by Naomi Niles
“Macy’s? One of the mannequins? Because with the way you are losing weight, you might be a good fit. Can you pose real still for a long time? Let me see.”
“Ezra! You are sitting here making jokes, and I am being serious! You know what, just forget it.”
I tried to get off the bed, but he pulled me back down. “OK, OK, I’m sorry baby, I’m sorry.” He held me close and kissed me on the neck. “And I’m going to be honest with you about something, OK? Don’t be mad.”
“Don’t be mad? Great. More fucking bad news. What? Did you get back with your ex or something? Just tell me now because I don’t feel like I can be any more depressed than I already am.”
“On the contrary. My agent called me today. Early this morning.” He paused for a while until I punched him in the arm to continue. He laughed out loud. “I’m sorry, I just wanted to build the suspense. He called me and said that the director wants us back on set next week so we can continue shooting. Everything was settled. The budget is fine, and we are back rolling again.”
My mouth slowly dropped open in disbelief. “Really?”
“Really.”
I lunged forward and wrapped my arms around him, nearly knocking him off the bed. “Ezra! Ezra!” I planted kisses all over his face has he held on to me.
“See, baby. I told you everything would work out. I told you. We are in this to win, not to fail. We are going to the top.”
“I love you, baby! I love you!”
“I love you, too.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Ezra
Six long months had gone by before we got to the final scene of the movie. I watched Hannah record her last shoot, in admiration of how much she had grown as an actress and a person during the time we were filming. She told me that about a month ago, a couple of directors contacted her to the opportunity to star in a few upcoming films. She didn’t even have to audition for it because they said the part would be hers if she wanted it. I was proud of her, and I hadn’t gotten many calls, but the one I did get was about an action movie that was set to start shooting within the next year.
I didn’t mind doing the romantic movies, but I was ready for something that I could go in shooting people, kicking ass, and blowing shit up. Leonard wanted to cast me in another film, but when he said that it was another romance movie, I turned it down. Besides, I didn’t want to put myself in a position to have a romantic fling that could damage my relationship with Hannah. If I could control it, I was going to stay away from it. That was my plan, and so far, it worked. “All right, and cut! And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a wrap! We are done filming Satin Sheets!”
Everyone around us clapped and cheered once Leonard told us that we were finished. “Yes, yes, be excited, everyone! Be excited! This is a very special moment for us. Come, Ezra, Hannah, please,” he said, waving us toward him. Hannah grabbed my hand, and we approached him as he stood front and center with the loudspeaker in his hand. “Everyone, you are witnessing two stars in the making. The way they came into this shoot as rookies, but left as veterans. How they mastered their roles as if they were born to do it. This is perfection, ladies, and gentlemen, and I am sure that this will not be the last time you see them on the big screen! Everyone, clap for our stars!”
They applauded us as we stood in front of the set. “Go ahead,” Leonard urged, “say something! Tell them all something! They are waiting. Ezra.”
I smiled. I felt like I was on top of the mountain that took so long for me to climb. It felt better that I knew Hannah was still by my side in the process and through it all, she had been with me. From the crazy stalker situation to the court case with my ex when she found out that I had my boys around her. I held her hand as we stood in front of everyone. “I would just like to thank you all for your part in helping the filming of this movie. Makeup artists, camera crew, sound crew, directors, supporting actors, and actresses. I mean, the list goes on, and nothing would have been a success without you. I would like to give a special thanks to Leonard for taking a chance on a rookie like me. I know it was rough at times, but I thank you for this opportunity. It meant the world to me. Thank you.”
The audience clapped as Hannah went forward and gave thanks to everyone. “Hi. Well, um, I thank you all for not showing the internet my breasts before the movie came out.” The audience chuckled as she smiled. I remembered the times she was so nervous about shooting those scenes before the movie started, but now, she was in front of everyone making jokes about it. Her confidence had skyrocketed since we first began shooting, and now, she was blossoming into the woman I knew she always was. “I want to thank Leonard for the opportunity to do what I love. Hopefully, it will bring more movie roles my way. The director's crew. Casting agents. Cameramen, sound men… basically, everyone Ezra thanked just before me. I appreciate all of your hard work and everything you did to make us look our best on the shoot. Hopefully, we will cross paths again in another movie or two. I had fun, and I pray that this movie is as successful as I know it can be. Thank you.”
Once we finished, we headed to her trailer. Inside, there was a bottle of wine and a bouquet of flowers on her bed. I took the card off the mattress before she could read it. I wanted to see who was bold enough to send her flowers, knowing that we were an item. I smiled once I saw the name that was attached to it. “It’s from Leo,” I said, handing her the card.
She sniffed the roses, then rolled her eyes. “You are crazy, do you know that? What man would send me roses? In six months, you’ve managed to scare off any other guy who even thought about coming my way. The only person I knew would have sent these is Leonard. Hell, he probably put a pair of his underwear on your bed and attached some skimpy pictures to it.”
