by N J Adel
“He hasn’t?”
“Nope.”
“Do you want him to?”
I took my time, as if I was indulging in a fantasy, easing my way into it. “Who wouldn’t?”
Scene 55
Maggie
I shot the first two scenes on the schedule—Mike-free scenes—familiarizing myself with the new work dynamics, gaining momentum. Not that it was less intimidating to work with some of the A-list stars in Hollywood, but it was easier than starting with Mike. This project was much bigger than the former, and he’d spared nothing to hire the best crew—I now had four ADs for God’s sake—and build the most detailed sets. The last thing he needed was a nervous director who didn’t know how to manage a big-budget feature.
Black Sheep wasn’t just Raoul’s dream or mine.
It was Mike’s.
The giant leap that would turn him from a heartthrob into a serious actor. A true artist.
He took a big chance on me, trusting me with that precious baby. I’d be damned if I screwed it up for him.
I was giving last minute instructions to the 1st AD, a megaphone low in my hand, when Mike made his first appearance as Chuck Sullivan on set. The transformation compelled the crew to stare at him and clap with amazement. Mike flashed his industry smile at them, his eyes fixed on me.
I stared, too. The makeover was over the top. He’d cut his hair since the preparations, yet I hadn’t got used to it. The fake dirty teeth. The heavy beard. The crooked nose. Even his eyes looked different. I saw Chuck, not Mike. Not the breathtaking sex god I called mine, but the ugly villain who was about to ruin everybody’s lives.
Great. That eased my nerves, and with every step he took toward me, I grew more focused on the character and less on the boyfriend.
He rubbed his forehead. “What do you think, Kiddo?”
He, too, was nervous.
I raked him from head to toe, letting him sweat for a second. Then I looked around. “Ladies and gentlemen, meet Chuck Sullivan. The hero and the villain of our story.”
Scene 56
Mike
Mike removed his makeup while watching Maggie’s interview. Then he walked into the screening room, hoping to catch her alone.
She wasn’t.
He cleared his throat. “Having fun, fellas?”
“Gennaro, what took you so long?” Jim Cassidy, his co-star, stopped breathing down Maggie’s neck and looked at him. The other two co-stars, Christian and Dwain, did the same as Mike grabbed a chair and sat next to Maggie.
“Unlike you, I had a hundred pounds of makeup on me to take off,” Mike said.
Maggie sank in her chair, snickering while chewing her fingernails, her eyes pinned to the screens, her other hand pushing buttons. “That’s what it takes when you’re too fuckin’ pretty.”
Jim nudged him in the arm. “Oh, look at that. The Kid thinks you’re pretty, Mickey.”
Maggie pushed another button. “You’re all pretty, boys. Don’t get jealous on me now.”
Mike bit his cheek, his fingers tapping the arm of his chair. “Can I see eleven, please?”
“Oh, I’m not jealous,” Cassidy continued. “Unlike Mister Italy here.”
The other actors started laughing, which prompted the rest of the crew to join the banter.
“Screw you, Cassidy.” Mike glanced at his face on the screen. “Mister Italy’s latest movie opened with four-hundred million. What did yours make?”
“Burn,” Dwain teased.
“Dear God,” she said. “There’s too much testosterone in the room. Starting tomorrow you’re not allowed in here together. I’ll send each of you a screening schedule.” She rose from her seat, shooing the leads like chicken. “Don’t take this the wrong way, I love you all, but get the fuck out of here.”
Cassidy pointed at Mike. “Why does he get to stay?”
“He’s the fuckin’ producer, Jim. Now, get out before I kick you in the nuts.” She closed the door and returned to her seat.
Mike dragged his seat closer so she could listen to him when he whispered. “That fuckin’ shit you said this morning in the interview can’t happen again.”
“What’re you talking about? Lahey was psyched about that interview. She said I did well,” she whispered back.
