by Monroe, Max
Fingers crossed it’s the former.
I walk through the conference room doors, and my hands shake as I pull out one of the large leather chairs and take a seat to the right of where Serena always sits.
She’s not here yet, which I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing, especially since today’s meeting is starting later than usual at her request.
A part of me just wants to get this over with, and the other part of me doesn’t want to have to face it at all.
Charles walks in, two coffees in his hands, and sits down across from me.
He makes eye contact with me as he sets a Starbucks cup with Serena written across the side.
I might’ve been MIA for the past week and a half, but it appears nothing has changed.
Charles is still kissing asses and running errands.
And today, you get to witness him getting the job you wanted so bad, it made you go to Alaska, fall in love with a jerk, and come back empty-fucking-handed.
“How was your trip?” Charles asks.
My heart is broken, and I’m about to lose my job. How the fuck do you think it was, you idiot?
I force a smile to my lips. “It was good. Long, but good.”
“There is so much you missed while you were gone.”
I kind of want to slap him, but does it really matter when this is literally the last team meeting I’ll ever attend? Probably not.
“Guess I’ll have to work extra hard today to get caught up.” Or, you know, clean out my desk.
“It’s probably going to take you at least two or three days to get caught up.”
Internally, I roll my eyes. But externally, I force another smile to my lips. “I work pretty fast, so I’m sure I’ll manage. But thanks for the update, Chuck.”
“Did you just call me Chuck?”
“Isn’t that your nickname?”
“No,” he says, and his face turns up like he just ate a lemon. “It’s not.”
“Oh, for some reason, I thought you went by Chuck.”
I’ve worked with him for the past year and not once has he ever gone by Chuck, but hell, I can’t stop myself from screwing with him. I need it, actually. Otherwise, I’ll just be sitting here mentally freaking out over Serena’s arrival.
“Are you sure you’ve never gone by Chuck?”
“Yes,” he answers, and his tone rises with irritation. “I never go by that.”
“Well, maybe you should?” I toss out because I’m an avoiding asshole. “It’s catchy. And much shorter and easier to say than Charles.”
“I don’t want to go by Chuck.”
“Okay, Chuck.”
He raises a brow. “Not Chuck, but Charles.”
“That’s what I said.”
“You said Chuck.”
“I did? I said Chuck?”
He narrows his eyes. “Yeah.”
“Oh, sorry about that. I guess I just see you as more of a Chuck than a Charles, you know? Oh well, I guess I’ll stick with Charles, even though I think Chuck is better.”
He opens his mouth to respond but quickly shuts it when the rest of the team, followed by Serena, steps through the door.
“Good morning. Good morning,” Serena greets us. “How is everyone today?” she asks, and I can’t look away from the giant smile etched across her lips.
Good Lord, is she this happy to fire me?
Everyone offers up how things are going and settles into their seats for the meeting.
Serena is still smiling like a loon, and when her eyes meet mine, I grip the armrests of my leather chair for support. Here we go. Brace for impact…
“Well, Billie,” she says, still fucking smiling. “I don’t know how you did it, but you did it.”
Did what?
Ruined everything?
Lost my job?
Lied about knowing Luca Weaver?
The list of my crimes is kind of long these days.
“Uh…”
Her smile grows. “I don’t know how you got Luca Weaver, but hell, Billie, you fucking did it.”
Wait…what?
Serena looks at the rest of the team. “I pushed back today’s team meeting because I had another meeting. A conference call with Mr. Weaver himself. And I’m excited to tell you, he’s interested in doing Espionage. He’ll be on a plane tomorrow to come to LA.”
Brakes squeal to a stop inside my brain.
Hold. The. Fucking. Phone. Luca Weaver is coming to LA?
My heart starts pounding wildly in my chest.
He is freaking coming to LA, and he wants to do the movie?
Charles looks like he ate a lemon again.
And the rest of the team celebrates with high fives and shit.
“Don’t get too excited. We still need him to sign the contract and get the studio on board with our male lead,” Serena updates and looks at me. “But great job, Billie.”
Holy fucking shit.
Great job, Billie?
I came to this team meeting expecting to get fired, but now, I’m receiving fucking accolades on something I didn’t even do?
My head spins like a goddamn record as I try to recount the steps that led me here.
The last time I talked to Luca Weaver, it ended in goodbye.
But now, he’s coming to LA and he wants to work on Espionage with Serena?
What the fuck?
Did someone hit me over the head with a freaking two-by-four?
Have I suffered a concussion that causes memory loss?
Because that’s exactly how I feel right now.
All the information Serena gave during our team meeting two hours ago has my mind reeling. A persistent throb develops just below my hairline, and I decide to head out of the office for lunch.
Only, I’m too overwhelmed to eat.
So, instead, I pace the parking lot like a crazy person.
Hopefully, my coworkers will just think all that fresh Alaskan air has turned me into some kind of fitness enthusiast and I will now spend my lunch breaks doing cardio.
Tomorrow, Luca will be here, in LA, the one city he said he would never step foot in again.
