Picture This

by Jayne Denker

“Figures.” He cleared his throat. “Go on.”

  “Okay, where were we . . . let’s see . . . You probably heard all that stuff about how I signed you up for three back-to-back cruises—as kitchen help—and then penciled you in for a foreign film, six-month shoot—a buddy flick with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. Should be a barrel of laughs. It’s in Portuguese, by the way, so I’ll order you some Rosetta Stone software and—”

  “Very funny.”

  Trent picked up the tablet. “Well, it’s hard to compete with your eye candy. Are these from the McManus shoot?”

  “Yeah.”

  The other man flicked through a couple of photos. “My, my. Quite the hottie. Get her number?”

  Why, yes, I did, in fact. “It wasn’t like that, Trent.” A weak protest, but he used it all the same.

  “Hm. These photos say otherwise.”

  “She’s not my type.” Lie.

  “Jesus, adjust. Change types.”

  “Don’t lecture me. Just because you found everlasting love with a burly blue-collar cop doesn’t mean we all should go for someone we normally wouldn’t date in a million years.”

  Trent huffed as he handed the tablet back to his boss. “I will get scoldy with you if you’re telling me you wouldn’t date her in a million years. That’s just crazy talk.”

  Niall wasn’t about to tell Trent he’d already texted Celia, not long after he received the proofs. He’d attached one of his favorite photos: the two of them standing close together, cheek to cheek, arms hanging straight down, fingers entwined, looking as though they were in the middle of a dance. Celia was tall to begin with, and in those mammoth heels, she nearly matched his height. Her eyes were closed and she was smiling, blissful. He looked about the same. His text had said simply, I believe you have absconded with my property. Fork ’em over. Don’t make me call the cops. And his address. Nothing untoward. He didn’t really want the pair of boxers back; he just wanted to see her again, even if he couldn’t date her.

  Now the question was, would she show up on his doorstep someday? He had half a mind to pull a Howard Hughes and never budge from his loft until she did. Leaving it entirely up to her made him fidgety ; he was desperate to take matters into his own hands and hunt her down, but he couldn’t do that. Not just yet, anyway.

  “Not your type,” Trent muttered, tapping his pen on the stack of papers in his lap. “Absolute crazy talk.” Someone turned up the music, and the volume of the conversation outside the door increased as well. “And you’re saying Ms. Sola is your type?”

  “Ms. Sola is whatever the studio says she is. We are. Whatever.”

  Trent massaged his temples tiredly. “For how much longer?”

  “Three. Freakin’. Months.”

  “Can you last that long?”

  As if on cue, Tiffany and her friends let loose another burst of piercing laughter. It went to Niall’s brain with the force of an ice pick. “In all honesty, I don’t know, man. I just don’t know.”

  Restless, Niall pushed to his feet, yanked open the door, and headed out into the main part of his loft. Which, he was surprised to see, was populated by not only Tiffany and her friends but also about a dozen other people, none of whom he recognized. And more were coming through the door.

  “Crap,” he muttered. “Not again.”

  He passed a guy wearing a baseball cap backward. As the guy took a swig of beer, he eyed Niall and held up his free hand for Niall to high five. “Dude!” he bellowed.

  At a loss for what to say to that, Niall replied sedately, “Dude.”

  “Duuude!” the guy said again, hand still raised. “Bananaaaaaas!”

  Ah. That stupid catchphrase would never, ever die out, would it? Four—no, five—movies ago, and it still followed him around like a hungry stray. He tried to dodge the dude, but Dude was having none of it. Niall sidestepped; Dude edged in front of him again, hand still held high. Dude raised his eyebrows encouragingly and twitched his palm, waiting. Niall sighed, halfheartedly smacked it, and muttered dully, “Bananas.” Dude hooted triumphantly, and Niall was finally allowed to pass.

  “Friends of yours?” Trent asked, hot on his heels.

  “You’re hilarious.” Niall yanked open the fridge and grabbed two bottles of water, handed one to Trent. “I can’t take another one of Tiff ’s parties tonight. Want to catch a movie or something?”

