No one really knows Charlie but Charlie, and probably his twin brother and father. But I have one of the best windows into his life. He’s enigmatic and alluring to the world, but what they don’t realize is that he’s just as destructive as his brothers.
He’s simply better at fooling people.
Charlie drops his pants, only in a pair of black boxer-briefs. He extends his arms like he’s about to be measured for a suit.
I scan his body out of habit. Not a bruise. Not a scratch. He turns around. His back and legs are just as blemish free.
When he rotates to me, he says, “Satisfied?” He’s not mad or angry or anything at all.
“No because I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t have to ask,” Charlie replies casually and then steps back into his pants. “And you’re wrong, Oscar.” He fishes the button through and his eyes meet mine. “I’m not doing this show to ditch you. If I wanted to, I could find a better way to do that.”
Round of applause goes to this little Houdini.
I let out an unamused laugh. I’m grimacing and I wash away a scowl with the roll of my eyes.
Off my anger, Charlie says, “I’m doing it for you, you know. The show, the one about my life.”
Jack shifts his weight, lips parted in confusion.
My brows knot, head cocked. “You did the show for me?” I sound skeptical because I fucking am.
He looks heavenward. “Well…one of the reasons I did it was for you. The more selfless reason, you could say.” He picks his shirt up from the bridge.
I shake my head slowly, my whole world on a tilt-a-whirl. “What are you talking about?”
“I know you hate the Oslie rumors as much as me,” Charlie says. “I know you barely have time to date because you’re following me around the world—”
“It’s my job, Charlie. I made that choice.”
He glares up at the stars. “No one deserves to have their life attached to mine.”
“Charlie—”
“Come back later. When I’m older,” he says, his voice cracking. “It’ll be easier on my detail then.” I know where he’ll be when he’s older. We both do. He’s made a few comments through the years about taking over Cobalt Inc., his father’s billion-dollar company.
“I like it now,” I retort. “I’m not coming back. I’m staying.”
He inhales a giant breath like he’s trying to suffocate on oxygen before his head dips back down to me. “Then I made the right decision with this show. Aunt Lily always says she can predict love, but she has nothing on me.” With another drag of his cigarette, his eyes ping between Jack and me.
I go rigid.
Jack and me.
Pieces try to connect in my head.
Love.
This show?
Me and Jack.
Love.
No.
No.
No damn way.
“You’re trying to fucking set me up?” I ask angrily, and I refrain from adding with a straight guy.
Charlie shrugs. “Whatever happens, happens. Maybe you two could just be friends. All I know is you’re lonely, and Jack looks lonely.”
Jack laughs, a bright smile cresting his features.
He’s smiling?
I do a double-take, surprised by Highland again, that he’s taking this in good humor.
“I take offense to that,” Jack says lightly.
Charlie frowns and waves a hand. “Really because your smile is telling a different story.”
“I’m just taking this all in…” he explains. “So this show isn’t a real thing?” The light diminishes in his smile, reminding me how important being the creator of a show is to Jack.
“It’s very real,” Charlie says, buttoning his shirt. “I need you to record me. Like I said, I have two reasons for doing this. Ending the Oslie rumors and starting a new one between you two is just an added benefit.”
An added benefit. So playing matchmaker and trying to hook me up with Jack Highland isn’t the most important reason. That should ease my nerves, but with Charlie, it’s just better to be on edge and ready to move.
“You can subtract that added benefit,” I say strongly. “There won’t be a single rumor about me and Jack.” Because we’re nothing.
Uninteresting.
Uncompelling.
Not together.
No kissing.
No fucking.
No holding hands or making love or waking up tangled in bed and smiling about who’s cooking breakfast.
I wait for Jack to add in, I’m straight, Charlie, with one of his bright, genuine smiles. But when he stays quiet, shock slowly ices my veins.
I’m frozen.
Wondering why Jack isn’t piling onto my declaration.
He hangs his head slightly, and as he begins to look at me, my anticipation catapults. His eyes are almost on mine.
Almost.
And then a duck splashes in the river, diverting our attention behind our shoulders. As our eyes are about to come back to each other, Charlie begins speaking.
Guess what? I suddenly hate ducks.
“Still, I need this show to happen,” Charlie says, not telling us the main reason why, the one that has nothing to do with me. “We’re still set with filming then?”
“I’m fine with it, if Oscar is,” Jack says, glancing to me.
Now I have to be around Jack knowing Charlie is trying to set me up with him. As if this couldn’t get any messier.
But I think about what this show means to Highland again. What it could do for his aspirations, his career, his life.
I’m not that big of an asshole.
“I’m alright with it,” I say.
Charlie exhales a short breath, then tilts his head to me. “If I crossed a line today…”
“You cross them every day, Charlie,” I say with no anger. What I’ve learned in my thirty-two years, there are some fights not worth stewing over. Tomorrow is another day.
His lip rises with a nod of agreement, and he sticks his cigarette in his mouth. “L’enfer est vide et tous les diables sont ici.” Hell is empty and all the devils are here. I recognize the Shakespeare quote. The Tempest.