“Well…yeah, technically.” He shrugged. “But that was like an open invitation, and apparently, none of them are reluctant to act upon it. Isn’t it enough that I hear them swoon over you, describing the things they wanna do to you?”
“That’s creepy,” she said.
“That’s it? That’s creepy. That’s all you have?” He was fuming now.
“I kicked them all out. What else do you want me to do?”
“Nothing, but I swear to God if any of those fuckers lean that close to you again, I’ll punch them ugly. Let them say whatever they wanna say.” He combed through his hair and got irritated when he couldn’t find much. “I hate this fuckin’ haircut.”
She smiled, playing a different scene.
“What?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
His leg rocked. “But you wanna say something.”
“You’re hot when you’re jealous,” she whispered again, giving him a quick glance.
He rolled his eyes, his lips twitching. “I’m not joking right now.”
“Me neither.” She continued screening scenes. “Even with that hideous haircut.”
“Fuck. I really can’t stay mad at you for over two seconds,” he said under his breath, snapping at the buttons.
She moved his hand away. “Hey, I know it’s your dime, but this is very expensive equipment. Take that anger somewhere else, where it’s useful.” A mischievous smile danced on her lips.
He squeezed her hand, letting her know he understood. “You got it, Kiddo.” He left the room, his fingers fast with a text. Where?
Her reply was swift. My trailer. Ten minutes.
Scene 57
Maggie
“You were really angry.” My head lulled over Mike’s perspiring shoulder, his naked body a silver silhouette in the dark.
“I’m not done with you. You’ve been a very naughty girl, Carolina,” he whispered, his voice drugging.
I sat on the bed, staring at the wall thickness of my trailer bedroom, Mike’s tender kisses soft on my back. “You soundproofed my trailer?”
“Mine too. I had them custom-made. I know how loud we can be.” He chuckled, his arms tight around my waist, his tongue gliding up the back of my neck.
“Is that something you usually order?”
“Nope. Discretion was never a requirement before.” He cupped my breasts, holding them with a gossamer pressure. My body jerked in response. “Besides, no girl can make me loud like you do.”
“Not even Patricia Sabatini?”
“What? How do you even remember her name? I broke up with her eight years ago.”
“How can I forget? She was Miss Italy, and you loved her and never had another girlfriend after her.”
He shook his head. “God, you really are romantically slow.” His teeth nipped my earlobe. “Carolina, I never had a girlfriend because after I broke up with her I fell for you and couldn’t have you, not because I was hung up on her.”
I stared at him in shock, giddy, the revelation heavy on me. I am romantically fucking slow. “I…” Was lost for words? My heart was about to explode? My mind was blown away? “Shit.”
“Si, si.” His hands pushed my hair off my neck as his mouth returned to kiss me there. “And to answer your question, no, not even her. How could you still ask me these silly questions? Don’t you know by now what you do to me?”
He shifted his weight behind me, grinding his erection against my ass, and I moaned. Perhaps I knew what I did to him now, but I had no clue Mike Gennaro was unable to fall for anyone else because of me. His love for me. How could I? This was impossible to believe. Even after these months together. Sometimes I thought I was still in one of my fantasies about
him. A dream I’d soon wake up from.
“When did you know for sure?” I asked.
His fingers moved, gently pinching my nipples. “That I love you?”
I gasped as wetness gushed between my thighs. “Um-hum.”
“Guess.” His fingertips slid on my sides, teasing.
A quiver ran through my body. “And if I’m right?”
“You get to pick which private island we’re going to when we finish shooting.” He edged two fingers between my thighs, and I hissed with pleasure. “But if you’re wrong,” he added, his breaths shallow as his fingers moved in a slow rhythm inside me. “I get to go with you to the Tribeca.”
The sensations he rippled in me scrambled my thoughts. “As…my date?”
He laid me on my back and settled on top of me. “Your date.” He sucked my tit. “Your maid.” And the other. “I don’t give a fuck as long as I’m there with you.”
I laughed. “Okay. How many shots do I get?”