  “Can’t. I’ve—”

  “—got a date,” Niall finished for him. “Should’ve known. Well, good for you.” He held up his hand for a high five. “Duuude.” Trent grinned and obliged. “Look, I’m sorry I’m keeping you here this late. Let’s skip the rest of the stuff, leave it till tomorrow—”

  Trent sighed. “Tomorrow there will be a whole slew of new business. Now would be better.”

  “Right . . .”

  As they turned to go, Tiffany wedged herself between them. “Niall,” she said with a cheerfully fake smile. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Working, my love. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “We need more ice. Send Trent.”

  “Trent’s busy.” Niall sighed. “Did we really need to have another party?”

  “What’s wrong with having a party?”

  “I have no idea who these people are.”

  “They’re our friends.”

  “They are?” Niall glanced over at the flock of spray-tanned, high-heeled chicks hovering nearby.

  “Omigod, you’re Niall Crenshaw!” one of them fluttered.

  “That’s what the tag on my underwear says.”

  “Wow, you’ve got your own underwear line?” the girl breathed.

  “No, it was a joke . . . You know what? Never mind.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  He blinked a couple of times before replying evenly, “I live here.”

  “Oh.” She giggled. “Right.”

  He gave her a stiff grin and turned back to Tiffany. In a low voice, he said, “Did you have to tell everyone to come here? What’s wrong with your apartment?”

  “We have an agreement,” she muttered back. “I get to hang out here whenever I want. Remember?”

  “Um, is that actually written in the contract? I mean spelled out in just that way? And does it really cover inviting half of Manhattan . . . and, apparently, three quarters of Brooklyn?” he added, as another group of people came through the door.

  Tiffany took a steadying breath. “Niall, come on. You could be more fun than this.”

  He pulled an agonized face before he could stop himself. What had he done to deserve this? Well, he’d signed a fake-relationship contract, of course, but couldn’t his contract buddy have been an intelligent, kind, classy woman? Then their fake relationship could have evolved into a genuine one, with a meeting of minds, true affection, and love/marriage/baby carriage instead of this ball-and-chain, counting-the-minutes-till-it-was-over deal?

  Well. If his costar had been intelligent, kind, and classy, she wouldn’t have needed a fake-relationship contract in the first place. Niall was far from perfect, but he was definitely a few steps up from the scuzzbuckets Tiff usually went for. The whole arrangement was sold to him as the opportunity to “save her from herself.” His agent and the movie’s producers knew he’d go for it and, damn his bleeding heart anyway, they were right. Of course, it didn’t hurt that he was being paid well to squire Tiffany all over the place. Every little bit helped.

  Still, it wasn’t like he hated Tiffany or anything. She was all right, in her way. She was just . . . exhausting.

  He groaned. “Fine. Party on, Tiff.”

  “That means you’ve got to be here.”

  “Dammit!”

  “Well, duh, Niall, I can’t host parties by myself and let you disappear all the time. That would look really bad.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know.”

  “So you’ll stay?”

  “Looks like I don’t have much of a choice.”

  “And no hiding in your bedroom, either. Or on the roof
.”

  “Laundry room?”

  “Niall!”

  “Bathroom? Pantry?”

  Tiffany just glared.

  “Okay, okay.” He sighed, plunked his hands on his hips, and looked up at the concrete ceiling high above, stating, as if by rote, “I promise I will attend this party and not hide in some small, dark place.” No matter how much I want to, he added in his head.

  He started to walk away, but she grabbed his bicep and dug her manicured nails into his sleeve. “I’m holding you to that,” she whispered. “Now kiss me, or I’m calling my agent.”

  Once he’d gotten rid of Tiffany and her crew, he turned back to Trent. “Sorry. Where were we?”

  Trent flicked through his stack of notes. “You’ve got some interest in the LA house. You should have a solid offer by the end of the week. Aggie strongly suggests you take it.”

  “Even if it’s a buck fifty?”

  “Even if.”

  Someone plopped several bags of chips on the counter. Niall ripped one open. Barbecue. Bleah. But he ate some all the same. “Aggie’s a pain in my ass.”