“Yeah, and that’ll be the day he gets punched right in the nose. I can do that now since we are done working for him, officially.”
“Yeah.” She placed the roses on her desk. “It has been a long journey, and I hate to say that it is over.”
“Over?” I sat on her bed and pulled her onto my lap. “No. It is just beginning. From what I hear, you’ve got directors knocking your door down just to get you in their movie. This is definitely the beginning for you.”
“No,” she corrected me with a kiss on the lips. “For us. You’ve got your roles coming up, too. I know it. The action movies will be your bread and butter. It should be with that sexy ass body of yours.”
“All I know is that I will be at your set every fucking day if you do one of those romantic movies. I will be watching whatever prick you have to co-star with to make sure he doesn’t touch you more than he has to.”
“I bet you will.”
She smiled and kissed me again. I would never have thought that my life would end up this way. Living out my dream with a beautiful woman by my side, doing the same thing. With all the ups and downs of my life, I could finally say that things were looking up, and it appeared to be a permanent shift. And to think that just before I got this part, I was ready to give up on everything. Who knows where my life would be if I did? I didn’t even want to imagine.
Epilogue
Hannah
3 Years Later
I woke up in a king size bed on the 32nd floor of the luxury hotel. I hardly had time to myself with the way things picked up for my acting career. Since Satin Sheets came out almost three years ago, I’d starred in two more movies and became one of the biggest new names in show business. I had to start turning down movie offers because there wasn’t enough time for me to shoot. My schedule was hectic, and because of that, I had only seen Ezra a few times in the past three months. Our careers were beginning to create a strain on our relationship, and at one point, I thought we were going to fall apart, but each time, we managed to reconnect and get back on the same page.
I felt his arms wrap around me from behind as I stood at the window, looking down at the streets in Dunedin, New Zealand. His lips pressed softly against my neck as I rested in his warm embrace. “It feels like it has b
een forever since we’ve been back here.”
“Forever?” I responded. “Yeah. It has only been three years, but the way we have been so busy, it can easily feel like 10.”
“Yeah, easily.”
I faced him as he stood in a bathrobe with nothing but his boxers on underneath. We were on vacation together, and we wanted to go to the place that we first visited together as a couple. Ezra had just wrapped up his filming of a blockbuster action movie called The Last Time. He had to cut his hair off for the role, but it wasn’t much different from how he normally wore it. He had a few tattoos on his forearms and one on his shoulder that just had the letter “H” inside of a heart. I joked with him about how simple it was.
“So, I guess that, ‘H’ will be easier to cover up if we don’t make it, huh?”
He laughed. “Cover up? No, I don’t plan on covering it up. Why would I need to? You’re going to be with me forever, and if you’re not, then I’m going to have to kill you and whoever that you leave me for. I already made that up in my mind.”
“Oh, really? Wait a minute. Can you say that again? I want to get my phone, so I can record the evidence.” I tried to get out of his arms to grab my phone, but he lifted me in the air and carried me to the mattress. He climbed on top of me, his muscles bulging as he held his body above mine, but he didn’t take it any further. “Why did you stop?”
He kissed me. “Because we have to go. I have plans for us today, and we need to get on the beach by,” he looked at his watch, “7 pm.”
He got off the bed and pulled some clothing out of his suitcase. “Baby? It is only 12! We have time! Get your ass back over here and give me some dick!”
“I will later, trust me. But right now, we have to get going. Come on. Get your dirty ass in the shower so we can go!”
I laughed out loud. “Whatever, Ezra. Ugh. I swear you better make up for this! I’m already wet! I don’t need a fucking shower!”
After we had got dressed, he took me out to eat, and we ended on the beach right at 7 pm. The grains of sand slithered through my toes as we walked along the sandy shore, hand in hand. The yellow sun shifted to a dark orange is it started to descend beyond the horizon. Seagulls flew past us, echoing their soothing chants each time they flapped their wings. “So, why did we have to come here by 7 pm? You got something planned?”
He smiled as we stopped right in front of a sand castle. It was built 3 feet high, and the water that brushed onto the shore stopped just feet from it. He kneeled and patted the castle as I looked out to the shore as far as my eyes could see. Once I glanced down again, Ezra had made a dent in the castle. “Ezra! Why are you messing up some kid’s sand castle! That is so rude!”
“I was trying to fix it. I guess I pressed it too hard. Can you help me?”
I kneeled beside him and grabbed sand from the side to reconstruct the small building. Suddenly, I saw a black case buried in the mound of sand that had crashed on the side of the castle. “Ezra, what is that?” I asked, leaning in closer to it.
“I don’t know. I didn’t see it there before.”
When I reached for it, I saw that it was a small, black box, and as I held it in my hand, my heart felt as if it had stopped beating. I looked at Ezra as he kneeled beside me. I shook my head as tears rushed to the bottom of my eyes and everything around me grew silent. “Hannah, baby, I’ve known from day one that you were the woman I wanted to be with for the rest of my life, and there wasn’t a time that I ever doubted it. You are my life, and I don’t know how I made it as far in my life as I did without you, but I don’t want to have to find out. You are a part of the puzzle that I’ve been missing and I–”
“Ezra, just ask me, damn it! I’ve been waiting three years for this!” I said as tears flowed from my eyes in rivers.
