by Eden Butler
It was when we’d done a brief read through—the first time Coop had bothered to pass around scripts—that the awkwardness leveled up.
“So Rainey, you’ll be my Iso,” he’d said, sliding the script in front of me between the plate of half-eaten lemon pie and remnants of Jo’s succulent glazed ham.
That hadn’t been a secret. Cooper had always wanted me playing the Isolde character and I had to admit to myself that I was pleased he hadn’t seen fit to recast the role, despite my stubborn decision to keep well away from Will and ignore Jo and Coop’s advice to make amends.
“And, of course, Will, you’re my Tristan.”
“What?” That had come in stereo, from both me and Will. The clanking of silverware and the rustle of script paper being fanned went a little still and around the table our friends watched the exchange. Will caught and held my gaze, but he gave nothing away, nothing that told me what he thought about the prospect of not only working together at long last, but doing it while we weren’t on speaking terms. It would make for a weird, tension-filled shoot.
“Cooper, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I tried making my voice low, to keep what I said between the two of us, but that damn loud mouth wasn’t interested in saving me from myself.
“What the hell not? You and Will,” here he nodded toward the end of the table just where Will and half a dozen or so of our fellow cast watched the exchange like a tennis match from hell. “You and Will have this electric chemistry, Rainey.” When I only blinked back at him, Coop exhaled, scrubbing his face before he turned to face the table. “Show of hands. How many of you have, like me, always thought that Will and Raine had this remarkable, off the charts chemistry?”
He had barely asked the question before the entire congregation waved a hand or two in the air.
“Son of a…”
“Rainey. The chemistry is electric. You and Will crackle. The air fractures when you’re in the same room together.”
“That’s not…”
“Like right now,” Cooper interrupted, raising his voice to draw the attention of the small, gathered crowd. “With the whole of the table going quiet and the air around us all humming, I know, like everyone else here that this strange energy isn’t from my wife’s delicious food or the twenty-year-old wine that came from my vineyard.” The air left my lungs and I tried hard not to let my gaze move from Cooper or the annoying control he held with the smallest elevation of his tone. But, it was impossible avoiding the look Will gave me. He was the tempest that shook and moved my world. He was the storm I tried very hard to avoid. But didn’t I like the feel of scalding hot water on my skin. I didn’t like the ache of wanting him when he was right in front of me. At least that’s what I kept telling myself.
You fit me.
No. I couldn’t let that night, that wild, beautiful night fester. Not with so many witnesses. Cooper went on, talking about the art of film, the truth behind the words and movement in the script. “Idealistic honesty. That’s what we seek when we work. That’s the reality of our lives, of who we are deep down.” But at that moment, the only reality I felt was in the look Will gave me and the buzz that moved over my body when he watched me. But I knew it was self-invented; an uncompromising hope with no real foundation despite what we’d done. I was alone in those memories. I cradled them like something precious, something only I could see and feel and recall with perfect clarity.
You fit me everywhere.
Dammit.
“Excuse me.”
Cooper stopped speaking when I left the table and I disregarded his voice calling after me, I completely ignored him and JoJo when I walked into the kitchen and found my way through the endless corridors, the length of hallways and marble floors that went on and on.
Ridiculous opulence. That’s what Will had always called this place. Coop had been raised in a one room shotgun home with cinder blocks for walls and the cold earth for a floor. This home was excess but it was excess bred from want and necessity. Despite the labyrinth of hallways, the lavish art that lined the walls and the marble underfoot, JoJo and Coop had made this place a home.
There were pictures of their two young children, Max and Daisy, on every console and sofa table. The walls were warm and the rugs plush. There were fine, upholstered armchairs right next to the curved settees and comfy chaises but there was also second grade artwork framed in mahogany frames, haphazardly arranged above one mantel.
I ended my escape in Cooper’s office, looking out the glass doors and windows that ran the length of one entire wall. It overlooked the pool and the hilltop beyond that stretched so tall and clear I couldn’t quite tell where it ended and the black night sky began. The gathered crowd had left Jo’s table and made their way onto the fine pool surround, assembling near the trays of frozen margaritas situated on the modest terra cotta bar tucked into the corner of the patio.
Their laughter was loud, moved like an echo in time with the music wafting from speakers I couldn’t see. Niki and Mike did shots of tequila, egged on by Andy Martin, a young kid that Coop had taken under his wing a few years ago. Andy had been an obsessive AURA fan who’d stalked Coop and Will during cons and signings, but who was sweet and harmless and, it turned out, a fine actor. Andy did use comedy as a means to dig himself out of messes he tended to make because he had no filter.
I so wanted to be with them, forgetting the mess I’d made of my life and how I’d let myself sabotage the best friendship I’d ever had. Even now, with the tension between me and Will, and the weird thought of us being romantic leads together, I wished I could drop my feelings and just go out there and be with them. But the ache was still too acute.
The glass of the window in front of me was damp when I rested my forehead against it. The soft bass from the speakers shook the window and I closed my eyes, wondering what could be done and how I could convince Cooper that Will and I together in those scenes, in this film, would be a disaster.
“Is it J.J.?”
