“I’m out of town,” Jake said.
Alex cursed.
“An appealing offer, but I’ll pass.”
“Why didn’t I know about this? I would have scheduled a different time.”
“I only just found out about it this morning.” Jake ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t want to let this opportunity slip away. Wouldn’t let it. “I could do it tomorrow or Thursday.”
“They can’t do it sooner than Friday. When are you back?”
“Next Thursday, but I can rearrange if we need to.” He’d fly back from Rockdale early if necessary.
“No.” He could hear Alex typing. “It’ll be fine. It’s not going to kill them to wait.”
Well, that made one of them.
“And we should invite Carly to join us.”
Carly Dahl was the cute twentysomething who would be hosting the show. Her bubbly personality and sweet smile made her a natural on camera, and, as Alex had pointed out, she looked hot in a bikini.
“I’ll call her.” Jake made a note to do that after he finished killing Ava.
“I can call her.”
“No,” Jake spoke quickly. “I’ll do it. I think she likes you.”
“I’m hard not to like.”
Jake snorted. “Yes, but we’d prefer to keep the host.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I don’t want you breaking her heart. We don’t have time to look for someone else.”
“You make it sound like you don’t think I can control myself.” Alex laughed. “But fine. I’ll let you know when I reschedule that meeting.”
Jake made a couple more notes and was just about to walk over to Ava’s office and have the meeting there if he had to, when his phone rang again. “Jake Durham.”
His annoyance was turning to anger. Just where the hell was she? This delaying tactic had gone way beyond a slap and was verging on a hard kick in the privates. Well, he didn’t take kicks there anymore. Not from anyone. Not even appealing blondes who made him forget that he’d sworn off relationships or even casual dating for a while.
“It’s me.”
“Oh, hell.” It was a snarl, he could admit that, but it was his little sister and Jake thought a world where an older brother couldn’t snarl at a little sister wasn’t one worth living in.
“Charming as always.”
“I’m busy, Rache.” Not entirely true. He looked at his door just in case Ava had appeared there in the interim, but the hallway’s institutional-green walls were the only thing to stare back.
“Well, excuse me for caring and wanting to check on my brother. Who, I might add, has been avoiding my phone calls during nonwork hours, leaving me no choice but to make a pain of myself at the office.” Since Rachel was capable of making a pain of herself at any place or time, Jake wasn’t sure her excuse held up.
“You have two minutes. Maybe less.” If Ava finally managed to get her butt in here. “What’s up?”
“Oh, lots of things.” He could hear her smile and picture her settling in for a good long chat. She was just like their mother that way. The two of them often chatted on the phone for a couple of hours at a time, though they only lived fifteen minutes apart and saw each other regularly. Jake had to schedule his own phone calls back home to Toronto, or risk getting a busy signal all afternoon. When he pointed this out to Rachel, she told him that it was their parents’ fault for not getting into the new millennium and having call waiting. “But apparently we don’t have time for that. What’s happening with you?”
“Same old, same old.” He blew out a breath, tried not to take his aggravation out on his sister. “Seriously, I’m really busy.”
“And I told you I only need a minute. Mom wants to know if you’re okay. So if you don’t want to tell me, be ready to face a string of ever-increasing worried phone calls, which will end in her insisting that you move back home to pursue the show from there.”
Jake thought about that. If he hung up on his sister, he had no doubt that she’d make that scenario come to pass. Hell. “Tell her it’s the same as last week. I promised that I’d tell you if there was anything to report.”
“I know you will or face my wrath.” Some of his irritation eased away in a quiet snicker. Rachel was barely over five feet and the least-likely-looking wrath bringer he’d ever seen. Not that he was going to tell her that. He wasn’t a complete idiot. “Mom also says that you sound sad when you call and you’re always in a rush to get off the phone.”
“That’s because I don’t like talking on the phone and they won’t get Skype.”
“Oh, like you’d chat via computer?”
“I might. And I’m not sad, just swamped.” Jake glanced at the to-do list he was only half finished writing. “Harvey wasn’t clear on exactly how much was happening over here.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“That’s not what I called to talk about. What’s happening with the pilot?”
A small curl of pleasure unfurled in his stomach. Of everyone he knew, the only one who had unabashedly supported his decision to throw away his stable career, move across the country and start fresh was Rachel. “On point for now. Got my host and storyboarded the first show. We just need to hammer out a deal with the investors and then we’ll be set.”
“That’s great. How long before you’re in production?” Unlike Jake, Rachel hadn’t followed their father into TV and film production. Instead, she’d gone the academic route and was an assistant professor of art history at York University in Toronto, but she’d been raised listening to stories of the industry and still had plenty of opinions on how Jake should run things.
