch of burly grips began carting equipment between our groups. Danny put his arm around my shoulders and squeezed. “You okay? You seem preoccupied.” He yanked his hand back. “You’re fantastic on set, of course! I didn’t mean that.”
“Thanks a lot, Danny.” I punched him on the shoulder—jokingly, gently. Not like I punch Sam, who deserved regular beatings. “I’m dealing with some…family drama.” I.e. crime family. “But I’m fine.”
“Come out for breakfast with me. I know a lovely place that serves mimosas. Since it’s our ‘five o’clock’.”
My soul burst forth and sang. Silently, though, or else that would no doubt alarm him. “Mimosas sounds wonderful. I’m in!” I’d given up drinking since we switched to night shoots, as slugging whisky alone in your apartment at eight in the morning makes one feel even ickier than coping with real life sober.
“Mimosas?” piped up Sam in the cheeriest voice I’d ever heard him use, except for maybe when promised a sexual act or watching sci-fi. He zipped between two moving lighting towers to join us. Shelley hadn’t seemed to notice the conversation and began to wander away, presumably to stare at her phone in privacy until the radiation made her eyeballs fall out—she never bothered with trailing me except on set. Sam continued, “Who doesn’t love orange juice?”