Something Better

by Gail R Delaney

  Andi laughed, glancing around surreptitiously to see if any of the crew heard Maggie's question. She didn't think anyone would really be offended that she considered some scenes not worth taking the time to watch -- at least in her opinion, and she wrote them -- but she didn't want to explain her scale of she didn't have to.

  "No, not a four," she said, clearing her throat slightly. "They're filming some of the fight scenes next week." Fight scenes were mostly choreography and 'faking it' so CGI effects could be added later. Seeing the scenes only half done ruined her delusion, and since writing action scenes hadn't been her favorite to begin with, she didn't bother coming in to watch the filming.

  "Well, not a one. Undomesticated equines couldn't have kept you away."

  No, definitely not a one. The designation of 'One' was saved for the special scenes, the scenes near and dear to her heart. In the midst of her action-packed science fiction story arc was a beautiful romance. Once scenes were those scenes vitally important to that part of the story. Like kisses...

  Heat spread over her skin, radiating out from a deliciously warm spot in the center of her body. Andi curled some hair behind her ear that had been annoyingly touching her cheek and bounced her crossed leg to help expend some nervous energy.

  "Which is it? Two or three?"

  "Two," she tried to answer, but her voice caught and she had to clear her throat. "It's a two."

  "And you weren't going to come? Dang, maybe you're more chicken than--" Andi's sideways glare made Maggie stop, but her friend still grinned wide with satisfaction that she'd once again gotten her 'loving' jab in over David Bishop.

  "Oh, shut up." Andi pushed Maggie's shoulder. The tall chair tipped precariously, and both women chuckled as it settled again.

  "Death traps," Maggie mumbled. Once settled again, she rested her arms on her knees and gave Andi one of her best 'You're-gonna-tell-me-anyway-so-spill' inquisitive looks. "So... spent some time up on the catwalk with David, huh?"

  Andi shook her head, looking away so she didn't have to attempt facing down Maggie's stare. She was like Wonder Woman with a Golden Lasso. It was probably a good thing Maggie had no children, they wouldn't have stood a chance. Ever. She focused instead on the swing gang moving around the set.

  The space was set up as a hospital rehabilitation area, where 'Jason' would begin his physical rehabilitation after being held as a prisoner of war by the enemy. His memories were blocked, and he didn't even know that the doctor working on his rehabilitation was his wife. In another couple of weeks, they would film the scene in which 'Jason' regained his memories and knew she was his wife. Just as Maggie said, undomesticated equines wouldn't keep her from the set that day. Today's scene ranked as a two because the chemistry and attraction between 'Jason' and 'Anna' was evident and played on, but until he knew the scene didn't hold quite enough intensity to rank as a 'one' for her.

  "Did he kiss you again?"

  "Stop."

  "Is that a yes or a no?"

  "Mags, seriously--"

  "If you don't tell me, I'm just going to assume the two of you had hot, sweaty--"

  "No," Andi snapped, immediately clamping her jaw shut when several heads turned to look at her. Maggie chuckled in her throat, arching her eyebrows at Andi. With a slow release of breath, Andi pressed her lips together before turning her attention fully on her best friend. Though, if she kept up this badgering she might loose the ranking of 'best', and quick! "No, he did not kiss me," she said just barely above a whisper. "He just sat there with me."

  Maggie snorted. "Liar. I saw you."

  "You didn't see anything."

  "I saw him practically wrapped around you." Andi started to protest again, but before she could, Maggie lifted her hand. "You know what, stay in your little delusional world where a man couldn't possibly want you because Larry didn't, and we all know that Larry Boner was a man that all men should be judged against."

  Andi shook her head, not even able to let herself grin at Maggie's deliberate mocking of her married name of Bonherre. She uncrossed and crossed her legs in the other direction, bouncing her foot in aggravation. Her sandal dangled off her toes, flapping against the sole of her foot with each bounce.

