Moth to a Flame

by Cambria Hebert

  Seven long years of sacrifice, pain, hard work, and yes... lies.

  Although, could a lie (or many) still be considered such if it had become my truth? The lines blurred together for me now. Most of the time the falsehood felt like me, and I didn’t wonder about who I had become.

  But I still clearly remembered who I’d been.

  That girl... she would be forever embedded beneath my skin. Hell, beneath my makeup.

  “Hardcore,” Nick replied, reminding me that I was actually supposed to be having a conversation instead of an inner monologue.

  “What?” I turned around, confused.

  He seemed amused I hadn’t been paying attention to him. That actually earned him some points in my book. Thank goodness he didn’t seem to think he was God’s gift to women. I admit I expected him to be that way. So far, Nick seemed pretty down to earth.

  “Today is the big boating scene. The fight scene. You know, the big showdown toward the end of the movie.”

  “Ah, so you need to look extra dashing?” I said it with flourish, waiving a makeup brush out like a wand.

  His white teeth flashed, and I swore one of them sparkled and a little angelic sound floated over his head. “More like extra beaten up and ugly.”

  The makeup brush flopped against the outside of my leg when I dropped my hands. “Why do you seem excited about this?”

  The deep vibration that was his chuckle rattled my chest. I straightened and took a small step back. His eyes locked on my movement.

  “It’s easy to look good all the time. I like the challenge of looking like crap.”

  I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous tug deep in my gut. I wished it was easy for me to look good all the time. I brushed off his words and smiled. “Well, I think the challenge is mine. Making you look anything but handsome, even with a beat-up face, is no easy feat.”

  “Exactly why I wanted to work with you today. Your talent precedes you. You do the best gory, best scars, and best busted-up face work I’ve seen in a long time.”

  Because I knew exactly what those things looked like in real life.

  The door to the trailer opened. The wind outside blew the door out of the incomer’s hand, and it banged against the side, rattling everything. I jolted a little with the loud crack, then chastised myself for being such a fool.

  Nick’s chair rotated quickly, spinning away from me to face the front. From where I stood behind him, I noted the tension in his shoulders and neck. The large hands wrapped around the armrests were also rigid, as if he were ready to spring up out of the chair at a second’s notice.

  Maybe being an action hero taught him fast reflexes.

  “Sorry!” someone called from outside as a small group of people entered the trailer. One of them was Jessica Blaine, Nick’s love interest in the movie. She was gorgeous, with long platinum hair, porcelain skin, and blue eyes.

  “I should have known,” Nick muttered. Then his body relaxed.

  “Morning, Nick,” Jessica chirped, slipping into Carson’s chair, which was beside the one Nick was seated in.

  “Hey, Jess,” he replied warmly.

  Carson started fussing over her hair and makeup and pulling out fifty products. He was a good friend—okay, my only friend—but when he got into work mode, he made me feel like a slacker.

  “Mr. Preston,” a young woman said, rushing toward us. She had a container of food in one hand, a coffee or some type of drink balanced on top, a pen behind her ear, and a stack of papers shoved under her arm. “Sorry I’m late. I was taking notes from the director on your look.”

  “No problem, Callie,” Nick said patiently. Leaning forward out of the chair, he snatched the cup, which was teetering on the food container, and then snagged that out of her grip as well.

  “Coffee, black with just a dash of cream. No sugar,” she said, nearly tripping to a stop beside him. If he hadn’t taken that coffee when he did, he would likely have been wearing it. Pointing to the container of what I assumed was his “plate of sadness,” she said, “White fish, light seasoning, no salt, and a side of steamed spinach.”

  Oh. That was sad.

  I took a sip of my honey tea to make myself feel better.

  Nick drank his coffee and jerked back with a grimace. “You sure that was cream you put in this coffee, Callie?”

  Horror broke over her features. “Not again!” she wailed. Shuffling from foot to foot, she lifted her hands to ring them. The movement caused the papers under her arm to slide to the floor and scatter everywhere.

  “Oh no!” she groaned and dropped to her knees, frantically trying to pick them up.

  Nick swung around and gave me a wink, holding out his food and drink. I took them and watched as he got down on the floor with her to pick up what looked like his script.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Preston. I really don’t try to be such a klutz.”

  “It’s just paper,” he told her as they both leaned forward to retrieve the remaining loose sheet.

  I winced when they knocked heads.

  “Ow!” they hollered at the same time. Nick sat back, rubbing at his forehead.

  Poor Callie looked like she was ready to cry. “I’m—”

  “I know.” Nick sighed. Carefully watching Callie like she might have a gun, he slid up and back into the chair. I bit the inside of my lip to keep from laughing.

  “Silverware?” he asked.

  The assistant gasped. “It must have blown off the tray when I was bringing it over.”

  Nick sighed. “Would you mind getting me some more?”

  “Of course!” She jumped up. “Right away.” As she was hurrying off, he called her name. She glanced back.

  “Maybe some coffee that has cream in it instead of gravy.”

  Gravy?

  Callie’s face flamed red, and she hurried off.

  Nick’s eyes found mine, his lips twitching. There was a red spot on his forehead where he’d hit it.

