“A gentleman never allows a lady to clean up poo in his presence. Allow me.”
Griffin took care of the mess and they continued walking.
“Back to that five-year plan,” Justine said. She was actually curious to hear what was on his agenda. “Do you have the typical ‘get married, move to the suburbs, and live happily ever after’ plotline?” Her pulse inexplicably sped up at the thought of him finding his white picket fence.
“Oh no, nope. At least not for a while. I made a commitment to myself that I wasn’t going to get seriously involved with anyone while I’m on my trajectory. I don’t have the time or, to be honest, the inclination to be in a relationship. Especially with how much I travel. It never works out.”
“Got it,” she replied. It made their arrangement easier knowing that they were both unavailable in their own ways.
“What about you and that boyfriend of yours?” he asked. “When’s the wedding?”
She laughed. “Oh him? Fake, so you wouldn’t murder me the first time I met you. I broke up with my last boyfriend a while ago.”
“Aha,” he said, arching his eyebrow and stroking his chin. “Let the murdering begin!”
Justine laughed. “My bodyguard might have other ideas about that,” she said, pointing at Spencer. “I’m still waiting for the specifics of this trajectory thing. So far I’m not hearing anything concrete.”
“Okay, okay. My goal is to make director level within the next year, and I’m on track for that, and senior VP by year five. Then I’ll move to a bigger place here in Brooklyn. Learn how to ride a motorcycle and then maybe buy one. And before I knew about Leo being okay, getting another dog was in the plan, too.”
Once again she was reminded that the Leo love affair wasn’t over for him.
“So now that you’ve seen him, you’re not thinking about getting a new dog?”
Griffin looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t know, should I?”
She stopped in her tracks. “Hold up a minute. Is all of this being nice to me and letting me use your apartment just a long game to get Spencer back? Because if that’s the case, we need to have a serious—”
He took two quick steps so that he was standing in front of her and there was no way for her to avoid looking into his eyes. “No, that’s not why I offered my apartment.” He studied her. “You really don’t trust me, do you?”
“Think about the first time we met.” Her voice strained a pitch higher than normal. “Should I, based on what you did?”
“Okay.” He nodded. “Fair, maybe I came on a little strong when I first found out he was okay. But may I also point out, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that since then I’ve bought you a gourmet seafood dinner, offered to pay Spencer’s vet bill, and am now putting you up in my crib?”
“Oh, come on, are you trying to buy me off to make up for acting like an asshole? Because it’s not just about money,” she scoffed.
Griffin laughed. “It’s always about money.”
She felt the simmer turn into a boil. “Seriously? If you feel like that, how much will it take for you to forget about Spencer? What did you pay to adopt him and vet him? I’ll give you the money right now, we’ll be square, and I’ll take him back to Rexford.”
“And where will you stay to keep Spencer from getting sick before the show?” he asked calmly, his eyes traveling around her face. “According to what you just told me, you’re betting your future on this job.”
Justine squinted at him. “I’ll figure it out.”
They stood in the middle of the sidewalk glaring at each other. Spencer stood between them, glancing up with a worried expression.
“Stop,” Griffin said, reaching out to grasp her arm gently. “Justine, I’m not trying to buy you off, or steal Spencer back, or whatever absolutely shitty thing you think I’m up to. I’m trying to help you.”
“Why?” It came out in an angry burst.
“Because I love Spencer and I want to help him.” He shrugged. “And by association, I guess that means I also want to help you.”
They both looked at Spencer, who wagged at them as if trying to fan the tension from the air.
“Do you still want him back?”
“Yes.” The word pierced the air. Griffin continued before Justine could respond. “How could I not? I still miss him, every day. And yes, I’ll admit that it’s hard seeing him with you.”
Justine took a step away from Griffin, pulling Spencer along with her.
Griffin moved so that he was right in front of her again, closer than before. “But I also see how good you are together. The way he looks at you, listens to you . . . he wasn’t like that with me. We were best buddies. You two? You’re soul mates.”
She cleared her throat and sniffled.
Standing in the half shadow of the streetlamp with his hands in his coat pockets, Griffin looked even more striking than normal. For a moment, the city slipped away, and it was just the two of them in a pool of light on a cold fall night, trying to navigate the parameters of canine custody and other unnamed emotions.
Griffin broke the spell first. “He’s empty now, and I’ve got a plane to catch. Why don’t we head back?”
“Yup, okay,” Justine said, blinking fast like a hypnotist had just snapped her out of a trance. She stopped walking abruptly and he continued for a few steps before he realized that she wasn’t right next to him. “I haven’t said thank you yet,” she said softly, almost to herself. “Oh my God, that’s such a pet peeve of mine. Griffin, thank you so much for allowing us to stay in your apartment.”
“You actually did say thank you, about a dozen times. And you’re welcome. To be honest, I like thinking of you and Spencer snuggling up at my place. Makes me happy, in a weird way.”
“Me too,” Justine said, realizing that it wasn’t weird at all.
chapter eighteen
Hey, excuse me. See your shadow? Could you move out of the light?”
