Uncovered (Dev and Lee Book 4) (23 page)

I let the change in subject go. “Yeah. She’s cool. I have to send over my writeup today, but she’s already notified the court that I want to file something.”

“You can tell them you’re going to file before you do?”

“She says I have ten days now to get it in. It’s pretty much all written up; I just need to work on it with some of her thoughts. She was going to look at the details of the case and get back to me with specific phrases I can use to make the court see it as more relevant.”

I catch Dev’s voice from the other side of the door saying something in a very “good-bye” kind of tone. Hal’s saying something about how to talk to lawyers and I cut him off.

“I think my time’s up,” I say. “Look, really, just send Pol flowers, like, Thursday. That gives her a few days to cool off and think about what she’s missing, and lets you follow up Friday for a date on the weekend.”

“Really?”

“Well, that’s what happens in all the sitcoms,” I say. “If she were a guy, I’d say just show up at her place with a bottle of wine and an apology and you’d be good.”

“You can quit with the conversion campaign,” Hal says. “It’s not that I ain’t buyin’. It’s that I don’t think I even got any of the right credit cards to hand the cashier.”

“To each his own,” I say. “Take care and call me tomorrow if you want. Dev’s out filming that commercial and I’m gonna need something to take my mind off shit.”

*

“You sure you don’t want to come see the commercial being filmed?” Dev’s getting dressed up in a collared shirt.

I wouldn’t mind it, to be honest, but I’m kind of afraid I would just start thinking about how he could be filming so many other more useful things, or about how crappy an agent Ogelby is, because I’m already thinking those things, so it’s probably better I just stay home and nurture the feeling that things are going to be okay. After talking to Jocko and Hal, I feel better, and when I’m not out having flashbacks to the Boliat fight or ignoring calls from Brian, I can focus on loving Dev and spending time with him. Also, I could work on that writeup while he’s gone, but I haven’t heard from the lawyer yet, so I can’t pretend there’s a rush. “Why are you dressing up when they’re going to want to film you in athletic gear?”

“I like to make a good impression,” he says. “They did a seminar on that. Always dress up for media appearances.”

“I guess that’s not a bad philosophy,” I say. “I’d come, but it’ll be really boring.”

“It’ll be boring for me too,” he says. “Come on, then I’ll have someone to talk to while they’re setting up lights or whatever it is they spend forever doing. I waited for hours for the Strongwell thing.”

“I don’t know that these guys are going to be as professional as the ones in Crystal City,” I say. “They’re shooting their footage in a parking lot.”

“Parking garage,” he corrects me. “On the roof.”

“You don’t have to jump off, do you?” I curl my tail, not honestly worried about this, but after I’ve said it, I wonder. I mean, this company had him working out on asphalt in the middle of the season.

“They haven’t told me.” He grins and walks over to kiss me on my nose. “Come on, fox. It’ll be fun. You can talk to the director and stuff.”

“I have other things I can do,” I say.

“Like what?”

Finish up my statement, but I can’t do that ’til the lawyer calls back, and if she calls while I’m at the commercial I’ll have to explain it and…That’s the problem with someone who knows you well enough to call you on your bullshit. I sigh and give in. I’m going to have to keep this stuff bottled up for another week and a half anyway. At least after today, Dev’ll be out in Crystal City practicing, and even if I go out there a couple days later, he’ll be busy all day and I can occupy the evenings with dinner and sex and avoid any heavy conversations. So as long as I can make it through today, I’ll be fine.

We drive up to the parking garage, which is the one adjacent to the Firebirds’ stadium, and I have to admit that it’s got a nice view of the circular stadium and its distinctive red and gold colors. They lucked out; it’s a cloudy day, so there won’t be any harsh shadows.

You would think that would make it easier for them to set up, but no. “The home-movie look worked for the last one,” the director, a pronghorn wearing oversized sunglasses, explains to Dev, “but since we have more time today, we want something more polished. So it’ll take a while to set up.”

I’m not sure how it takes them so long, because they only have a crew of six people plus the director. I think they probably all came in the same van. Dev and I lean against the edge of the roof to one side, watching, until the director comes over and starts telling Dev what they’re going to want him to do.