Yet, when I left his cabin, he was fucking adamant about not having anything to do with this city, Hollywood, the movie, or me.
What in the hell changed from the moment he told me I was just a random fuck to him, to when he spoke with Serena and told her he wanted to do Espionage?
Talk about a change of fucking plans.
Annoyed with myself and the fact that I’m weaving in and out of parked cars like a lunatic, I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and send out an SOS.
Me: 411
When Birdie and I were teenagers, it took one small grease fire in the kitchen to realize that Granny had a tendency to confuse 911 with 411.
“Fire! Fire!” she had shouted from the kitchen. “Call 411! Call 411!”
Both Birdie and I were in the living room, and while the word “Fire!” should spur a quick, urgent response, the follow-up of “Call 411!”—the number you call from a landline to get freaking directory assistance—had us so confused, we started laughing.
Granny had gotten pissed. “This isn’t funny! There’s a fire! Call 411!”
The smoke alarm started going off, and we eventually called the correct emergency response number—911.
Once the fire department arrived and put out the fire, we explained the difference between the numbers to Granny.
You’d think that would’ve fixed the situation.
But it didn’t.
For the rest of her damn life, 411 was still her 911.
Thankfully, Birdie understands my text and calls me a few minutes later.
No time to waste, I answer on the first ring, skip any sort of friendly greeting, and get right into the meat and potatoes of it all.
“Everything is crazy! I feel crazy! Help me!”
“Oh boy,” she mutters on a sigh. “What’s going on?”
“Luca fucking Weaver is
coming to LA! Tomorrow, Birdie. He is going to be here tomorrow because he apparently wants to do the movie!” I exclaim and toss my free hand in the air. “Like, what the fuck? Why is he doing that?”
The phone goes silent for a long moment.
“Birdie! Hello? Are you still there?”
“I’m here,” she says, voice quiet. “But I’m mostly just confused.”
“Tell me about it! I’m confused too!”
“No,” she says through a soft laugh. “I’m certain our confusion is from two very different sources.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That’s what I’d love to ask you,” she retorts. “Isn’t this what you wanted?” she asks. “For him to agree to do the movie so you wouldn’t have to tell Serena you fed her a line of bullshit about knowing him?”
“Well, yeah,” I answer. “But that was before—”
“Billie,” she cuts me off. “I know he was a dick to you in Alaska. And I know when you left his cabin, you guys weren’t on good terms—”
“Weren’t on good terms?” I toss out. “He basically told me I was just some random fuck who was using him for money and success!”
“Hey,” she says, her voice quiet and coaxing. “Take a breath. Relax. And try to look at this with a rational head.”
“It’s pretty fucking hard to be rational right now.”
“That is very apparent.” Her soft laugh fills my ears. “But it’s important for you to realize this isn’t a bad thing. It’s actually a really fucking good thing.”
“How is this a good thing?” I retort. “He is the last fucking person on earth I’d ever want to see again, and yet, it looks like I’m going to be stuck filming a freaking movie with him!”
“But he’s doing the movie, Billie,” she reminds me. “Somehow, someway, you convinced a guy you didn’t even know, an asshole fucking recluse living in the middle of fucking nowhere Alaska, to do a movie. A man who never wanted to step foot in Hollywood again is coming back to Hollywood. Because of you. He might be the world’s biggest prick, but you won this, Billie. You fucking won.”
I know she’s right in a way.
I mean, somehow, the impossible has managed to happen, and all that awful hiking and camping wasn’t for nothing.
But, deep down, when it comes to Luca, I don’t want to win.
I just want to forget about him. Completely.
Well, looks like it’s going to be pretty damn hard to forget about him now…
Luca
Welcome to Hollywood, the land of money, greed, and plastic surgery. Traffic. Palm trees. Botox. People.
LA has changed, but at the same time, it has stayed the same.
It still takes at least thirty minutes to get anywhere, and it appears Starbucks is trying to build a coffee monopoly. Fucking Starbucks. The world’s worst coffee, yet people still line up like gophers, waiting for gasoline-flavored caffeine.
I pull my rental car into the parking lot that leads to Capo Brothers Studios and show my ID to the security guard at the gate.
His name tag reads Pete, and when he looks at my ID and then at my face, he tilts his head to the side. “Luca Weaver?”
“That’s me.”
“Holy shit.” His brown eyes go wide with recognition. “You were in that movie…Agent Zero, right?”
“Guilty.”
“And that show…Home Sweet Home!”
I offer a small, friendly smile. “Also guilty.”
“Man, I loved that show as a kid.”
Pretty sure all of America loved that show. The Winstons were everyone’s favorite, idyllic family. What everyone else apparently wanted.
But the process of being a child actor in the middle of fast-paced Hollywood and starring on one of the most popular television shows at the time didn’t equate to idyllic.
It was long days. It was constant working, and then, when Rocky and I weren’t working, we were sitting with our tutor, trying to stay on track to finish school.