  “If you didn’t blow all your money as soon as you made it, she wouldn’t have to ride herd on you to divest yourself of your assets just to keep your head above water.”

  “My assets are my business.”

  “She’s got your assets in a sling, for your best interest. So listen to her.”

  “Yeah, yeah . . .”

  “She wants you to put this place on the market too.”

  “Where does she want me to live? All the good subway grates in the neighborhood are taken.”

  “If you’d just let her handle more of your money for you—”

  “Drop it, Trent.”

  “Aggie’s a good accountant. Just make more of your income available for her, don’t blow it on whatever you’re—”

  “I said drop it, Trent.”

  “Fine.” He sighed. “Then you’re going to be on this hamster wheel for the rest of your life.”

  “Hey, maybe I like making crappy movies just for the paycheck and . . . and . . . cutting the ribbon at supermarket openings.”

  Trent snorted as another large group of people flooded into the loft. One, apparently a self-styled graffiti artist, looked around, assessing, then pulled out a massive Sharpie and started drawing on the wall in the living room area . . . dangerously close to Niall’s prized Keith Haring original.

  “Shit.” Niall lurched across the room, grasping people by the shoulders and moving them to one side, watching the flying Sharpie the whole time. One last leap and he had the Haring off the wall and tucked under his arm. Then he reached out and plucked the marker from the artist’s fingers. “Beat it,” he snapped.

  “Hey, you should let me finish—someday my art’s gonna be worth ten times that stick figure picture.”

  “Due to your untimely death, you mean?” he growled, and the guy moved off, into the crowd, with a wary look back at his wild-eyed host.

  Hoping the incident wouldn’t make it onto a celebrity gossip site within the next five minutes, Niall squired the painting to a safe place—the back of the coat closet in the entryway, by the front door. When he emerged, he turned to Trent, who was still behind him, as always. “You were saying?”

  “Business. Money. Guest appearances.”

  “Hey, an invitation to a supermarket ribbon-cutting isn’t in that stack of papers you’re waving around, is it?”

  “Let’s find out.” Trent shuffled through them. “Ah, here we go. Supermarket—”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t think so.” He put a slash through that one, then relegated it to the bottom of the pile. “Fundraiser, animal shelter, Brooklyn.”

  “Maybe. Probably. Sure.”

  His assistant scribbled a note on the corner of the paper. “I’ll tell them to make sure whatever animal they hand you for the photo op won’t pee on you. Next . . . skin care boutique opening, Rodeo Drive, next week.”

  Niall made a face. “What the—? Doubtful.”

  “Okay. Um . . . not that one . . . not that one,” Trent muttered, and Niall appreciated the fact that Trent was filtering out the noise and only giving him the highlights. “Oh God.” He laughed. “Emcee for an American Idol type thing.”

  Niall nearly tripped over a group of partiers sitting in a circle on the floor, prepping for God knew what—drum circle, bong circle, naked yoga-in. Whatever it was, they sure had made themselves comfortable. The thought of doing a reality show made his stomach churn. He knew it might come to this eventually; he was just surprised it had come so soon. Then again, the entertainment industry was pretty unforgiving, and he’d tested its patience lately. What was it now, three movies in a row that had bombed? His luck had to run out sometime.

  “Network or basic cable?”

  “Pfft. You kidding? I think it’s a small-town . . . Christ . . . pig-calling contest or something. Marsden Arts Center.”

  Niall didn’t laugh along with Trent. Instead, he fixed him with a sharp look. “Did you say Marsden?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Marsden, New York?”

  “Yeah. Why? You know it?”

  He yanked the paper out of Trent’s fingers. “No, but I know somebody who does.”

  Chapter 4

  The assault on Celia’s senses as she approached the open door of Niall’s loft nearly made her jump straight back into the elevator. The thudding music, the cacophony of voices, the swarms of people . . . she knew about this side of night life in New York City, but only by hearsay. This was not her thing. She didn’t get invited to these types of parties. Her nights were spent scarfing cheap dim sum in Chinatown with her roommates and frequenting dive bars when there was a two-for-one well-drinks special. This was a whole nother level of partying.