  “Gravy?” I asked, lifting an eyebrow.

  He laughed. “God, she is the worst assistant ever.”

  “She tries hard, though,” I said, gazing after her.

  “Yes, she does.” He sighed. “Too hard.”

  “You haven’t fired her, though,” I pointed out, watching him even though he was busy putting all the papers in his lap back in order.

  Glancing up, he said, “Don’t have the heart to do it. Besides, she makes up for her lack of assistance in other areas.”

  I didn’t know why, but those words twisted inside me like a knife. The perusal of his profile and strong shoulders ended there, and I snapped around to my work station.

  Maybe Mr. Movie Star wasn’t as down to earth as I thought he was.

  “We should get started. Can I see the notes from the director?” Holding out my hand for the notes, I avoided his gaze. Glancing over the paper and knowing how long filming was slated to last today, I heaved a mental sigh. This was going to be an exhausting day.

  Turning to look at Laura, thinking maybe I could somehow pawn Nick off on her, I noted Landen was already sitting in her chair.

  Bummer.

  Poor me, stuck with a famous, good-looking client for the day. Get a grip, Zoey. Things could be way worse, and you know it, I told myself.

  The trailer door banged open yet again, and Callie appeared, carrying a new cup of coffee and a packet of silverware. Her short blond hair bounced around her shoulders as she walked, making her seem extra energetic. “Here you go,” she said, handing both over to Nick. “I promise I stayed far away from the breakfast table with your coffee.”

  Nick took a sip, not even a hint of apprehension in his mannerism (I guess being an actor came in handy), glanced up at her, and smiled. “Just the way I like it.”

  Callie let out a huge sigh of relief. This girl couldn’t be an actress if her life depended on it. Her face was far too open and expressive. It was kind of endearing.

  “Now that you have me all set up for a while, Callie, why don’
t you get yourself some coffee and breakfast?” Nick told her.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  She nodded precisely. “Will do. Then I’ll be right back to oversee your look and go through some scheduling.”

  “Don’t worry about the look,” I told her, wanting to take something off her plate. She seemed kind of frazzled. “I got it covered.”

  Callie looked over. “Great! Just basic for now, a little swelling around the left eye, windswept hair. Then you can come out on set and get your station set up to work on the rest between takes.”

  Working on set wasn’t my favorite thing. I preferred the trailer, but it was necessary sometimes. And if it was what the director wanted, then I would do it. Besides, sometimes I could get even better effects done on set with the right lighting and watching the takes because then I would know exactly how to make the injuries look.

  Someone else poked their head in through the trailer doorway. He was wearing a headset over his head with a small mic in front of his lips. Using the clipboard in his hand, he blocked the mic and yelled to the entire room, “Thirty minutes. Then everyone on set!”

  Nick glanced at Callie. “Better get that coffee now.”

  She jumped into action and scurried away. His green eyes glittered, making it hard to look away when he said, “Once she has a coffee or two, she’ll be a lot less clumsy. She tends to be worse in the very early morning.”

  “You seem to know an awful lot about your assistant’s early-morning habits,” I said before I could stop the words from literally exploding out of my dumb mouth.

  Nick raised an eyebrow.

  Despite the makeup I was wearing, I knew my face turned about twenty thousand shades of red. Hell, I probably just invented a new shade.

  Instead of apologizing, I picked up my tea and took a sip.

  “Well,” he drawled as if he decided he wasn’t going to call me out on my rude commentary. “We keep having these early call times, by the end of the month, I’ll know a lot about your early-morning habits too.”

  I forced a laugh, but deep down, I wasn’t amused.

  Nick Preston would never know about my early-morning habits.

  No one ever would.

  I was drawn in.

  I wished I wasn’t.

  She embodied everything in this business I’d spent about eighty-five percent of my life in, except for one thing. Her signature scent.

  Yes, I know. Don’t even go there with me.

  I already knew her signature scent. If I were anyone other than Nick Preston, movie star and sexiest man alive, knowing that would put me on the top ten list of creepy stalkers.

  But I wasn’t a creepy stalker. I was a movie star. That made my attention to detail romantic.

  I tried to ignore it, to be indifferent. My nostrils overruled my attempts, though, and I couldn’t help but notice her light, fresh scent whenever she was nearby.

  It’s why I was drawn in, because despite the fact she was pretty much Hollywood at its core, she didn’t smell like it. Kind of like a breath of clean mountain air in the middle of all the L.A. smog.

  This business had a way of leaking into every aspect of a man’s life. To the point he almost became the character... Less human, more fiction.

  I loved my job, but even in love, a man still had to breathe.

  It wasn’t her air I wanted in my lungs, though, no matter how purely fresh it felt filtering from my chest and into my bloodstream. I wanted something—someone—that wasn’t a reminder of my life. The sad meals I ate, the long flights, the photographers, and the need to be “on” almost every single moment of every single day.

  It was exhausting, even for a charming guy like me.

  I wanted a reprieve. Something real in a world where so much was bogus. I wasn’t fooling myself, though. I worked in movies. In make-believe. A land where producers and writers controlled the script, where they basically bent characters’ lives to their will. The odds of me finding something “normal” in the middle of the life I led was nearly impossible. It would only happen if it was written into a script and I got to play the role for a few months.