  Mags just didn't understand. Lawrence hadn't warped Andi's self-confidence so much that she didn't think any man would ever want her. Despite what Maggie said, she had dated a few times since divorcing Lawrence. And she'd had a good time. The men she'd spent time with had been considerate and pleasant, and each one of them had said in one way or another that she was attractive. She didn't flinch when she looked in the mirror. She hadn't predestined herself to a life of chastity, although sometimes it felt like it.

  She was just being realistic.

  There were men, and then there was David Bishop.

  David was sexy, and his voice could melt butter. His touch, when he'd touched her the way he had, could bring that same butter to a boil. He'd been voted 'Most Eligible', 'Hottest', 'Best Dressed' and a few other unofficial rankings more time than he probably ever kept track of. He'd been an actor since his early teens, and had been considered attached to some of the most beautiful women in Hollywood.

  Beautiful young women that weren't divorced single mothers. Women who didn't argue with unseen characters and curse at the voices in the middle of the night when a scene wouldn't come together. Women who didn't share a house with their agent and best friend, and constantly had to fend off the questions and implications that perhaps they were more than just 'friends'.

  Andi also wasn't so delusional to believe everything she read in the gossip rags. Just a few weeks earlier, before trailer kisses and heart palpitations, David had been photographed standing outside a Hollywood club with a rail-thin starlet who had recently left a private rehabilitation clinic for alcohol and prescription drug addiction. The magazine implied they were a couple, and postulated whether David was helping her through her addiction... or feeding it.

  He had laughed the article off, saying that he'd seen her hovering beneath an awning smoking a cigarette, and had stopped to say hello. Years before, they'd done a movie together. Even though he'd joked about it, Andi had seen his easy smile slip away when no one was looking.

  The point was that he was a man people watched, and things were said about him -- true or not. He was a man who could be with anyone.

  He didn't want to be with Andrea Parker formerly Mrs. Lawrence Bonherre, Attorney at Law and resident ass.

  The extra lights shut off, and all quiet was called on set. Which was fine, because Andi didn't feel like defending herself any more. She knew Maggie cared, and it was nice to know someone did, but sometimes...

  "And action!" Benton shouted.

  Positioned so he faced them, David sat in a wheelchair staring out into a lush hillside that would be added later. His head was tipped forward, as if he'd dozed off in the chair. Just as described in the script, 'Jason' would be taunted with flashes of memory from his captivity. Bits and pieces that he couldn't put together.

  David jerked, his head coming up to face the artificial sunshine, his features tense. Later, they would film the flashes of torture to be spliced into the scene, but for now he was acting purely on imagination. His eyes pinched and he tilted his head to the side, a small groan whispering over the soundstage. Andi leaned forward, realizing she was holding her breath as she watched the scene play. He was amazing. It was like he had seen into her mind and knew exactly what she needed, what she'd intended each moment to be.

  With a sharper jerk, 'Jason' opened his eye. His fingers curled around the armrests of the wheelchair, his knuckles white, and he swallowed. Raising a shaking hand, he scrubbed at his face and snuffed his nose, wiping away a single tear that had formed on his cheek.

  Andi swallowed hard.

  If this scene tore at her this badly, what would she do when they grew more intense? When he filmed the scenes that had torn at her chest just to write, let alone play out in three-dimension reality.

  Taylo
r entered the scene from behind him, and played her part perfectly. She saw his tension and moved to him, the subtle tensing of her features expressing both her love and concern that 'Anna' felt for 'Jason'. As much as Andi found Taylor frustrating at times, she really was a very good actress. In this type of scene, she did well. It was when the scene was too sexually charged that she pushed forward too fast, losing her finesse.

  They ran the scene nearly flawlessly, and by the time Benton called "Cut!", Andi's chest hurt from holding her breath so many times. They immediately shifted the camera angles and shot the scene again. And although some moments held far more impact the first time they were shot, Andi already saw the way the nuances would be woven together.