Justine had Spencer in a sit-stay and was waiting for Ted to give her the cue for a second time. She didn’t hear the white-haired man standing near her with the camera strapped to his chest until he had to yell at her.
“Hey, you! Your shadow! What’s your name again?”
Justine jumped. “Who me? I’m Justine.”
The man pointed to the uneven brick road that Spencer was about to run across. “See how your shadow is coming into that light? You need to find a new place to stand.”
She’d only been on set for twenty minutes and was already overwhelmed. The air felt too still, like they were all in a vacuum, and the lighting ranged from shadowy off set to almost blindingly bright in front of the cameras. Every single person in the room was waiting for her and for Spencer to prove they were worthy of being there, and so far they were off to an absolutely shitty start.
Justine had initially been relieved that their first scene was a simple one; all Spencer had to do was run away from the camera and around a corner on the indoor set that looked like a street scene. It was a simple placement trick they’d done millions of times in tons of different environments. But for whatever reason, Spencer kept pausing and turning back to her instead of dashing around the corner without hesitating.
The first time he tried it, everyone on set snickered because he looked so cute when he twisted his head and looked back, and a little hiccup was no big deal. But the second time he did it wrong she felt the room shift, and someone said, “Here we go,” quietly.
“Um, they told me to stand here. Maybe I can lean back?” She demonstrated what she meant and watched her shadow move out of the beam of light that was supposed to be the glow of a streetlamp.
“Yeah, that works,” the guy said, watching the ground.
Ted walked over to her clutching the little stack of paper that he never seemed to be without. “Is he ready to try again?”
She looked down at Spencer, who had moved into a sphinx-down with his head resting on top of his paws.
“I think so. I’m sorry we messed up the first few shots, it’s just that he—”
“It’s his first day, don’t worry about it,” Ted answered in a way that made some of her stress disappear. “We built in a little extra time for him. Let’s just see what happens, okay?”
Something banged and clattered behind the cameras, and Spencer jumped up, already on edge.
“Hold the work, people,” someone shouted. Several crew members repeated the phrase and it echoed through the building like a game of telephone.
Justine knelt next to Spencer and massaged his forehead. She saw Malcolm in a gray Humane Federation hoodie a few feet off set punching the screen of his tablet, and she wondered what he was saying about their performance so far.
“Let’s go again,” Ted said as he settled behind the monitors. He’d told Justine that they were capturing Spencer’s performance on two different cameras from two different angles, which meant that she had a limited space to work with him and remain unseen. Add in the shadow issue and she was even more screwed.
Her whole body was tensed like she was waiting for a starter pistol to go off.
“And . . . action!”
“Wait, I’m sorry.” Justine squinted past the bright lights to the Ted-shaped outline in the shadows. “Do you mind if I show him where his mark is again? It’s been a few minutes and I want him to nail it this time.”
“Did she really just call a cut?” the white-haired camera guy muttered.
“Of course, really quickly,” Ted said. “Stay rolling, everyone.”
Justine hustled Spencer into a stand and encouraged him to run with her to the hidden marker around the corner, half of an index card. As they got closer she stopped moving so he walked the last few steps alone and said, “Spence, place!”
Spencer walked to it like he was heading for the electric chair.
In that moment Justine realized that every single person on the set, which at last count had been more than thirty, was waiting for her and her dog to do their job. She felt sweat beading along her back from the hot lights as well as the stress of not knowing what the fuck she was doing, which everyone else was slowly figuring out as well.
She tried to stay upbeat for Spencer. “You’ve got this, buddy. I know you can do it!”
They jogged back to their starting point. “Okay, we’re ready.”
“And . . . action!”
“Spencer, place!” she said with so much enthusiasm that she felt like a cheerleader. She pointed that he needed to run and smiled at him like a maniac, hoping it would be enough to coax a real performance out of him.
Spencer licked his lips and watched Justine for a moment, then headed for the spot with his head hanging low, as cheerful as a funeral director.
Once he rounded the corner and was out of sight Justine said, “Wait!” so he’d stay in position. She looked back at Ted, who was staring at the monitor.
“Okay, that was great. Nice work. But let’s try it again. I need more enthusiasm. Remember, he senses that Anderson is on the way back and he’s running to meet him, so he’s upbeat. Is he okay to try it again?”
Justine flicked a glance at Malcolm, who was motionless in the shadows.
“Yes, I think he is.” She whistled and Spencer meandered back to her.
They repeated the action two more times and Spencer continued to act like he was being tortured. Malcolm migrated closer to the edge of the set with a furrowed brow.
“You know what?” Ted said from his spot behind the monitors. “Let’s move on. Can we do his sad reaction shots now? I think he’s in the right frame of mind for that kind of action, right, Justine?”
She wanted to cry. They were blowing it.
No, she was blowing it.
It wasn’t that Spencer was overwhelmed being on set or surrounded by strangers, because he’d been owning the room prior to getting started. It was Justine’s nerves that were jamming his signals and impacting his reactions. He knew her so well that he could sense that something was off.