I should have known he would have followed me here. I wished I could say it was only that loss that kept me distant. His voice was low, his tone had an edge and as he moved further into Coop’s office, I wondered if his words would stay that soft, if his approach would be as cautious if he remembered that night. Sometimes I wished he would. Sometimes I wished he’d have some weird realization, the kind you read about in amnesia romances, the kind that makes no sense whatsoever nor has any scientific foundation. Boy meets girl, but doesn’t remember. Then he does. Then he doesn’t like what he remembers and it all falls apart.
“Because, if it is J.J., if you think you’re alone in what you feel, Pinkie, you gotta know that just ain’t true. He was my number two. He was right there with me through the beginning. He was my brother.”
Will’s voice sounded close and I held my eyes tighter wishing, praying that he’d stop, that he wouldn’t come any nearer. If he touched me, I’d unravel. He smelled too good, felt too good. I hadn’t forgotten that. I hadn’t forgotten a thing.
“We all loved him, sweetie.”
He stood behind me then, so close that I could feel the sharp, sweet heat of his body. Will didn’t know what his proximity did to me, had always done to me. He didn’t know that just then, with his breath moving the back of my hair and that sweet, comfortable scent of his hair and skin warming me from the inside, that he could have me so easily. I’d melt completely just with one word. Just with the smallest movement in my direction.
But that wouldn’t do me any favors. He’d left when the idea of being with me, the prospect of wanting me had been a laughable, ridiculous concept. It had hurt worse than I thought possible. It kept hurting and now, I knew, if I melted, if I let him back in, I’d still never have what I wanted. He’d never be mine, not like I wanted. And I couldn't live with that, not again.
Will grazed the curve of my shoulder and I jumped back, bumping his chest with my elbow as I retreated.
“Rainey…what the hell…”
�
�I…it’s not J.J. It’s not…I just can’t. I won’t…”
“You aren’t making any sense.” Will came forward, his expression drawn, confused and I curled my hands into fists, struggling to keep from reaching out to him. It was an effort that I didn’t know would require so much self-control. As much as I loved him, I couldn’t touch him, comfort him. Dammit, Will knew something was wrong, that I was struggling against my own nature. I saw that plainly in the way he watched me and how deeply the frown he wore marred his beautiful face. “My God, you haven’t made sense in months. Is it…do you think me and Ellie…”
“You and Ellie?” The memory was harsh and her name, the name of my sworn enemy from his mouth felt filthy and wrong. “I don’t care about ‘you and Ellie,’ Will.” It didn’t matter to me that I sounded bitter and petty. It was bad enough that Will had agreed to work with the BFW. But to date her? After years and years of her hitting on him, after years of him turning her down? It felt like an insult.
“You do care,” he said stepping closer, blocking my exit. “I see that on your face, Pinkie and I…”
“Don’t call me that.”
Will moved back, his features taking on a mildly surprised expression. I’d never yelled at Will, not in anger, not the whole time we’d known each other—well, only that once at J.J.’s funeral. But now an image had set itself inside my brain and brought to the surface every vindictive, irrational emotion that I’d learned, thanks to my blessed Taunte Claire, to repress. Mean girl attitudes got you nowhere and yet that’s what came forward when Will talked about him and Ellie.
“Don’t call you the name I’ve called you since the first day we met?” Will ignored me when I moved away, followed behind until he came to the door, slamming it shut when I tried opening it. “Raine Quinn, I’m your best friend. You mean the world to me but you’re acting like…like…some crazy ex-girlfriend.”
“What the hell did you just say to me?”
I may have never raised my voice to Will, but we’d sure gotten under each other’s skin, more than once. You do that when you’re family. You do that when you love someone and when you get to that point, you also quickly discover what really sets the other person off. For Will, a man who’d been surrounded by Vegas showgirls his entire life, a man who had to figure out how to be a man all on his own, questioning that masculinity, doubting that he had any clue how to even be a “real” man set him on edge.
For me, the girl who had been loyal to him, the girl who became the woman who loved him, the same woman who had been accused of being the girl Will always left behind, though I never had been valuable enough to be left behind, to being reduced to something so stereotypical, so... so common as a “crazy ex-girlfriend” was crossing a line. Will knew that. He knew it and still leveled the insult anyway.
“Raine…”
“I’m a crazy ex-girlfriend? Are you serious right now? Is it because I’m a loud mouth woman, Will? Is it because your little man-boy feelings got hurt? I don’t return your calls and you think…”
“I never said that…”
“You did. You said it by not saying it and still said it anyway…”
“Will you listen to yourself, you insane woman? You are making no sense and I…”
“I don’t give one damn…
Funny thing about the not yelling thing: if you repress your anger, even at your alleged best friend, one day at some point, that anger will burst free. It did just then, for both of us. Will and I screamed and yell and moved around Cooper’s office like the two irrational, immature idiots we were.
“How dare you assume…”
“You know what, princess, I’ll assume all day long no matter what kind of ass it makes of you and me, as long as it gets you going…”
Will Callahan had been my best friend for ten years. Even after Ellie stabbed me right in the back, it was Will who pulled the knife out. But just then, raging at him, hearing the repressed anger volleying between us, we weren’t friends at all. In fact, that sweet, abiding affection I kept cradled inside my chest for Will dimmed somewhat the longer we went on screaming at one another and when I grabbed a cup filled with Cooper’s favorite colored Bic pens and flung it right at Will’s head, I didn’t see anything in him but an enemy.
