HDU #2: Dirt

by India Lee

  Ian smirked. “You’ve underestimated how much you’ve liked him from day one.” He paused. “Which is funny ‘cause I think he knew how much he liked you from the start.”

  Amanda turned to Ian with a roll of the eyes. “Really. And why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because it was funny watching you get flustered over him and act all pissy and internally confused over your feelings.”

  “Wow.”

  Ian burst out laughing. Amanda couldn’t help but follow suit. “So have you guys said the big ‘L’ word yet?” His green eyes actually glittered when Amanda answered with a sheepish grin. “Man, what does it sound like when Liam Brody says ‘I love you?’ I’m a straight man and even I wonder.”

  “It sounds angry, actually.”

  “That seems about right. ‘Rawr, you make me feel things. Liam mad.’”

  Amanda snorted, her giggle winding down into a sigh as she recalled the day of their “I love you’s and the less-than-ideal circumstances they had come under. Somehow, she didn’t mind those circumstances — she just minded the fact that she’d had no chance to say or hear the words since. Sensing Ian’s eyes on her suddenly gloomy face, Amanda tried to laugh it off. “Blah. Whatever.”

  “Don’t ‘blah whatever.’ I can tell you miss him. A lot.”

  “Yes.”

  Ian lifted his gaze again to stare at the Legacy billboard. “I’m sorry.” They were quiet for a moment. “So…” He squinted, chewing his lip. “The other day at your apartment when you said you weren’t looking to get back at Casey… did you mean that?”

  Amanda looked at him. “Nope.” She smiled when he laughed. “But I honestly don’t know how to get back at her right now. At first I thought I’d be amazing at my job at Leadoff and contribute all this writing and somehow get Legacy canceled. But that was a shitty plan to begin with and now it looks like Leadoff is going to be the one getting canceled because Casey’s just so edgy and raunchy and interesting that we’re paling in comparison.”

  Ian shook his head as he stared out the window. “I know Harper wouldn’t want me to and I’ve told her I won’t but especially now… I’m pretty sure I want to get her back as badly as you do.”

  Amanda cocked an eyebrow. “I thought you were all Zen and peaceful now.” She laughed when Ian smirked at her.

  “I am. But I also want Casey Mulreed’s career to go down and burn in flames,” he said, batting his long eyelashes with mock innocence. “I’m in a pretty good place now. But there are just some things that rehab doesn’t change.”

  Amanda felt her lips spreading into a slow smile. Somehow, it felt incredibly good to know that Ian was actually on the same vengeful page as her. “It sounds horrible for me to say but I’m really glad to hear that.”

  Ian grinned as he held out his fist. “So… are we partners in crime? Amanda and Ian Take Hollywood Part Deux?”

  Amanda laughed as she bumped his fist. “Looks like it.”

  “Our last little scheme did work to a tee,” he pointed out with a sheepish smile. “We’re just an even better team this time because… well, I’m sober.” He shrugged. “And I guess we’ll just hide this from our significant others, since you don’t need to give Liam any more to worry about.”

  True. “Yes, we’ll hide it from them. What they don’t know won’t hurt them — I don’t think it will, at least.” Amanda’s shoulders slumped for a bit. “If they find out, I guess we’ll just stop.”

  Ian snorted. “And people wonder why celebrity relationships are always on the rocks.” He shook his shaggy head. “Loving someone is such a weakness in this town. You have to worry about them when all you want to do is destroy and conquer.”

  Amanda frowned at his familiar words, though only because she was fairly certain they were true. “Well. That’s why we’re keeping it a secret.”

  “Yep. Now all we gotta do is figure out what the hell Casey Mulreed’s weakness is.”

  “If she has one. She sure as hell hasn’t shown even the smallest hint of one throughout her career yet.” Amanda’s lip curled but Ian only nodded calmly.

  “Throughout her career,” he repeated.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Huh?”

  “She hasn’t shown any weaknesses throughout her career but what about before her career? Everybody has a past that we don’t know about. Maybe Casey has some skeletons in the closet,” Ian said, his lips curving into a grin as he watched Amanda’s eyebrows slowly lift. “See, you catch my drift. All we need to do now is dig up some good dirt.”