  It was days like today that she felt like a proud mother. She finally sat back, and realized nearly an hour and a half had passed during the filming. She sniffed, and wiped at the tears dampening her cheeks. Yep, come the big scenes she'd probably be a blubbering mess.

  Maggie cleared her throat and hopped down from her chair. "I'm going to check on Jake," she said, her voice rough.

  Andi smiled, and despite her friend's constant teasing, she decided to let Maggie's rare show of emotion go without teasing her. Instead, she just ran her fingertips over her own cheeks.

  "Everything okay?"

  Andi jumped and squeaked, turning toward David's voice. He stood beside her chair, only proving how high the wood-and-canvas contraptions were because he was eye level with her. She blushed hot, embarrassed at her scaredy-cat response and the tears on her cheeks.

  "Yes," she managed to say, motioning toward the stage that was now dark as they broke for lunch. "You just -- it was very good."

  He raised his hand and brushed his thumb across her skin, his eyes watching the action, and Andi drew in a slow, metered breath. She fought the urge to close her eyes and turn into his touch. You're turning into one of your own characters, Andrea! No one really does that!

  She laughed nervously instead, and leaned back to break the contact, brushing her own fingers over her cheeks to dry them. Her cheeks felt hot, even to her, and she wondered just how bright she had to be glowing. "I cry at long distance phone service commercials, too."

  David smiled, a slow turning up of the corners of his mouth. She'd noticed when they sat on the catwalk that his whiskers had grown out a little bit, just enough to give 'Jason' a rougher, unkempt look. She liked it. With yet another flash to her cheeks, Andi realized she was staring like a dolt and looked away, clearing her throat. Any second now... Poof! I'm going up in a puff of smoke.

  David drew in a slow breath through his nostrils, and released it again as he folded his arms on the chair. The new position brought him slightly lower than eye level so he had to look up at her. Andi had the urge to hunker down into the seat. She wasn't used to looking down into eyes like those...

  "It occurs to me that we've done things in the wrong order."

  "What things?" she asked. That darn wayward curl brushed her cheek again, and she flipped it back. His gaze shifted to her hand until she lowered it to her lap. When his steel blue eyes came back up, meeting her stare, it took everything she had not to look away. No matter how nervous you are, look 'em in the eye. Andi was pretty sure her father meant people who wanted to intimidate her, not men like David who looked at women with the intent of melting their insides.

  "Well, when two people meet that are attracted to each other..." He said the words slowly, and Andi's heart thumped at the base of her throat. His smile spread a fraction of an inch, dimpling his cheeks, and she wished she could breathe. "They usually get to know each other before they move on to the..." Those inside-melting eyes slid down to stare at her mouth. "Kissing."

  He leaned forward, the chair creaking under the shift of weight, bringing his face closer and more level with hers. But his hands remained tucked under his chest as he leaned over his folded arms.

  "I would like to get to know you," he said so low his voice sounded like it came from the bottom of his chest. No lower. More like his pelvis.

  Andi barely managed to stifle her groan, and attempted to cover it by clearing her throat as she shifted in the chair. "It's not like we're strangers," she managed to say. "I've been coming here for weeks, and you've been here on the set nearly every time. We've had lunch together--"

  "With twenty other people," he interrupted.

  "We've talked about the script. We've..." Her brain stalled when he laid one hand over her two where they were clenched tightly in her lap.

  "Let me take you to dinner."

  *****

  Andi bound out of the chair so quickly, he thought it was going to topple over and made a quick grab to balance her. But she landed gracefully on her feet and grabbed his wrist, practically marching across the soundstage.

  "Where are we going?"

  "Just come on."

  After a few steps, when she apparently assumed he would follow, Andi dropped his wrist and crossed her arms over her body walking just a step ahead of him. She walked so fast he had to lengthen his stride just to keep up. The way she held her body tense, her shoulders back and her spine straight, screamed tension.

  "Andi..." he called after her, but her pace didn't slow.

