by Amity Cross
I’d bet a million dollars that he was just here to see the producers about the ratings. There was no way he came here especially to apologize for being an ass the other day. But he was still coming right for me, and I snapped to attention, beginning to back away. I didn’t know how this conversation was going to go, so like Lux version one, I’d rather not have it at all.
“Lux!” Jude called out, and I rolled my eyes. It was too late to make a break for it now.
I stopped in the middle of the hallway and waited as he approached.
Standing before me, he shoved his hands into his pockets, looking sheepish. “Lux…”
“What?” I snapped a little too forcefully.
“I came to see you,” he said, his gaze gliding down to the bottle of champagne and back up.
“You came to see the ratings,” I retorted.
He narrowed his eyes. “I already knew the ratings. Sharon called me this morning to scream in my ear. I came here to see you.”
I tried not to read too much into it. “Then what do you want to say to me?”
“I’m sorry I was an ass to you the other day.”
I rolled my eyes and glanced away.
“Lux, you have to understand…” He trailed off, whatever he was going to say dissipating like a fart in the wind.
“What’s there to understand?” I asked. “You don’t owe me an explanation. You’re a free agent. I’m just some chick you know.”
As the words left my mouth, it felt like I was spitting up razor blades. I wanted to mean something to someone. I wanted to mean something to Jude. I knew I’d never be more than friends with the guy, but I just didn’t know how to let go.
“You’ve been using my friendship as a distraction,” I said, not sugarcoating it. “I like you, Jude, but not enough to let you continue being a selfish prick. I want you to spend time with me because you like it, not because you want to escape from something. I don’t give a shit how handsome or famous you are.”
I placed emphasis on the word ‘like’ in a daring attempt at saying everything without actually using the words directly in context.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’ve been a total prick.”
My stupid attempt at revealing my feelings went straight over his head, and I felt a little stress fracture split the surface of my heart.
“I didn’t realize…” he went on awkwardly, and I paused, the thought of Jude being awkward around me a total alien notion. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
I shrugged, not knowing how to accept his apology. Normal people would just say, I accept your apology. Seriously, it was bloody obvious, but nothing was normal about my life anymore. I wasn’t sure which I preferred, awkward or obliterated by lust.
“Hey, you think I’m handsome?” he asked abruptly like he’d just realized I’d said it.
“Of course, you are,” I retorted. “It’s your job to be handsome.”
He raised his eyebrows, his expression changing slightly. Did he want me to tell him I thought he was handsome? That was a step too far in a direction I always thought was forbidden, and I didn’t like it, but the change in his features was gone as soon as it had appeared, and the moment was lost.
“Give me your phone,” he commanded, holding out his hand.
I shrank back slightly, my eyes narrowing. “Why?”
“So I can give you my number,” he replied like it was a dumb-ass question.
Sliding my hand into my bag, I curled my fingers around my phone. I’d always been available to him, but now he was making himself available voluntarily, and it was throwing me for a loop. Uncertainty clouded my vision, and I began to fret about Tessa and her psychopathic bullying.
“Lux, give me your phone.”
I wanted him to call me, I wanted to hang out and talk, and get to know all about him, including his mouth and his…down there, but that had been in my mind where everything was a fantasy, and that kind of thinking never touched reality. Jude was getting his act together and giving me what I wanted, to a slight degree, so why was I reluctant? Oh yeah, the heartbreak thing. Seriously.
I sighed and pulled out my phone, handing it to him. Our fingers brushed as he took it, and he smiled as I began to feel the familiar rise of color in my cheeks.
He brought the screen to life and opened the contacts. After punching in his number, he pressed another icon, and the screen changed as his phone began to ring. Then he hit the red telephone to cut the call off.
“Now I have your number too, so no escaping, Lux Dawson.”
Handing my phone back to me, he winked, sending my heart into overdrive. It was doing backflips, and cartwheels, and fist pumping itself into oblivion. My brain had other ideas, and it was currently telling me that I was about to torture myself in the most painful way imaginable. A real friendship with the impossibly unavailable Jude Atwood was akin to waterboarding.
“What are you doing now?” he asked as I shoved my phone away.
I hesitated. I couldn’t do it. I’d be in limbo forever if I went down this path, and I didn’t want my heart to be floating in a black void of nothingness because I wasn’t able to get over my crush and move on. I knew myself, and Lux Dawson fixated on the things she couldn’t have. She fixated on them to the point she immortalized them in fiction.
“I’ve got stuff to do,” I mumbled, stepping around him.
“Another time then,” he said, not bothering to mask his disappointment.
“Maybe,” I threw back and kept walking. I didn’t stop until I was in the elevator, the doors separating me from him.
I didn’t know a thing about relationships despite writing four hundred page books about them, but I did know that separation was exactly the thing I needed.
Maybe it was stubborn pride, or maybe it was reckless abandon, but I had to get over Jude Atwood or die trying.
Episode Thirteen
Through The Looking Glass and Into The Fire
The set was absolutely pumping today.