  ~

  Eyes dull but unblinking, Amanda watched the boys club in front of her literally toss ideas around, suggesting plot changes for the season finale of Leadoff while throwing a baseball to one another. It came as no surprise to her that she had yet to be tossed the ball to catch. It also came as no surprise to her that the guys in the writers’ room immediately took to Connor, the screenwriter who had decided to grace them with his presence. Leaning back in his chair, he looked utterly relaxed on his first official day on the job.

  “So, Milo’s a small town kid who left unsupportive family at home to pursue his dream of playing baseball. Ends up going undrafted but gets miraculously signed by the Yankees when both their ace pitcher and his backup go down with injuries,” he summarized. “Now he’s on top of the world, New York loves him — he has endorsements, restaurants, nightclub managers, beautiful women chasing him down to offer him whatever they’ve got. He’s on top of the world and his fame is skyrocketing… and we’re trying to figure out a way to make this more interesting and dramatic? This is drama. Gentlemen, I don’t know what’s wrong with the world but you shouldn’t have to change a thing in this script.”

  “Right?” The writers echoed his sentiments as Amanda did her best not to roll her eyes. Unfortunately, they went ahead and rolled anyway. Across the table, Connor looked her way. Catching her expression, he shot a hard look that she returned, unfazed.

  Something about her talk with Ian before work had energized and reinvigorated her. Revenge on Casey was once again her top priority and with Leadoff still one of her main routes towards taking her down, she had to focus on saving the show more than ever now. And that required confidence and confidence meant staring Connor Schaffer down if she had to. She raised an eyebrow when he smirked at her before looking away.

  “I’m curious to know what Amanda thinks,” he said, catching a toss from Bird before lobbing the ball across the table to Fish.

  “That one you’re alone on, buddy,” Fish laughed. “Unless you’re just looking for a laugh.”

  Jesus. Amanda shot a glare. Tom opened his mouth only to close it, tired.

  “You could say that,” Connor snorted.

  “Gentlemen,” Tom finally said, eyeing Fish before looking up earnestly at Amanda. “Amanda, do you have any ideas? You haven’t spoken much today.”

  It was a kind assessment — she hadn’t spoken at all yet. She had been too busy either rehashing her conversation with Ian from the early morning or counting how many times each writer had been thrown the baseball without it once coming to her. Everyone had caught and thrown the thing at least four or five times now. Except for her. They were going out of their way to avoid her. Amanda gnashed her teeth with annoyance as she thought about Tom’s question for a few silent seconds before letting her lips blurt out the first thought that came to mind.

  “What if we changed something about his past instead of something about the plot?”

  Tom blinked. “You mean change something in his backstory?”

  Amanda nodded. “Everyone has skeletons in their closet. Maybe if we reveal some deep, dark secret about Milo, it’ll change the context of everything he’s done this season. And that way, we can up the drama of the entire season with just the last episode.”

  Quieted, the room stared. Holy shit, where did that come from, Amanda?

  “That’s…” Tom’s gaze drifted as his hand froze in the midst of scratching his chin. “A grea
t idea.”

  Trying not to look as triumphant as she felt, Amanda glanced around the room. Of the three Joes, Bird appeared to consider the suggestion while Fish and Skip remained reluctant to acknowledge Amanda’s small victory. If she wasn’t mistaken, Fish even scowled as he tossed the baseball over to Connor, whose expression matched his.

  See. I can do my job, jerks. Amanda let herself grin, eyeing the ball as Connor caught it. She willed him to toss it to her as Tom began to excitedly expand on her idea, trying not to audibly groan when Connor made eye contact with her only to lob the ball to Skip, who absently tossed it right back.

  Really, you guys? Still?

  Opting for an impromptu experiment, Amanda finally let herself look down, pretending to twiddle on her phone while keeping her peripheral vision on the baseball and Connor.

  Who finally threw her a fastball.