  Besides her scent, I couldn’t quite figure out why my eyes kept finding her when she was around. She was beautiful, sure, but that wasn’t it. Beauty was practically a given in Hollywood. I barely even noticed it anymore. In my eyes, it would take something a lot more than perfectly sculpted eyebrows, full lips, and flawless skin to earn and keep my attention longer than a passing glance.

  I told her the reason I sat down in her makeup chair this morning was because she was the best and I wanted to look as roughed up as I could for this fight scene. I loved giving raw, gritty performances when it looked like I was truly going to lose a battle. The kind where the audience had been rooting for me the entire movie and they thought I would be on top... but then I fell.

  I loved the dimension of a strong character who didn’t always win. Or at the very least, almost died getting back to the top.

  Zoey’s work in this business was getting around. Her attention to detail and the realism in the way she did special effects was earning her quite the reputation. It was a no-brainer I would want to work with her on set, even though the other makeup girl consistently managed to snag me the second I walked in the door.

  Not today, Laura. Not today.

  Zoey’s talent wasn’t the only reason I sat in her chair today, though. I was annoyed with her. Annoyed I was so intrigued and couldn’t figure out why.

  “So how long have you been doing this?” I asked as she took a sponge and started patting it over my skin.

  Dude makeup. It was a thing in movies. I’d made my peace with it.

  Without pausing or looking away from what she was doing, Zoey replied, “Seven years.”

  “That’s a long time,” I replied, wondering how old she was. She didn’t look very old, but there was something about her demeanor that spoke of wisdom.

  She paused for a split second, then went back to patting. “Not really in makeup. It changes pretty quickly, so it still feels new.”

  I liked that answer, which just annoyed me more.

  What was it about her? What was it about this seemingly typical Hollywood girl that got under my skin?

  I was getting the side eye.

  Women everywhere—hell, even men—knew the side eye. The half-sneering, half-critical, definitely all-hateful look that was not so discreetly laser beamed out of the side of a woman’s line of vision in a way she could pretend she wasn’t actually trying to strike you where you stood, but if I happened to die on the spot, they wouldn’t be wounded.

  And who was I getting it from?

  The starlet herself, Jessica Blaine, America’s sweetheart. Such a shocker she didn’t appear to actually be a sweetheart.

  Did I say shocker? I meant the opposite.

  She was actually a good actress, but since we’d started filming, I noticed she might not be as good of a person.

  I’m being nice here. Let me just say it. The girl had a head the size of Shamu, and she expected everyone to fawn all over her.

  And if they didn’t?

  They got the side eye.

  I should mention to the director if he was looking for someone to fill a psycho role, she would be perfect.

  Standing behind a makeup chair, as well as other life events, taught me how to read people. And let me tell you, Jessica’s book was super interesting.

  Not.

  She was snooty, entitled, and didn’t like me. Why? Because I had the audacity to come to work and not look like complete shit. A fact she didn’t really care about until Nick Preston sat in my chair. Guess that meant she hoped the on-screen kisses she was getting from him would turn into off-screen ones as well.

  I should probably note that I wasn’t one of those aforementioned moms in the car line or one of the crew who rolled out of bed at the very last second. I wanted to be, so much so sometimes I daydreamed about it.

 
Ironic, isn’t it? Those women probably daydreamed about looking pulled together, and I wished I was able to roll around looking like I didn’t care.

  I had to care about the way I looked. For more than one reason.

  When I first started in the industry, I got asked quite a lot why I always came to work fully “done.” Most makeup artists were too busy doing their clients to bother with themselves. It was sort of like being a chef and spending all day in the kitchen, cooking up a storm. By the time they got home, cooking themselves some gourmet meal was the last thing they wanted to do, so they ended up eating PB&J.

  The questions and almost strange looks I got for it had made me uncomfortable at first. It was odd that an industry that basically coveted beauty and glamour would frown upon me coming to work in anything less. Just goes to show how freaking judge-y people were, no matter where a person lived.

  My answer became standard. I’d laugh and smile and say I loved my job so much it didn’t seem fair only the stars had all the fun. Then in a more professional tone, I would add that doing myself up on a daily basis was a way for me to try out new products and test new techniques so I would know how they worked when I was on set and needed to save time.

  Everyone accepted the answers. Why wouldn’t they? I knew some of the cattiest women whispered and gossiped behind the scenes that I was just beyond vain, but I let them talk. I’d rather they gossiped about my vanity than about the truth.

  “Nick!” one of the stagehands bellowed into the half-open door. “You’re needed on set!”

  “That was not thirty minutes.” I sniffed. I would be offended, but I was used to this. When they said thirty minutes, they really meant fifteen and some change.

  “Take your time. I’ll tell them it was my fault I was late.”

  Pressing some powder against his cheek, I was slightly offended. I was perfectly capable of taking care of myself. “No need,” I rebuffed lightly. “I’m just about finished.”

  Pulling back, I studied my handiwork. With a quick nod, I stepped out from in front of him so he could look into the mirror.