“We’re booked to film in about two and a half weeks.”
“I’m impressed.”
Jake’s pleasure grew at the pride in his sister’s voice. He didn’t like to think about it too much, but there were times he wondered if maybe he’d been a little overzealous in leaving Toronto so quickly. There had been good things about the city, too.
“Anything else?”
“No time for anything else. I barely have time to shower between juggling the pilot and the station.”
“Make time,” Rachel said. “I remember how your gym bag used to smell.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“Like a sweaty sock had been stewing in it for decades.”
“You weren’t supposed to come into my room anyway.”
“How else was I going to steal your Walkman? You kept that thing locked up like it was a national treasure.”
“And yet it didn’t stop you.”
“It did when you stuck it in your gym bag.”
Jake laughed. He’d forgotten that. “Inside one of my socks, as I recall.”
“I almost died before I could get out of there. I swear, I still have a lingering cough.” She performed one for his benefit. “See? Terrible.”
And Jake hadn’t been able to use the stupid thing for a week until the plastic aired out enough that he could get close enough to it without gagging. It had been completely worth it. “I hope you learned your lesson.”
“Stay away from my brother’s nasty socks?”
“Don’t steal.”
“Oh, yeah. That, too. Okay, enough work chatter. What’s happening with the people?” Rachel liked people. She had a large circle of friends and a larger one of acquaintances. “Making any friends?”
“Some.”
She
sighed. “Could you be a little more tight-lipped? No wonder Mom thought you were depressed.”
“Not blathering about inane details of my life doesn’t mean that I’m depressed.”
“It does to Mom. I have an idea. Why don’t you tell me everything because you know I won’t judge, and then I can let her know you’re okay.”
“Nice try. You’re just being nosy.”
“I’m being a concerned sibling.”
“A nosy concerned sibling.”
“True. Now tell me everything.”
For a second he considered telling her about the anti–Valentine’s Day party. It might get her—and their mother—off his back about getting out and making friends. But then he thought about that barely there kiss with Ava and decided it was probably best not to bring it up. His sister was like a bloodhound when it came to sniffing out details about his love life, or lack thereof.
“Nothing to tell. I work on the pilot most nights.”
“Jake...” She paused and he could sense her gearing up. “You need to get out more. Start getting back into the game. What happened was—”
“Don’t say it,” he started just as she launched into her “it wasn’t you, it was her” lecture. Too late. He felt his pleasure slide away, buffeted on the wind of words and memory.
But there was no stopping Rachel once she started. She was like a five-foot bulldog. “Flat out, Claudia was a bitch.”
“I know you never liked her.”
“Because I could see that she was a user. She was never worth your time.”
“I know,” Jake said, and he did. He’d realized that when she’d broken up with him because he’d refused to promote her. But it had still hurt and even though he knew he was better off, he still didn’t want to rehash it every time he spoke to his family.
“So don’t let her affect you. Get out there. Date. Get lucky.”
“Maybe I have.”
She choked on her laughter. “No. I know your voice too well. You are tightly wound.”
“Because I’m busy.”
“Yes, but you’d be more relaxed and happier if you were also having sex.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“You only think that because you’re not. Trust me.”
“Stop,” Jake interrupted before she could launch into another sister-knows-best lecture. “I cannot listen to details of your sex life with Rob.”
“I wasn’t going to go into detail. I was just going to say that it’s a healthy part of life. And one that I enjoy with my husband.”
Jake could feel the tips of his ears burning. Logically, he knew that his little sister and her husband weren’t celibate, but it was one of those things that he couldn’t think about and definitely couldn’t talk about. “Okay, got it. Please stop bringing it up. Ask me about my depression, or when I’m coming home for a visit or when I’m going to call Mom next. Just no more of that.”
Rachel was quiet for a moment. Never a good sign. “Is this because you’re jealous?”
“What part of ‘stop talking about it’ did you miss?”
“We’re not talking about me. Do I need to call Alex and have him take you on a double date?”
“Please, no.” Alex had already tried and Jake had turned him down. His idea of a good date and Alex’s were two very different things. “I’ve got a handle on that.”
Another pause. “Does this mean there is some potential out there?”
“Rache, I didn’t come out here for that,” he answered quickly, but not before his mind shot to Ava and the shower fantasies he might have indulged in before this morning’s promotion debacle and the fact that she’d obviously now decided to hate him. Although, maybe there was some potential in that, too. He could be talked into Hate Sex.
“Too quick to protest,” Rachel judged. “Which means there is some potential. Lovely. Who is she? What’s she look like? How long before you seal the deal?”
“I am not talking about this with you.”
“Why? I give awesome advice and you could use a woman’s perspective.”