  She navigated the cables and wires splayed across the floor, hopping over an especially thick bundle, and headed straight for the front corner of the sound stage where the various individual trailers had been settled. Because the soundstage was designed to break down and clean out easily when shooting was over, very little was permanent, including the spaces provided for the talent.

  They garnered a couple wayward glances from some of the grips and other stage crew, Andrea Parker marching through the stage like a woman on a mission with David following behind. He just smiled as if nothing odd was going on, but wondered in his own head what part of his dinner invitation had caused this kind of reaction. Especially since he wasn't quite sure what 'this kind of reaction' actually was.

  Andi reached her trailer and yanked the door open, and immediately the sound of a television or movie met them. She stood on the top step, just short of stepping over the threshold inside. David waited at the bottom of the steps, his hands pushed into his pockets until Andi told him otherwise.

  If his mother taught him anything, it was to not question -- or interrupt -- a woman when she wanted something.

  "Hey," he heard Maggie Connelly say from inside. "I just told Jake that--"

  "Could we have a few minutes?" Andi cut her off. "Across the lot is the full commissary. Maybe you could take Jake to get lunch." It wasn't really a suggestion, even David knew that much.

  "Um, sure." Maggie looked past Andi, and grinned when she saw David. "Sure thing, my dear. Come on, Jake."

  Only then did Andi step all the way into the trailer so her agent and son could pass. Maggie grinned like the cat that ate the canary, and winked at him as she hopped off the bottom step. Jake didn't do much but give him a quick look before following behind Maggie. A few feet away, he stopped and looked back -- his eyes shifting from David to the open trailer door and back to David -- before catching up with Maggie.

  "Come in, David."

  He reached up to grip the inside doorknob, and skipped the first step, using the second to leverage himself into the trailer. As soon as he stepped inside the dim interior, he looked toward the table nestled into the front of the small space. He remembered with taunting clarity the way she'd felt when he kissed her, the way she'd leaned into him, and the way she'd made small sounds against his mouth that drove him insane.

  But Andi wasn't at the table this time. Instead, she stood at the other end of what could only loosely be called the 'kitchenette' with her hip leaning against the counter edge and her arms crossed over her body. She wasn't looking at him, or at the floor, but at some undefined point in the corner of the trailer, and her foot bounced nervously making her entire body shift slightly.

  David pulled the door shut, and the only source of light inside the trailer was
the image playing out on the small television on the counter. It faced the table so anyone sitting there could watch, and right now it played a ten-year-old action movie that seemed to be on television every time he turned it on.

  He took a step toward Andi and she immediately leaned backward. It wasn't an actual step away from him, but it was enough to make him stop. There was no confusing that body language. He let his hands drop to his side and looked away, disappointment pushing his shoulders down. "I'm sorry, Andi," he said in a low voice. "If I came on too strong, or misread things--"

  She shook her head and snapped her attention to him, cutting him off. "No, see, this isn't a bad romance novel."

  He tilted his head and squinted his eyes. "What?"

  Then she started talking so fast, it took all his focus to keep up with her. "If this were a bad romance novel, then you'd assume that I stepped away from you because I didn't want you to touch me. Which would be wrong, I just stepped back because I need to think, and I don't do that very well when you're touching me. But, if this were a bad romance novel, you wouldn't know that so you'd assume I didn't want anything to do with you, and you'd back off -- or leave -- or get angry because I 'sent you mixed signals'. And then I'd get upset because that's not what I intended at all, but being TSTL I wouldn't say anything, I'd just let you go because I figured that was what you really wanted all along."

  He followed most of what she said, but his focus kept lingering on the part where she couldn't think when he touched her. And since all he thought about when she touched him was how much more they could touch, he figured in the grand scheme of things whatever point she was getting at was in his favor.

  "What's TSTL?" he managed to slide in.

  She stuttered, and her eyes locked with his for a moment while fresh color bloomed in her cheeks. "Too stupid to love. It's a heroine who just keeps making mistakes and doing stupid things to drive the hero away, so she's so stupid she shouldn't be loved anyway."