His gaze does soften. “I am fine, Oscar.”
“Yeah, I know.”
I’ve heard it a million-and-one times. But nothing really changes. As long as I’m protecting Charlie, there’s going to be a large part of me that has to protect him from himself. He’s not the only self-destructive client, but he’s the one who runs the most laps around the world.
12
JACK HIGHLAND
Two weeks have passed since Paris, and I’m still reeling from the whirlwind of events that happened over the course of two days. From the meeting in my Philly apartment to the New York concert venue to racing around Paris. It should be a blur by now, but it’s too vivid.
Every frame, every shot that I took with my eyes of Oscar Oliveira, I remember. Like that experience alongside him will be a gold standard for all the others in my life. And I’m not even sure it’s what I did but just the company I held.
After we got back to Charlie’s apartment from Le Chat Rouge, we grabbed our things and left for the airport. We clocked in less than 24-hours in France—and that’s normal for Charlie…and Oscar.
How in the fuck is this TV show going to work, dude? I’ve been asking myself that for two weeks and tossing and turning every night trying to figure out logistics.
And other things…
Let’s face it, this pilot has confused my confusion. I now know one reason Charlie wants to film a docuseries about his life. He’s trying to matchmake me and Oscar together. As friends. As something more? I missed the chance to really talk to Oscar in Paris. We fell asleep on the plane. But I woke up early.
Could’ve woken him up too.
These missed opportunities are so foreign to me. I don’t miss an opportunity. I’ve never been scared of walking through an open door.
&
nbsp; I mean, fuck, I’ve rarely been afraid to talk to anyone about anything. Not even when I was a nineteen-year-old production assistant, facing a prick of a director who kept spit-screaming at me and the other PAs about moving apple boxes.
And Oscar is lonely? I never saw him as a lonely guy. He has the kind of die-hard, life-long friendships I thought only existed in cult, coming-of-age movies. And he’s constantly hit on, and in my presence too.
Irrational anger begins to simmer again, just revisiting the memory of Everly coming on hard to Oscar in the Louvre. I’ve gone on double-dates with Akara; I introduced him to some girls I knew from college. Did I care when Akara and Amber kissed at the end of the night?
No.
No question.
So why did Everly make me want to uppercut a punching bag? And I don’t even fucking box.
I was so quick to make an enemy out of her, and if presented with the same situation three-hundred times, I know I’d have three-hundred more.
Me, Jack Highland, the guy with no enemies.
I guess now I have at least one.
She has his number. Maybe they’ll meet up if she finds herself in Philly or New York. Maybe they’ve already met up. It’s not like I’ve seen Oscar in a while.
Two weeks.
Two weeks of no contact, and what’s wrong with me? I’ve never been so bent-out-of-shape over a short stint of no communication before now.
At least Oscar spent the last week in the Smoky Mountains. He was on-duty with security while the Hales, Meadows, and Cobalts retreated to the lake house. They usually go there on-and-off during the summer, and I heard they were linking up with Farrow & Maximoff at the end of their honeymoon.
The lake house’s location is strictly secret from the public. So Everly couldn’t have been there.
That should make me feel good enough to coast through the rest of the day, but I just keep picturing this girl at Oscar’s studio apartment. Getting down on her knees. Giving him head.
My stomach twists in a pretzel.
I don’t know why the image of some chick deepthroating Oscar makes me want to hurl, but I’m at that stage, I guess. The stage where I don’t want to imagine my friend—or co-worker—getting off from someone…else.
But me.
I trip over a crack in the Philly sidewalk, and my tray of coffees spills onto the cement and warm liquid soaks my white T-shirt.
“Fuck.” I bend down and scoop up the paper cups and plastic lids. Some passersby grimace, their faces saying, ah, dude, that fucking sucks and glad that’s not me.
Spilt coffee isn’t a big deal.
Don’t sweat the small stuff has been my motto since forever. I’ve got bigger shit going on.
After tossing the cups and coffee tray in a nearby trashcan, I push into a mid-rise office building. Third-floor is home to the We Are Calloway productions.
I come into a small meeting room with a stained shirt and frazzled head. “Sorry, I’m late,” I apologize to Ali and Ambrose Miller, both behind laptops and waiting for me at the boardroom-style table, set with leather chairs. I offer a smile, taking off my messenger bag. “I did have coffee for you two, but here we are.”
Ali eyes the stain and snorts. “Did you trip? Tell me you caught it on film.”
Ambrose laughs while typing. “Now that’d be some camera gymnastics, sis.” He’s speaking to me, but Ali is also his sister. In their mid-thirties, only a year apart, the Miller siblings are almost inseparable, and they look like Hollywood starlets compared to me right now.
Ambrose has a faux-hawk with a side fade, and I’m jealous of his clean yellow button-down. Gold Tiffany bracelets complement his dark-brown skin, and his sister is equally put-together. Black hair gelled back in a curly pony, her trendy jumpsuit is spotless and ready for a red-carpet event.