They’ve brought footballs and a generic uniform helmet, and of course a bunch of Ultimate Fit stuff in some searingly bad colors: carmine red and electric green and bright yellow-orange. They’re going to show him doing more “football moves,” as the director puts it. They’ve got footage of a football machine on another roof and the idea is it launches these footballs onto the roof of this parking garage, and there’s a cheetah trying to catch them and Dev keeps leaping in front of him. Then at the end of the commercial the cheetah finds an Ultimate Fit shirt and says “Let’s go again.”

Honestly, the Strongwell spot sounds a million times better, and I haven’t even seen it yet. But Dev’s already contractually obligated, so I curl my tail around my legs and watch all the scurrying preparations and try not to make any editorial commentary on the commercial. I do make sure that they’re laying down pads for the guys to run on, so Dev isn’t going to do any injury to his feet. Fortunately, someone must have yelled at them about the last time, because they’ve got enough pads to blanket a big section of the garage concrete.

It is interesting watching the setup go on, for a few minutes, but you can only watch someone test lighting for so long. I look over the edge of the parking garage at the empty streets below. With no games scheduled and no reason to go to the box office—the championship tickets are only being sold online—nobody is hanging around the stadium and the streets are deserted. There’s a brew pub a couple blocks away just opening up for lunch: a panther is shaking out floor mats, and a moment later the neon sign comes on. But nobody’s beating down the door to get in.

When they start making more urgent noises, I turn to see if the cheetah actor has shown up. No; it turns out the cheetah they’re using is the tall guy who was setting up the reflective light shades. He strips off his jacket and puts on a generic t-shirt, then takes off his sweatpants to reveal athletic shorts. He doesn’t have a bad body, but compared to Dev he’s definitely no athlete. I kind of smirk inside at how bad this commercial is going to look.

The cheetah does some jogging and stretching warmups, and then the director runs them through their paces. The boar he has throwing the footballs is pretty terrible at it, to the point that I do actually speak up once the director’s done with the blocking. “Can I have a shot at throwing the football?” I ask.

Dev looks at me in surprise. The football-throwing boar looks offended, but the pronghorn says, “Len, let him have a throw.”

The boar flips me the football as if he doesn’t really care. As I lunge to one side to catch his terrible throw, he stalks away to inspect some little gadget or another over by the cameras. I squeeze the football, take some practice swings with my arm, then throw it to the back of the roof-slash-set.

The first throw isn’t that great. The cheetah runs it down and lofts it back to me, and he throws a pretty nice spiral, actually. But then I get into a rhythm and some of my younger days tossing it with my father come back, and I get some good movement on the ball.

“Looks great,” the pronghorn says. “I’ve got an agreement here for you to sign if you don’t mind throwing footballs for the ad.”

I haven’t actually ever thrown footballs to Dev before. It sounds a little crazy, but when I know he can practice with Gerrard Marvell or someone who, you know, actually plays football for a living, I never thought he would want to catch my weak-armed throws. For the commercial, though, I guess it’ll work okay, and anyway, it’s fun.

We get set up finally and they’re ready for Dev, so I start tossing balls to the cheetah for Dev to leap in front of. You can see how professional Dev is: he looks at the ground as though he’s running a designed play and I swear his feet hit the exact same spots on the pads every single time he goes through the rehearsal. The cheetah just kind of runs vaguely toward the spot where the ball’s going to be and makes adjustments at the last minute, which he can do because I’m throwing softly and trying to get it to him. To be honest, I’m not that great at getting the football to the right spot either, but it doesn’t matter to Dev; when he gets to his spot, he leaps and grabs the ball from wherever it is in the air. It’s impressive.

The director says he wants about thirty repetitions so he has a lot to choose from. Well, I can throw the ball thirty times, I guess. “This time is for real, everyone!” the pronghorn calls. I squeeze the ball again as the cameras roll for the first take, and let it go.

The two big cats run into position, and Dev leaps in from the side to snatch the ball away. As the cheetah lands, one foot plants awkwardly on the edge of the pads and he falls heavily to the ground. At first, I think I’m the only one who notices, because all the cameras and attention are focused on Dev. But when the cheetah struggles to his feet and nearly collapses again, I drop the football and run over as soon as the director yells “Cut!” and then everyone sees.