  For the hundredth time since she’d forced her feet onto the M train in Brooklyn and let it carry her toward the SoHo address Niall had texted her (along with a rather demanding note for his boxers and a—she had to admit it—really hot photo of the two of them from Vic’s shoot), she wondered what the hell she was doing. The celebrity summons her, and she goes? Insanity.

  But she couldn’t deny that she wanted to see him again. Well, sort of. Sometimes. First she’d decided to follow the trail of breadcrumbs to his lair—er, his apartment—and let the chips fall where they may, consequences be damned. Then she’d changed her mind as she’d realized going to a near-stranger’s place alone was a stupid thing to do. But then the more reckless part of her—the part she’d promised she’d indulge, and even nurture, after spending too much of her too-safe life in her tiny rural hometown—gave her grief. Drop the boxers in the mail? Seriously? it sneered at her. Throw them away and pretend you never met the guy? Worse!

  She hated to admit it, but the reckless part of her had a point. If she didn’t take this opportunity—for what, she had no idea, but something other than doing nothing—she’d end up doing something stupidly tame, like folding up those boxers into a tiny square, stuffing them into the bottom of her keepsake box, then discovering them decades later after a life left unlived, wondering what could have been.

  How overly dramatic. Maybe Niall Crenshaw had rubbed off on her already. All she knew was, after a bit of Danny’s prodding (okay, more than a bit), she’d finally made the trip, and now here she was, outside Niall’s apartment.

  Well, she thought, on the upside, she didn’t need to worry about being alone with him. The possibility had consumed her ever since she’d received his text, but she’d never considered the opposite—that she’d be unable to find him in a crowd in his own apartment.

  Celia stood frozen in the hallway, wide-eyed, watching the ever-changing scene framed in the doorway: what seemed like hundreds of bodies, each one more beautiful than the last, writhing, talking/shouting over the music, hugging, drinking, smoking, eating, moving on again.

  “Hey, Niall! Did you order a stalker?”

  Celia stifled a gasp and her hear
t rate picked up. Stalker? Somebody thought she was a stalker? Okay, this whole thing had been a mistake. She should have lied to Danny. She should have walked out of her apartment, shoved those boxers into the nearest garbage can, gone to a movie to hide out for an appropriate amount of time, then reported back that there was nothing to report: that she’d just handed them over and left. Better yet, that Niall wasn’t even at home when she returned them.

  That would have been the smart thing to do. Then Danny would have left her alone. Then she wouldn’t have been standing there in the hall that smelled like pot smoke and industrial sheet metal, wondering why a total stranger thought she was stalking Niall—okay, she’d been standing there a little too long, probably with a deer-in-the-headlights look, but still.

  She was unsure whether to stand her ground or run when someone pushed past the sarcastic dude. Niall. Filling the doorway, the biggest grin lighting up his face. All thoughts of running left her head immediately when she realized he’d brightened up just because she was standing there.

  Celia struggled to find something to say. She had come up with several pretty good opening lines during her subway ride, but the fickle stinkers had deserted her just when she needed them.

  Niall filled the gap. “Miss Celia,” he said loudly, over the music. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “I guess that proves threats work,” she shouted back.

  He frowned, concerned. “You’re here under duress?”

  Yeah, what she’d meant to be quippy just sounded harsh. She scrambled to make amends. “No, no!” She ignored the memory of Danny shoving her out of their apartment. “I was, you know, in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d . . . um . . . is this a bad time?”

  He put on a blank look. “What do you mean?”

  “Your party.”

  “Party?” Celia gestured behind him. He looked over his shoulder and jumped. “My God! Where did they come from? All of you—get out!”

  As he flapped his arms wildly at the guests, who collectively ignored him, Celia smiled and moved closer. It was probably an honor that he expected her to play the straight man to his shtick; the least she could do was step up. She pulled a tiny shopping bag out of her huge quilted purse and handed it to him. “Boxers returned. Don’t worry, I washed them.”