He rubbed his cock against my moisture as he kissed me. “One.”
“Just one?” I panted, my heart and pussy throbbing. “That’s not fair. Not when I can’t focus like this.”
“I never said I’d play fair.” He pushed deep inside me, and I gasped a moan. “Cazzo, come sei stretta, come sei bagnata. You feel so fucking good,” he whispered, his playful tone now shuddering.
I gasped again, my fingers digging in his ass. My mind searched for the right answer, not because I cared whether I won or lost—I was going to ask him to the premiere anyway—but I wanted to know the moment Mike Gennaro, the Italian Heartthrob that had every girl’s heart in the country wrapped around his finger, figured out he was in love with me. “Okay, let me think. When you broke up with Patricia, I was starting high school senior year…”
“Yes.” He began with a slow thrust.
I moaned. “You were shooting that stupid thriller… ” Another moan left my mouth as he pushed a little harder. “When you were done, it was…spring break.”
“Yes,” he groaned as he picked up the pace. He kept his weight braced on his arms so he could look at me.
I swallowed. “We went to Florida with you. You had a fight with Andrea about which movie to make next. You were…ah…unhappy. Thought about quitting.” My hands clenched around his ass. “We became best friends then.”
His strokes were long and smooth. “Yes, Carolina.”
“You wanted me to go to the premiere…and I said no.”
He plunged into me, and I pressed back, the pleasure suddenly overwhelming. “Mike,” I cried out. “Fuck me, babe.”
His arm moved behind my back, lifting me and sliding me a little down. Then he bent, sucking my lips one at a time, his hand squeezing my left tit. “I love feeling your heartbeat as I fuck you.” He slowed down, delaying my orgasm. “I feel your pussy tightening around my cock. God, I love your fucking pussy.”
His thick masculine voice and his way uttering dirty words poured fuel on my desire. “You haven’t guessed yet,” he reminded me, breathing hard.
Who the fuck cares now?
“Okay… You didn’t make any more movies till I finished high school.” I wanted to swallow, but my throat was too dry. “Then I told you I was thinking about going to college in England, and then…” I closed my eyes, and it hit me. He had told me he wanted to go to England, too, for a year to take a break and think about his next move. Then when I told him I got accepted there, suddenly, he changed his mind and signed for another one of his romantic comedies.
That was the moment.
“Fuck!” I opened my eyes, almost into tears. All this time. All this time, Mike.
His thrusts sped up, and I was almost there with him. Then I felt his release inside me as he arched his back with a long groan.
That IUD was a great choice to make. I didn’t know why I’d been denying myself the pleasure of feeling his cum in my pussy. Him coming inside me drove me to my own orgasm. I bucked into him, feeling the damp flesh of his lean, hard body as I clung to him with both arms and legs.
He lowered his head and kissed me. I was still shivering from the force of my release. “Did you figure it out yet?” he asked.
“No. Maybe when I returned from college,” I lied.
A smile of triumph lit his face. “Wrong.”
“Shit. So when?”
He slid out of me and lay beside me, his arm slippery on my waist. “I started feeling things for you that summer. When I told you I’d move to England, I wasn’t going to think about my career. I’d already decided to stop making those movies when you said you hated them.” He swallowed. “I was going there to think about us. My feelings for you.”
“How?”
“I wanted to be close to you. I wanted to know if it was real.”
I blinked, my heart thrumming. “What changed your mind?”
“I didn’t need proof anymore.” His eyes glistened at me. “The night you told me you got accepted and were actually going, I asked myself one question. If you left and I stayed, how would that feel?” He pursed his lips. “The answer was a squeeze around my heart that I’d never felt before, not even when Patricia cheated on me. That was when I knew.”
I scowled. “Why the fuck didn’t you come with me?”
“You were fucking seventeen.”
“Don’t give me that shit. I was almost eighteen.”
“Even so, what was I supposed to do? Tell you that I loved you? Creep you out? You called me bro. I was supposed to be…safe.”