  “And — whoa!” Tom’s sentence cut short at the sight and sound of the baseball zipping in a blur past his eye line — and straight into Amanda’s open palm. Along with the rest of the table, he blinked and stared.

  “Holy shit. Good catch, Amanda.” Tom gathered himself before letting out a laugh. “Christ. Good job all around today.”

  Amanda smiled placidly, finally thankful for all those hot afternoons she’d spent fielding Megan’s batting practices in high school. “Thank you,” she said before pitching a bullet straight back at Connor, smirking when he bobbled the ball.

  ~

  The summer sun was finally starting to set at 8PM. Her head held higher than ever before, Amanda strolled out of the Waltman Global building, a high still coursing her veins thanks to her first victorious day in the writers room. Despite being a part of the clique of Joes, Bird had actually offered her a “good job” on his way out of the office. It was technically the end of the day and yet it felt like the start of a whole new one for Amanda. She couldn’t help beaming as she clicked her way to the street in her steel-toed flats.

  “Been awhile since I’ve seen a face that satisfied with itself.”

  It wasn’t until she reached the sidewalk that Amanda heard the snide voice behind her. She turned around, unsurprised to see Connor. Despite that, her smile remained. She was rejuvenated, riding too high of an adrenaline rush to let Connor’s little comments bring her down.

  “I can’t help but sense hostility,” she said, surprised by her own dry humor.

  “You’re observant.”

  Amanda rolled her eyes at his sarcasm. There’s a reason he’s friends with Liam, she reminded herself. “Right. So is there any chance that you’d be interested in telling me what it is that you have against me?”

  Connor gave a brittle laugh. “You’re too much like the last one,” he answered before walking ahead of her, a hand raised to hail a cab.

  Wait — what? Amanda frowned, her feet moving to follow Connor before she could tell them to stop. “The last one?” she asked as he stepped off the curb, letting his hand fall to his side when a cab came to a screeching stop in front of him. Who even was the last one? The swimsuit model whose older sister he dated right before? “Who are you even talking about?”

  “The only other one he let completely screw with him the way you do.” Connor sneered at Amanda’s incredulous look as he got into the cab, slamming the door shut. “Except you might actually be a thousand times worse than Angie.”

  Chapter 14

  MULREED FAMILY FEARS FOR CASEY, PLEADS FOR HER TO QUIT SHOW

  The Pop Source

  August 17th

  Her career is on the rise but is her health on the rocks?

  New York film icon Daniel Mulreed was spotted leaving West Village brunch spot The Red Deer in tears on Saturday morning after an alleged failed attempt at an intervention for daughter and TV giant, Casey Mulreed. The younger Mulreed has been famously battling quietly against her addiction since being outed as a substance abuser in February by amateur filmmaker, Ian Marsh. While Casey has since claimed that her video confessions to alcoholism and drug use were mere jokes, the public has come to a different understanding.

  It hardly took Casey’s halfhearted denial to realize that the Oscar-nominated child star was and still is in fact battling against an inherited addiction — one that afflicted nearly every member of her family of Hollywood royalty, including Casey’s father, aunt (Oscar-winning actress and producer Neala Mulreed-Jennings) and theater pioneering grandfather, Daniel Francis Mulreed, who died at sixty-eight of liver disease.

  Said a friend of Mulreed-Jennings, “Neala has been doing her best to take care of Daniel. He’s worried sick that Casey is working herself to death.

  He knows she gets her work ethic from him — but that means he knows all about the nights of self-medicating to deal with the stress of the industry and it terrifies Daniel that Casey is still dealing with this. He has been dedicating his days and nights to sending her to rehab, even if it means stopping the production of her show.”

  LIAM BRODY SUSTAINS TWO MORE MAJOR INJURIES ON SET OF ‘A SOLDIER’

  The Pop Source

  August 18th

  While performing a high-risk stunt for Terrence Rambis’s A Soldier, Liam Brody suffered two more major injuries, tacking onto the list that already includes a broken wrist, broken elbow and sixteen-stitch laceration. According to sources close to the Nebraska set of A Soldier, Brody sustained a concussion as well as an unspecified ankle injury Sunday morning while leaping from a highway overpass onto the top of a moving truck.