“Nothing wrong with my perspective.”
“You think beer and pizza is a good date.”
“For a sporting event,” Jake clarified. “And only once she’s hooked.”
“Hooked? Your ego astounds me. She’s not a fish to reel in. So tell me about her.”
“There is no her.”
“Please.” Rachel snorted again. “There is so a her.”
She waited. Fine. He could outwait her.
“You might think you’ll win by playing the strong silent type, but I’ll just tell Mom.”
He broke. “You would not.”
She laughed. “Do you know me at all? Of course I would. However, I could be convinced to keep it to myself if you just tell me everything.”
He considered it for about a nanosecond before sticking to his original decision. He was about to tell his sister to keep her nose out of his business, when he caught sight of Ava coming down the hall. “Oh, gee, baby sister, I would,” he lied, knowing it would get Rachel’s goat, “but my appointment just showed up and I have to go.”
“What? No. No.”
Jake hung the phone up without responding. Rachel wasn’t the only Durham sibling who knew how to push buttons.
Ava stopped just shy of his office. Emotions swirled in his gut as he watched her, and his body tightened, clearly not getting the memo that sex—hate or otherwise—was not in the cards.
It was wrong, but it was hard not to fantasize about her when she looked at him with those big blue eyes, her sunshine-colored hair curling across her shoulders and just a hint of a blush on her creamy white skin. She reminded him of spring. But from the turn of her mouth it looked as if March’s lamb was going out like a lion.
Jake felt his own irritation rise to meet hers. He was the one who’d been sitting here waiting for how long? He checked the time again. Thirty minutes. He turned some of that irritation on her where it belonged. “Glad you could make it.”
He saw the flash of resentment in her eyes at the sharpness of his tone, but she blinked it away and pasted on one of those phony wide-eyed expressions that was the hallmark of bad actors. “So sorry I’m late. I was busy working.”
He didn’t respond. Just leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest as she bypassed the plastic chair she’d sat in this morning and instead settled on the ugly brown couch that took up one wall of his office. He’d considered getting rid of it when he’d first taken over the space and then decided that he could live with it for three months. Let the next executive producer decide what they wanted to do with it.
Ava smoothed her skirt, drawing his eyes to her legs and the high heels she wore. “For the record, I did email you to let you know I was running behind.” She glared at him while she spoke.
He made a show of checking his email and then felt like a tool when there was indeed an unread message from her. “Oh.” If his voice was a little gruffer than usual, she’d just have to deal with it. “Let’s get started.”
“Sure.” She crossed her legs. “Should we wait for Brandon?”
Jake yanked his eyes away from her legs. “Brandon and I have already met.” He flipped to a new page on his lined notepad and reminded himself that although he was still irked that she’d been late, getting into an argument with her was no way to kick off their festival. Rockdale was a long, busy week, and a healthy professional relationship with hi
s team was key to making it a success. “Let’s start with what you and Lena had planned.”
Ava studied him as though she was waiting for him to say something else then nodded. He forced his eyes to remain on her face as she read off a list from the folder in her lap.
Rockdale was an A-list film festival with A-list responsibilities. Juggling the team, dealing with hard-ass publicists, ego-stroking actors, handling the morass of interviews, parties and red carpets, not to mention making sure their stories were well edited and sent back to the station in a timely fashion for air was more than a full-time gig.
Jake felt some of his tension slip away as Ava talked. It was a well-thought-out and clear plan. She and Lena had been prepared, which was good for him. Although Jake had been to festivals before, it had been a while and he was happy to accept any help he could get.
“Do we have some flextime built in?” he asked. There was usually a story or two that didn’t turn up until the festival was under way. The good media teams were ready to jump on those at a moment’s notice.
She nodded. “Plus, there are a couple of things booked that we could easily cancel.” She mentioned a few independent films that only held interest by virtue of their leading actor or director, but weren’t expected to create more than a low hum.
“Good.” Jake made note of them, as well. “Then we can cut those if we need to. Good work.”
“Yes, it is.” But she wasn’t smiling when she said it. “Anything else or can I go?”
“In a minute.” He kept his voice mild. He didn’t want to bring up the subject, but the tight twist of her lips told him that this conversation was necessary. “I want to quash these bad feelings between us.”
“What bad feelings? I don’t have any bad feelings.” The fakey-fake smile was back. He would bet she’d perfected it from years of dealing with oversensitive actors who considered themselves artistes. He preferred the ones who admitted they were in it for the money.
“Hypothetically, if you did have any problems with me, I’d like to deal with them now. We can’t afford to be at odds in Rockdale.” In-fighting was a surefire way to have a terrible festival, both personally and professionally.
That Weekend... Page 3