I heaved a long sigh. “C’mon, Mike.”
“You’d have thought it was only sexual.” His hands went up. “I swear it wasn’t. If I had as much of a flicker of thought back then, I banished it immediately.” Shaking his head, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “And you were a kid, starting out your life. You didn’t know what you wanted.”
I bit my lip so hard it hurt. “You’re slow too, you know?” My hands groped for my clothes in the dark. “The AA wasn’t the only college I got in. I got in Roma Tre, too. Did you really think I’d prefer England to Italy?”
“What?”
“You heard me, dickhead.” I got off the bed and jumped into my jeans. “I chose England for you.”
He quirked a brow. “You had feelings for me back then?”
“Yes, Mike. I fucking loved you then. Even before that. God, I’ve been in love with you since I was ten.” I shoved my arms in the sleeves of my shirt and buttoned it down. “Do you realize that our lives could have been so much better if we just…?”
I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. “You wouldn’t have made all those stupid movies or become that guy who stuck it in anything that moved.” I grabbed my jacket and slung it over my shoulders. “And I wouldn’t have suffered for years stumbling to find something that I cared about, enduring shit from everybody, hurting others in the way.” Tears rolled down my face, and I wiped them with angry hands.
He crawled toward me, pulling me to his arms. “I’m sorry. I’m so…so sorry. I regret every moment that I haven’t spent with you.” His sigh fell hot on my neck. “But I didn’t know.” His voice quivered. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“I know.”
He held my head, bringing my eyes to his. “Forgive me, amore. I was so stupid.”
“We both were.” I laughed through the tears. “But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’re together now.”
“Now and forever.” He gave me a kiss. “And I won’t let anything or anyone change that.”
Scene 58
Maggie
9 A.M. TEN DAYS AFTER THE TRIBECA PREMIERE
I arrived on set before anyone else, not cranky or moody or hating life. Even though the redeye from NY to L.A. was terrible, and I hadn’t slept a wink last night, I had a silly smile on my face I couldn’t wipe off, a screenshot of the award winners’ names on the festival website printed in my head.
BEST NEW NARRATIVE DIRECTOR COMPETITION:
; Best New Narrative Director — Maggie Dawson, director of Everything Under the Sun (U.S.).
I stepped into my trailer and sat in a luxurious, leather recliner in the media room, my phone in hand. This trailer is ridiculously cool. Mike’s the best boyfriend ever.
Scrolling to the Tribeca website again, I checked the photo gallery. The stars were glamorous, of course. Legendary. Then there was a picture of Mike alone, looking fucking amazing in a silver suit. The caption next to it read: Mike Gennaro took time from his busy schedule to hit the carpet for the premiere of “Everything Under the Sun.”
Another caption caught my attention under a picture of Mike and me together on the carpet: Maggie Dawson and Mike Gennaro made a great pair at the premiere of “Everything Under the Sun” during the Tribeca Film Festival.
There was another photo of us sitting together, laughing. I pursed my lips as I read the caption: Maggie Dawson and Mike Gennaro looked like they were having a blast at the Annual Tribeca Film Festival Artists Dinner.
I reclined in the comfortable seat, stretching my arms, wondering if those were the official festival photos, the tabloids must have had a blast, too.
Yet I didn’t give a fuck. I had no regrets. My first movie premiere. My first award. If Mike hadn’t been there, cheering for me like a crazy football fan as he did, that I’d have regretted for the rest of my life.
I quoted him in my head. Let them say whatever they wanna say.
Departing the media room, I heard some noise outside the trailer. I looked through the window and found Raoul standing a few feet away.
Getting out of the trailer, I waved at him. “Hey!” He jogged toward me, and I greeted him with a hug. “What’s happening? What are you doing here so early?”
“Um…they sent me a text. A meeting to discuss some script changes. What are you doing here so early? They said you’d be here at ten.” He was sweating, and his hands couldn’t seem to find his pockets.