I squinted in the sunshine despite wearing my sunglasses and scanned the crew running back and forth for Candy’s familiar blonde locks. It was the first time I’d been back to the set since I’d argued with Jude and begrudgingly accepted his apology. Not surprisingly¸ I hadn’t received a text or call from him since he’d bullied my number out of me. I hadn’t bothered to reach out to him either, but then again, I was trying to get over the guy and move on with my life. Longest five months ever.
Soon it’d be Halloween and then Thanksgiving, both holidays that we didn’t celebrate in Australia. Then Christmas was looming, and I didn’t want to think about where I’d be spending those holidays. Probably alone with my still unopened packet of shake ‘n’ bake trying to figure out how to use the oven.
Weaving through the bank of trailers, I spied Candy up ahead. I hadn’t come to see her or Jude. There was a new director on deck, and I was dying to see how he was going to film my script. Yep, this episode had been a Lux Dawson special, and I just couldn’t keep away even with the looming threat of Jude Atwood on the horizon.
“Lux,” Candy called out as she caught sight of me, and I ventured over to give her a hug.
“Hey. It’s nice to come out to the set during the day for a change.” I waved my hands like I was trying to pull in some sunshine. “I need some vitamin D.”
“Have you come to check out the guest director?” she asked, wiggling her eyebrows. “He’s cute.”
“Really?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. Cute directors usually knew it…and usually went for the actresses.
“Yeah, check him out when you get the chance.”
“I really came to see how he was going to film,” I said. “This is one of my scripts, and he’s a newbie…”
“So, you’re Lux Dawson.”
Candy and I turned at the sound of an unfamiliar male voice behind us. As my gaze met a pair of blue eyes with a handsome face attached, I assumed that this was the guest director.
“Justin
Mayweather,” he declared, holding his hand out.
He had an unmistakable Southern accent, and I found myself hooked. Considering I knew nothing about the American south, I instantly thought of sweet tea and cowboys. But maybe that was another kind of south. Texas. Anyway, I kind of expected him to say ma’am and was disappointed when he didn’t.
He had this whole rugged, bad boy, outback look about him with his open-collared khaki shirt, jeans, and stubble-coated jaw. A pair of aviator sunglasses were on his head, pushing back his mane of sun-bleached blond hair. I guessed he was around his late thirties, but he didn’t look old. A lot of guys had this thing where they looked better the older they got. Like wine got better the longer you held onto it, you know?
Placing my hand in his, I raised my eyebrows when he pulled it to his lips and kissed it like he was out of the seventeenth century. Glancing at Candy, she slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles.
“Uh, nice to meet you,” I said, pulling my hand away.
“You’re young for a staff writer,” he went on. “I’m impressed.”
“I’m not that young,” I said, catching the drift that Mr. Mayweather was also into younger conquests of the bedroom variety.
He laughed and gestured for me to walk with him. “Come with me, beautiful, and I’ll show you what it looks like to direct.”
His statement was so laden with sexual innuendo I wanted to asphyxiate on my own vomit. I didn’t like men who thought the way to my heart was through my vagina. Anyway, I doubted any man who wanted in that way was in the least bit interested in romance. Penis, vagina, orgasm, don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.
I didn’t like disposable. I was never a one-night stand kind of woman, not that I’d ever been propositioned for one. In a way, Justin Mayweather’s unwanted advances were slightly validating.
Getting a little too close for comfort, he wound his arm around my waist and guided me to the back of the camera. I stared at the screen as he explained what all the lines and numbers meant, his lips a little too close to my ear than was professionally proper, but I was essentially trapped by my own politeness.
I blinked as movement flashed across the camera screen, and Jude came into shot. He was scowling, looking straight down the lens, and I pulled away, unable to hold his gaze even though he wasn’t actually looking right at me. Unfortunately, my backward trajectory had me stumbling against Justin’s chest, and his hands grasped my waist to steady me. I didn’t feel anything but alarm bells as he held onto me, and they definitely weren’t the same ones that sounded when I was with Jude.
“Whoa. Steady there,” he murmured, and I twisted out of his grasp.
Jude rounded the camera and stood glaring at Justin like he was about to smackdown the guy. This unbelievable wave of annoyance smashed into me like a tsunami, and I went to open my mouth, but Jude spoke for me.
“You get that close with every woman you show around set?” he asked, eyeballing Justin.
“Just showing the lovely lady some southern hospitality.”
I rolled my eyes. His idea of hospitality was trying to work his way into my pants. The guy saw me as easy because of my outward disposition, not because he genuinely wanted to know me. I was smart enough to pick them without Jude’s macho man routine.
“You don’t—”
“Jude,” I barked, crossing my arms over my chest. I didn’t need him to speak for me. I didn’t want him to. We were friends or some bastardized version of it, and I didn’t need him coddling me. If he did, then it would just lead me back to the path I was desperate not to go down—the path to Swoon-Town, population Jude Atwood.
Justin smirked and went to pull me against his side. One of two things were about to happen unless I did something. It was either going to be a full-on assault from the star actor or a sexual harassment case against the guest director, so I decided to grow some balls and put both men back in their places, neither of which were in defense of me.