And when we weren’t doing those two things, we were on press junkets and appearances and interviews.
We were kids, yet we weren’t actually able to be kids.
We had appearances—aka a façade—to keep up.
We had responsibilities.
We had fucking jobs.
I don’t wish that life on any child.
Pete waxes poetic for another few minutes about Home Sweet Home and another movie I did before I left this town, and I take it all in stride, trying to act interested and stay nice and not turn into a dick like I would’ve eight years ago.
Thankfully, another car pulls up behind me, promptly ending our conversation, and he waves me on through.
I park and cut the engine, and I head toward the main entrance of the large office building with the words Capo Brothers Studios engraved in fancy marble across the center.
The lobby is swanky, and I roll my eyes. An office doesn’t need to smell like lilac and have a goddamn marble fountain in the center, but that’s Hollywood.
Everything is about money. Earning money. Spending money. Showing that you have money.
It’s all so fucking superficial and fake, it makes my stomach churn, but this is the reality I will have to tolerate if I want to stay in this town while I do this movie.
First, though, I have to leave this meeting with the studio on board with my comeback.
Fifteen stories up in the elevator, and I step off the cart and onto, you guessed it, more marble. The floor gleams and shines as I walk across it, and I move toward an office I haven’t seen in nearly ten years.
William and Thomas Capo, brothers who have been in Hollywood for years, have to be in their seventies now.
“Good morning.” A pretty secretary dressed in a black power suit greets me. “How can I help you today?”
“Luca Weaver. I have a meeting at nine.”
She taps something across the keyboard of her iMac and places her hand to the Bluetooth at her ear. “Mr. Capo, I have Luca Weaver here.” Immediately, she looks away from the computer and meets my eyes. “He’s ready for you. You can head on in.”
So, I do. I walk past the secretary and through the large glass doors that lead into an expansive office that overlooks downtown LA.
Besides a few new pieces of art on the walls, this office hasn’t changed a bit since I last saw it.
“Luca Weaver.” William Capo stands up from his desk to greet me. He is in his usual attire of a full, sleek suit, most likely costing more than most people’s cars. But with all-gray hair and more wrinkle lines around his eyes and mouth, a decade’s worth of age has certainly left its mark. “How the hell are you?”
“Good.” I glance around, expecting Thomas to be on the other side of the room, but he’s nowhere to be found. Which is the opposite of the norm. Whenever you took a meeting with the Capo brothers, you got both of them. “Is Thomas coming…?”
William shakes his head. “I guess you didn’t hear, but he passed away two years ago.”
“He passed away?” Shock makes my steps falter, and my jaw nearly hits the shiny fucking floor. “God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
The unexpected news makes me feel like a real asshole, especially since I had no idea.
Fucking hell.
“It’s okay,” William says with a melancholy smile. “Pancreatic cancer. It was all very sudden.”
“That’s awful.” I don’t really know what else to say, but thankfully, William is already all business, gesturing toward the leather chair in front of his desk.
“Take a seat. Make yourself comfortable.”
I do as he says and watch him walk around to the other side of his desk and sit down in a large leather chair with a high back.
“So, I hear you’ve been off the grid for quite some time.”
“I have.” I offer one curt nod. “Eight years, to be exact.”
“Eight years?” His brow rises. “That’s a long time to be away from Hollywood.”
“It is, but I needed to do it.”
He smirks. “You were certainly finding yourself in a bit of trouble prior to your departure.”
“A little?” I laugh. “More like, a lot. I was building quite the reputation for being the bad boy of Hollywood.”
“Building a reputation?” A chuckle escapes his throat, but then his eyes turn serious. “You had achieved that reputation and left us standing there with our dicks in our hands when you decided to walk off the set of Hallowed Ground and never come back.”
Internally, I cringe. I knew this was going to come up in this meeting. I even prepared myself for him to bring it up, but that still doesn’t make it any easier to face.
Even though I was merely a commodity to the studio, to this man sitting across from me, it doesn’t make what I did okay.
“I’m sorry for that,” I say, genuine apology in my voice. “I was in a really bad place, and it was what I had to do to survive.”
William just nods and stares back at me, his eyes searching mine. For what, I’m not sure.
“We could’ve lost a lot of money with that move,” he states. “A lot of fucking money.”
“I can imagine.”
“But luckily, Carey Matthews stepped in last minute and saved our asses.”
Carey Matthews is another actor, one I’ve never met but heard a lot of good things about back in the day.
“I’m relieved to hear that,” I say. “My intention wasn’t to fuck you guys over, and I’m incredibly sorry for my actions back then. I know I wasn’t the easiest to work with.”
“You were just about impossible,” he retorts with a little smirk. “Incredibly fucking talented, but a real prick most of the time.”
“Yeah. All true.” I nod and laugh. “But that’s not the case now,” I say. “I’m older now. I’m grounded. And I know what I want.”
“And what is it you want?”
“Espionage.”
His brow rises. “That’s one hell of a script.”
I nod. “It is.”
“And how did it get in your hands?”