  “He got the shot in one take,” a source said. “It looked awesome — no one realized he was injured. I don’t think he even realized it until he had to go to the hospital.”

  There has been no word thus far on the severity of Brody’s concussion. Additionally, no comments have been made by friend and director Rambis on whether production of A Soldier will be once again delayed thanks to injury.

  “Just so you know, I like this idea but I’m almost positive this can’t be considered punishment,” Harper said as she styled the surprisingly realistic-looking blonde hair on Amanda’s head. “Pretty sure he’s going to enjoy every second of this.”

  Amanda snorted. It was Friday evening and her private jet — or rather, Harper’s private jet — to Nebraska was set to leave in an hour. She had been at Agno, relaying work stories over brunch with Ian and Harper upon receiving the text from Liam that said, Be calm, don’t believe everything you read. I’m at the hospital, don’t think I have a concussion.

  Within hours, Harper had mollified her fury and panic by arranging a flight for her to visit Liam in Nebraska. And within an hour after that, Amanda had found herself with a tote bag packed for Nebraska, wearing Harper’s distinctive clothing as well as the blonde wig that Harper had donned to pass herself as a jogger several weeks back, while delivering lunch to Amanda with Ian.

  As Harper styled the shockingly real-looking strawberry blonde hair on Amanda’s head, Amanda adjusted the cropped floral bustier top and acid wash high-waisted shorts. Ian simply watched the two, unable to suppress his laughter.

  “Jesus, that outfit is just… so not you.” He snorted hard as Harper tied a scarf around Amanda’s head before handing over a pair of oversized, bug-like sunglasses. Through their brownish lenses, Amanda looked up, watching Harper’s peach-tinted lips turn up in a smile.

  “This was how I dressed a couple years ago, Marsh, so bite your tongue,” she said in a voice less monotone than usual. Playfully wrinkling her nose at Ian, she twirled a lock of Amanda’s faux-blonde hair around her finger so that it nicely framed her face. “And lucky for you, girl, this is how my assistant, Randi, still dresses. So people will probably think it’s just her when you get on my plane, especially since she changes her hair color every month.”

  “Perfect.”

  “This was a crazy idea, though, just so you know.”

  Amanda tried to take a deep breath in the skintight denim. “I know.”

  “Glad to be a part of it though,” Harper said with a cr
ooked little grin. “Even if it’s corny as shit, I like seeing what people will do for love.”

  “This isn’t for love so much as it is for smacking him when I see him.”

  Harper laughed. “Like I said, he’s still going to enjoy every second of it.”

  ~

  Sorry I missed your calls before. I was getting cleared by the doctors. Call me back when you can.

  Tipping Harper’s massive sunglasses down her nose, Amanda read Liam’s text. She must have missed his call back while shuffling from the tarmac into the Audi that Harper had arranged to pick her up. She had been under the impression that the car would have to drive her to the hospital Liam had been admitted to but now it seemed he had been cleared to leave. Typing quickly despite Harper’s heavy gold rings on all her fingers, Amanda replied to Liam’s text.

  where are you now?

  The moment he replied, she relayed the information to her driver and sat back in the car. She snuggled in Harper’s oversized shawl cardigan, crossing her legs to look at the platform espadrilles on her feet. Catching a glimpse of her reflection in the rearview mirror, Amanda laughed. Perhaps it was the bronzer that Harper had brushed onto her cheeks or the beachy waves her strawberry blonde wig hung in, but she looked every bit a California girl — certainly nothing like her usual self. The discomfort of the pins in her wig were actually fairly worth it for the more-than-convincing disguise.

  So how mad are you

  Amanda snorted when she read Liam’s text. She had been angry in New York and still angry on the jet, but by the time the wheels touched the tarmac, all she could think about was the fact that she’d soon get to see Liam. Her excitement quickly overpowered every other emotion, including the panic. If he’s texting, he’s conscious. And if he was cleared to leave, he must be in at least decent health.