“There are many things you should know about me,” I said to Justin as I knocked his hand away. “And if you have to remember just one of them, remember this. I’m in this position because of my talent. I’m not here because of my tits and vagina, and I never will be. I have a brain, and I’m not afraid to use it. If you think you’re going to get me to blow you while you lounge in your director’s chair by laying a few sweeties and beautifuls on me, you’re climbing the wrong mountain. Develop a little integrity.” Glancing across the set to where Tessa was standing, I suppressed the urge to add a line in about other willing parties. I gestured between us and finished with, “Professional boundary. Stick to it.”
Justin’s lip twitched, but he didn’t say anything. Anyway, I didn’t want to hear his response even if he had one. Turning, I strode away from both men, seriously peeved off. Remembering the day Candy took me shopping, something she said started to resonate. Don’t let this industry jade you. I was sure people sucked appendages on their way to the top all the time, but I wasn’t going to be one of them. Never. I wanted to be here because I deserved it.
Pausing behind the bank of trailers where I knew I was out of sight of the crew, I bent over at the waist and took a deep breath.
“Ugh,” I declared, wiping my hands on my jeans like it would get rid of the slimy feeling I had crawling all over my skin. “I guess I’m on countdown to a written warning.”
“You won’t get a warning. You’re too valuable to the network.”
I’d been talking to myself, but at the sound of Jude’s voice, I turned to find that he’d followed me as I’d stalked off stage left.
“What?” I asked, scowling at him with the force of a billion supernovas exploding across the universe.
“You finally get it,” Jude said.
“Finally get what?” I asked, thoroughly annoyed.
He stared at me, his expression indecipherable. “The reason you’re here.”
“Well, apparently I’m disposable,” I spat back, letting my emotions loose. I didn’t want him to follow me and be all cryptic. Why couldn’t he just say whatever it was on his mind straight up? I thought women were meant to be difficult. Wasn’t that the stereotype?
“Who said that?” he asked, his brow furrowing.
I hated how amazing he looked right now. I hated how he was concerned. I hated how I couldn’t let him go even though I was trying my hardest to put distance between us. He just kept coming back like a bloody boomerang.
“You really have to ask that question?” I hissed at him. “Everybody has been nice and welcoming since I got here… Everyone but one person.”
Jude’s shoulders tensed and his eyes began to darken. “What did she say?”
I scoffed. “What does it matter?”
“It matters to me.”
I stared at him like I was standing on the precipice of a cliff. I could feel the gaping void below me, waiting for the moment I’d fling my body over the edge and plummet to the bottom. Would he be there to catch me, or would I go splat? Closing my eyes, all I could see was the sunlight glowing through my eyelids. No dreams coming true, just the image of Jude burned into my retinas…and that was already beginning to fade.
“Lux,” he said, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.
I heard Justin calling out from some place far away, but it was like I’d been wrapped in cotton wool. I didn’t like the feeling at all.
Opening my eyes, I turned my face away to try to hide my expression.
“The douche is calling places,” Jude said, rolling his eyes.
“Then you better go.”
Jude let out a breath, this long sigh that seemed to echo in the woods, and he turned away. I watched him walk back to the set, my entire body feeling numb with disappointment. I was killing myself slowly, and it was agonizing.
Knowing that I couldn’t hide out here all afternoon, I ventured forward, following Jude’s footsteps and found a quiet place to watch the next couple of takes. I was just in time.
“Quiet on set!” Justin bellowed, and everyone stopped what they were doing. He called action, and the cameras started rolling.
As I watched the scene unfold, I began to feel sick. This was my episode, the one I’d written my heart and soul into… I knew this scene. It culminated with a passionate kiss, and after that short interlude in the forest, I knew it was going to hurt.
Despite everything I thought I was doing to stem my feelings, they’d only grown, and now they were twisted around my heart and soul like ivy. You know that stinking plant that only grew back thicker the more you tried to cut it out. It curled around everything in its path and strangled and overwhelmed until it was the only thing left alive. It was a monster, my feelings were a monster, and all I could see was Jude…kissing Tessa.
I wanted it. I wanted that. I wanted him. I couldn’t have it.
Tessa deepened the kiss, and I frowned. Yeah, she was following the cues as written, but she was going over the top. When her hand slid down and cupped Jude’s cock through his jeans, I knew she was deliberately putting on a show. Despite myself, I flushed and glanced away, embarrassment flooding my features, and it wasn’t because she was publicly claiming Jude as hers. I didn’t see her hand, I saw—
“Cut,” Justin shouted. “What the fuck was that Tessa?”
“Sorry,” she said with a giggle that grated on my psyche. “I got a little carried away.”
“We’re not shooting a porno,” he shouted back at her. “Keep it above the belt.”
Before he could call places again, I made myself scarce. If I had to witness one more cock-grab from her, I would have to fling myself into oncoming traffic.
Hovering by catering, I picked at a sandwich, wondering where Candy had disappeared to. She was probably in a trailer someplace getting her makeup done.