“Woah, wait just one damn minute,” Jojo said, stepping inside the office to wedge herself between the two of us. Eyes wide and utterly confused, Jo looked back and forth, glancing at Cooper as he walked into his office behind her. “What in God’s name is going on between you two?”
“That’s something I’d like answered myself,” Coop said, slipping into that ridiculous leather chair. He leaned on his elbows, steepling his fingers as his wife pushed Will back, and he and I both calmed enough to stand in front of Coop’s desk. For my part, I felt a quick wave of mortification that I’d allowed Will to grate my nerves so severely.
JoJo went to her husband’s side when Will and I looked sane enough again and waited for Cooper to speak. He had that strange I’m about to lay some serious shit on you expression I’d always hated.
“I wanted you both for this project to honor the idea J.J. had for this film.” When he mentioned our friend both Will and I snapped out of our antagonism to stare at Cooper. He wanted our focus and just then he got it. Still, he didn’t have to look so damn smug about it.
“Bet you didn’t know that did you? This whole thing was J.J.’s idea. His dream was to see the two of you bring this project to life, to become Tristan and Isolde. I wanted him to play the title role, but he told me no, that it belonged to the two of you.” Coop let us stew in the revelation, moving back against his Wells chair. If J.J. had wanted this film done, he’d never told me. From the look on Will’s face, I suspected he didn't know, either.
“So,” Coop continued, rocking a little in that chair. “You have to decide if you want to honor our friend’s dream or if you want to…” he waved a hand between the two of us, letting the small accusation hang in the air. “There’s this little thing called professionalism.”
“Honey, cut the crap.” JoJo shook her head, glaring at all of us as though she was sick to death with everything—her husband, her friends and the annoying assholes who had drunkenly dropped two of her margarita glasses. “There’s no need for theatrics.” In the distance Niki’s laughter rang out and then there came the distinct sound of glass hitting concrete. Three. Jo closed her eyes and when she opened them again, it looked like she wanted very much to hit something.
“So?” she asked, continuing to glare between the two of us. “Is there going to be a problem?”
There well could be. I had pushed Will away to save my own heart. I just hadn’t had the nerve to admit why that was necessary. And he in turn seemed to retreat from me, landing right in the wiry, bitchy arms of my former best friend who seemed to want to wrap hers around Will just to see how easily she could stick a knife in his back too.
But dammit, Cooper Vilmont was right, again. We were actors. We were professionals. We should be able to do this, despite the way the thought of it made my skin crawl, for numerous reasons.
“There won’t be a problem,” Will said, uncurling his arms when Coop stood from the desk.
“Good,” Jo said, relaxing enough to sit back on Coop’s desk. “I’m glad to hear that, Will.”
“And you, Rainey?” Coop asked, joining his wife on the desk. He watched me close, moving his head to the side as though he half expected me to lash out at him. “You won’t have a problem fulfilling J.J.’s dream will you? Even if you’re mad at Will for…well. Whatever the hell you’re mad at Will for. You’ll be a professional?”
“Yes,” I answered, not liking the glare Will gave me when I took too long to answer.
“And,” JoJo said, “you’ll refrain from screaming at anyone? Including Will?”
“I…I’ll refrain.” That glare got harder, but I managed to ignore it.
“And,” Coop said, imitating his wife’s soft Southern California accent. “Yo
u’ll both be up for the love scene?”
“I…”
“Wait,” Will said, that glare losing its potency when his voice cracked.
“Oh yes,” Jo said, repressing a grin. “Page thirty-seven. It happens in a truck. Bucket seat. Very hot.”
“Jo…I don’t think…”
She tilted her head, counting, I guessed, on my misery and how fiercely I’d loved J.J. to wrangle in the answer she wanted from me. “You would have done it with J.J., right?”
“Well, yeah but…”
“No buts. You and Will were even closer than you and Jack, once upon a time.” I didn’t like the pause that moved in the room then or how JoJo seemed to wait, right along with Coop and Will before she continued. There was information she wanted me to provide. There was something she thought I might say that would explain the distance I’d put between us all. Finally, Jojo relaxed her shoulders, if not her curiosity. “You’re telling me that you’re uncomfortable kissing your best friend?”
“I’d…I’d hate to complicate certain…ties he has.”
“You don’t worry about me and my ties.” Will moved quicker than I realized, coming closer to me, voice biting but he didn’t look at me when he spoke.
I decided to return his cool attitude. “I’m not.”
“Good.” He moved closer still, glancing to the side to shoot a glare at me.
I returned that glare, adding a quick eye roll because I knew how that annoyed him. “Fine.”
“Then it’s settled.” Cooper clapped his hands together, looking entirely too pleased with himself as he jumped from the desk. “We’ll get started in the morning.” He led Jo out of his office, pausing for a second when she turned to face us.
“Be sure to read the script. We start with that wicked spicy truck scene.”