“Yes, he can do those, no problem,” Justine said, crossing her fingers. “He’ll get those right.”
She noticed that Anderson, Taylor, and Claire were standing near the monitors in costume, looking like gorgeous time travelers.
“Moving on,” Ted said. “Reset, everyone.”
Justine walked off set as the crane camera swooped up and the various camera and sound people shifted positions. She was still learning the lingo, which meant that half of what was said was like a foreign language. She relied on context clues to figure out what was happening. “Reset” seemed to mean get in position for a new shot, so Justine stood in the shadows with Spencer and watched the set choreography out of the way.
“There’s my guy,” a voice boomed behind her.
Anderson strode up to them with his massive outstretched arms straining the fitted black blazer, his eyes on Spencer. Ever since the cheese make-out moment, Justine couldn’t look at Anderson the same way. There were no butterflies being around the biggest action star ever, just the odd memory of him desperately needing to get to second base with her dog.
Justine watched as Spencer shrank away like Anderson was a game warden on a mission.
“What’s wrong with him?” Anderson asked as he bent over and put his face right in front of Spencer’s. “Where’s my wag, buddy? You don’t like me no more?” He’d slipped into his character voice.
“He’s carsick,” Justine lied, worried that Anderson would take Spencer’s lack of affection personally. “It has nothing to do with you, I promise.”
It was a convenient fib. Nearly everyone had seen his epic puke moment at the table read, so it made sense that it might happen again.
“I watched his scene and he looked miserable.” Anderson was petting Spencer gently under the chin, and Spencer wagged the tip of his tail as a halfhearted thanks. “Are you sure he’s up for this gig?”
She froze. As an executive producer on The Eighteenth, Anderson had the power to have them thrown off the show. If he decided that they weren’t right, all he had to do was hint at it to Ted and they’d be out of a job.
“He’s definitely up for it; this is just beginner’s blues. It won’t happen again, we promise.”
“Well, all right, then. No screwing up no more, ya hear? Or it’s off to the unemployment line for ya!” Anderson said in Izzy’s voice, wagging his finger at Spencer.
Justine gulped as she realized that their future was going to be decided in the next scene.
chapter nineteen
Oh, Teen. Look at your face. What will fix it, wine? Or tequila?” Ruth asked as she ushered Justine through her front door.
“Both,” Justine answered glumly. “And whatever mood-altering drugs you have in your medicine cabinet.”
Ruth pulled her into a hug. “I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as you think. Sit.” She gestured to her couch and Justine trudged over, then collapsed in a ball. Freida hopped up next to her and scaled Justine’s hip, then tiptoed up to her cheek and delivered a tiny kiss.
“I’m ready to listen when you’re ready to talk,” Ruth called from the kitchen as she rattled glasses.
“Where is everyone?” Justine asked with her head half-buried in throw pillows.
“Patrick and Dillon are in the basement playing that new Star Wars game and Alice is at a sleepover.” She walked back into the front room carrying two massive goblets of red wine and a bottle of tequila with two shot glasses stacked on the cap. “The doctor is in. Start talking.”
Justine finally sat up as she took the wineglass. “It sucked. I sucked. I choked! I think the hugeness of what we were doing finally hit me and I couldn’t think straight. I did everything wrong. Obviously, Spence coul
d tell, so he was all tentative and weird because I was.”
“Was he able to pull off any of it?” Ruth asked as she settled in the cozy chair across from Justine.
“Yeah, thank God. They took some close-ups of him doing sad expressions and twisting his head back and forth like he was listening to something, and he did great with those scenes. Then we were done for the day.”
“Which means you finished strong.”
Justine considered it, then nodded. “If not, I’m convinced they would’ve fired us. The Humane Federation rep was right there the whole time, and he is so freaking intimidating. It’s bad enough that everyone else on set is watching, but Malcolm was, like, studying my every move.”
“Why?”
“To make sure I’m not forcing Spencer into performing or doing anything unsafe.” Justine threw her head back against the couch and closed her eyes. “Ruth, I don’t think we can do this. We’re not qualified. Or should I say, I’m not qualified.”
“Okay. Then quit.”
Justine opened one eye. “Seriously?”
“Life’s too short to have that much stress on a daily basis. Quit.” Ruth tucked her leg underneath her and smoothed her pink floral muumuu.
“But . . . it’s the chance of a lifetime. I can’t just walk away. Maybe it’ll be better from now on since I know what to expect? I actually learned a ton, even when it was awful. I think I can figure out ways to avoid some of the crap we dealt with today.” She paused. “I bet I’ll be more relaxed, and Spencer will do so much better next time.”
Ruth raised one eyebrow and took a triumphant swig of wine.
“Damn you! How do you do that?”
“I think that’s a record: it only took three words to get you to step up. You can totally do it. If you quit I’m never going to talk to you again.”
Justine groaned. “Why am I so predictable?”
“Not predictable, consistent. And one of my favorite traits of yours is a hardheaded inability to back down from a challenge. Exhibit A: Sienna told me you ran Lockwood Overlook.”
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