“It’s my ankle,” the cheetah says. “Caught my foot on the thing there.” He gestures.

“Can you put weight on it?” I ask. He’s about a foot taller than I am, but he can still lean on my shoulder, and he does.

“Ye—no.” He tries, wavers unsteadily for a moment, and then the leg buckles again.

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” the pronghorn says, throwing his arms up in the air. “There goes the day. Don’t suppose you can rearrange Mr. Miski’s schedule to be available when we can find a replacement, can you?”

For some reason, he’s yelling at the cheetah, as though it’s his fault. I try to undercut that with rationality, like, “Let’s get some ice on it. Do you want me to call an ambulance?” He passes on the ambulance but does tell me there’s ice in the cooler, so while the director is yelling at the boar about wasted time, I’m improvising an ice pack by wrapping a towel around a bunch of ice cubes. I get the ankle wrapped in it and kneel by it to make sure it’s comfortable.

When the director comes closer and looks like he’s going to yell at the cheetah again, I say, “Hey. Aren’t you supposed to have medical personnel here? What would you do if Dev got injured, just start yelling at him, too?”

“What?” He looks startled. Perhaps nobody interrupts him in mid-rant, usually.

“An injury to him could be worth millions of dollars. You have insurance, right? Doesn’t his contract mandate that medical personnel be in attendance at any event in which he undertakes any physical activity?”

I have no fucking idea. I know the Strongwell contract we looked at had a medical clause, but I don’t know if these guys did. But I’m guessing that the director doesn’t really know the contract that well either. And it turns out I’m right. His eyes kind of bug out over his sunglasses, and he blusters, “Well, look, that’s not my problem. The management tells me what to bring to these things and I assume that’s all in accord with the contract, so if there’s no medical person here then we don’t need one. Maybe he’s supposed to bring his own. How about that, huh? Maybe he brought you and that means we don’t need to have one.”

“Okay.” I stand up and shake my head. “So are we done here?”

“I don’t know. Is he going to be able to run in the next hour?”

“No. Probably not in the next week.”

“Fuck me.”

And then Dev steps up. “Lee’s in pretty good shape,” he says.

I stare at him, and then hold up my paws. “Oh, no. No, no.”

“He isn’t tall enough to catch balls,” the cheetah says.

I bite back a retort, because I was the one who just helped him get his ankle wrapped, but then it occurs to me that he’s an actor and probably is worried about his paycheck. It doesn’t matter; the director waves the protest aside. “Fuck that. He doesn’t have to. Can he act?”

“Better than I can,” Dev says. “He was in plays in college.”

“That’s totally different,” I say.

But the director’s already looking at me. “Not bad,” he says. He gestures. “Take off your shirt.”

“Normally,” I say, “I’d be flattered. But—”

“Come on, Lee,” Dev says. “If you can play the cheetah’s part, we can finish this up today and it’ll be over with.”

I waver, while the cheetah sulks and the director says, “And he’s already signed an agreement to be in the commercial.”

That gets me. “That agreement said nothing about appearing on camera. Don’t you have a different one for on-camera talent?”

“No,” the director says.

“That’s bullshit.” The boar goes back behind the lights and rummages in a bag. “Jack, you can’t put him on camera without this.” He comes out holding a wrinkled, poorly photocopied page, and pushes it toward me while the pronghorn glowers.

“Fine,” the director says, “just sign that and we’ll get started.”

I scan the document quickly. “A hundred dollars?”

He shrugs. “When you’re a big football star, we’ll put more zeroes on it.” He holds out a pen. “Going to get this thing done?”

Dev mouths, “Please,” at me. I snatch the pen and read the paper more closely while everyone waits. It looks like boilerplate, though I have no idea what a contract like this is supposed to look like. So I fill in my name, scan the clauses about the company owning all the video footage and me getting compensated for it. For the heck of it, I scribble an extra zero next to the number, cross out the written “hundred” and write in “thousand,” and then I sign it and hand it back to the director.

“I’ll do it for a thousand,” I say.

Dev’s eyes go wide. The director barely looks at the paper as he takes it. “Forget it,” he says automatically.