He smirked. “Will you... stop rushing me!”
“Ezra!”
“Baby, will you marry me?”
I lunged into his arms. “Yes!”
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TORCH ME
By Naomi Niles
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 Naomi Niles
Chapter One
“Page six, no byline, and you write two blogs a day for the website. That’s the offer: take it or leave it.” John’s tone was his normal gruff and he was frowning, or so I thought. He was a newspaperman from the sixties whose jowls, nose, and chin had formed a sort of cup holder effect around the stogie eternally clenched between his teeth. When the law prohibiting smoking indoors went into effect, the glowing red tip had disappeared, but the cigar was a permanent fixture. I’m fairly sure it was cemented in. “Well?” he barked, waking me from my reverie about his smoking habits.
“That the best you can do?” I wasn’t very good at negotiating. Hunger did that to you.
“Are you wastin’ my time, Ms. O’Reilly?” His tone was growing impatient.
I sighed. “Call me Gwyne. Okay, okay… yes, I’ll take it.” I could see the tug-of-war rope between us was fraying.
“And…?” he led me on, motioning his hand to continue.
“Thank you?”
“Good girl. Now get outta here and let me get some work done. You can see Martha, the old bag by the door. She’ll fill you in and get you set up.”
I nodded walked out of his office. “Shut the damned door!” he bellowed behind me and I scrambled to do as told.
The office was a museum of days gone by. Warner ran one of those businesses that was being dragged kicking and screaming into modern times. He had refused to get rid of ancient equipment—not because he was lazy, but because he figured someday people might come to their senses and things would go back to the way they used to be. He, and now I, yearned for the days when running a newspaper had been an honorable profession and not a servant to political blackmail or a shill for the local Wal-Mart.
John didn’t know it, but I would have taken the job without pay. His was the era I wanted: when journalistic integrity wasn’t just a catch-phrase and you didn’t hide sloppy reporting behind your First Amendment rights. As I looked around, there was a 1930s hot lead Linotype resting in the corner. ‘Resting’ was exactly the right term because although it was made from cast iron, much of it had given up and needed to lean against another part for support. The brass keys, the molds into which the molten lead had been injected to form letters, were scattered about the keyboard and on the copy tray. Forms of lead type lay against the pedestal legs: a front page frozen in time.
I found Martha, just as John had promised, crouched at her desk near the door. She wasn’t hard to pick out – she was the only person sitting in the room. My guess was that she was the only one besides John who ever came into the office, digital publishing being a remote sort of job. John probably only kept her as ringleader to keep the reporting circus in formation… and to give himself someone to shout at when things didn’t go right. She had to be close to eighty years-old; certainly her eyeglasses were. They sat on the end of her nose with the expected chain around her neck. I never understood the chain part because the glasses never left the nose; it was, perhaps, jewelry or a statement of having lived beyond retirement age.
“So, you’re gonna give it a try?” she asked me, peering over those ancient glasses.
“I thought I might. You are Martha, right?” I knew she was, but wanted to pay her the respect of acknowledging her name. She nodded.
“That’s me. Been here since the old days when John bought the paper. Course it’s nothing like it used to be; course nothing is. Including me.” She smiled and I saw a mouth full of teeth that were yellowed dentures
. I noted the Styrofoam coffee cup next to her keyboard. It was a pretty good bet.
“John says you’ll be the one to get me started,” I mentioned to her. “Nice picture,” I said, nodding to the small, filigreed frame on the corner of her desk.
She nodded. “That was my daughter when she was a little girl. Just nine years-old.” Her words were a little choked and I wondered why.
“Grandkids?”
“No, Sissy never made it to her 10th birthday. Her father was killed in Vietnam. I’m all that’s left. But don’t go getting all misty eyed on me; I’m used to it. Oh, I won’t say there hasn’t been the muscled body next to me a time or two through the years, but I don’t think I was meant to be married again. That’s for sops who don’t have any identity of their own. You’re not married, are you?”
“Me? No, not married.”
“Good. You’ll be better off if you keep it that way. Who the hell wants to clean up after some slob who can’t pee straight and blows his paycheck at the bar? Nah, not for me.”
I could tell that Martha had definite opinions about marriage, and men in general. I wondered why she had put up with John all these years, but then again, maybe it wasn’t such a sacrifice. The pair of them could’ve stepped out of a Raymond Chandler mystery; they had that Perry Mason feel. “Sorry about your little girl, and about your husband, Martha.” I let a few moments lapse out of respect and spoke again. “So, what do we need to do to get me set up? I’ve already got some ideas and I’m sort of anxious to get started.”
“You’ll get over that, soon enough,” she observed as she opened the drawer of the massive wooden desk and extracted a couple of file folders. “Your name is…?”