She’s a kickass filmmaker. He’s an ace sound mixer. Singularly, they’re vets in the industry. Together, they’re the best power duo I know, and I’m the lucky producer who landed them on my team for We Are Calloway.
“Thank God I didn’t have my camera out,” I say with a hiking smile, and I walk to the small closet at the end of the boardroom. I keep clothes here when I pull 18-hour workdays. “Broken equipment isn’t on the budget.”
“Neither is a round of extra coffees,” Ali teases.
“Who said you’re getting an extra latte?” Ambrose banters with his sister. “You’re over there scrolling through Pinterest for a honeymoon you’ve rescheduled ten times. At this point, you should wait for tickets to pop up to fly to the moon.”
Ali and I laugh.
“Shut it down, I’m so close to scheduling this trip to Barbados,” she tells him.
I take a charcoal-gray button-down shirt off a hanger and smile back at Ali. “What happened to Maui?”
“Troy changed his mind.”
“And by Troy, she means Ali changed her mind,” Ambrose cuts in. “You should’ve done what I did and went right after the reception. Flight to Malta. No one but me and Cody and paradise.”
Talk about honeymoons is a reminder that I’m very single and surrounded by newlyweds. I attended Ali’s wedding, Ambrose’s wedding, Maximoff Hale’s wedding all within the same year, and it’s only July.
It didn’t bother me before. I’ll date when I can, I’d usually say, but now, a hot feeling flares up…a feeling like the one I felt with Everly in the Louvre.
I try to take a breath.
My personal life shouldn’t be affecting my work. So I tell Ambrose, “I’d drink to that declaration. But my drink is currently soaked in my shirt.” I shrug on the fresh button-down and return to the table, buttoning it closed quickly.
They stare at me a little more keenly.
I take a seat, about to start the pitch but they share a furtive look.
“What’s wrong?”
“Your fly is down, sis,” Ambrose tells me.
Fuck.
I zip up my pants. Heat swathing my neck. I let out a weak laugh, not even able to recover as smoothly as I know I can.
“You alright, Jack?” Ali asks.
“Yeah.” I run a hand through my hair. “Just lack of sleep.” Oscar.
Really, it’s Oscar.
For the briefest second, I almost consider telling them. Asking for advice. Ambrose is a gay man and in a great relationship with his husband. Maybe he’d understand. But it feels pretty unprofessional. We typically talk about our families and weekend plans. Office small talk. No one in production is spilling heartaches and lamenting their struggles to me, and I hesitate to be the first.
Really, at the end of it all, I think I don’t mention questioning my sexuality because there’s only one person I really want to talk to about it.
And he’s not here.
“What’s the pitch?” Ali asks, back to business.
“A spin-off of We Are Calloway, starring Charlie.”
Ambrose’s eyes widen. “You’re serious?”
“We are talking about Charlie Cobalt?” Ali questions, just as skeptical as her brother.
“Yeah,” I smile, actually proud that this project is so close to happening. “It was his idea.” I explain the concept and before they ask, I add, “I already went to the network and pitched the spin-off.” I’m referring to the premium network that’s home to the docuseries.
Ali shuts her laptop, engaged. “And?”
“And they were very interested and want first look. But they requested a pilot before picking up a series order.”
Can’t fault their reasoning. Charlie is a giant question mark. Ordering this spin-off without footage could be like calling Domino’s expecting a pizza, only to be served a cactus. No network wants egg on their face or to waste money.
But there is no crystal ball predicting a hit from a flop. We all have to take chances, and I’ve never struck out before.
“What about a backdoor pilot?” Ali asks.
I shake my head. “They said no. The network doesn’t want to mess with the in
tegrity of We Are Calloway by hyper-focusing just on Charlie.” With a backdoor pilot, essentially one of the episodes of We Are Calloway becomes Charlie’s pilot, and the network can see how the audience reacts and whether they want to move forward.
I leave out how the network asked, “What about Maximoff and Farrow?” They were willing to commit to a series order of a “Marrow” spin-off without any content filmed or even a backdoor pilot.
A straight shot to TV.
I was selfishly happy I could tell the network that Maximoff and Farrow weren’t interested in a spin-off, because if they had been…I don’t know what I would’ve done.
Ditching Charlie (who came to me first) just to favor Maximoff for my own gain—that’s not the kind of person I ever set out to be. But the industry is cutthroat and ruthless, and to most people, that deal would be a no-brainer.
“So no backdoor pilot,” Ali considers, “which means whoever works on the spin-off has to work on their own time with no guarantee of pick-up.”
I nod. “It’s essentially a side project.” I go into crew details. “Now, we could film the pilot with two people, but if Charlie’s docuseries is picked up for a series order, I’ll need a team. Naturally, you’re the top two on my list.”
Ali rolls forward in her chair. “How big of a team are you thinking?”
We Are Calloway is split into 3 production units. Each one follows a set of famous ones, categorized by age. Which is why I’m attached to the “older kids” who are actually all in their early twenties now.
Each team has 6 people:
Producer.
Camera Operator.
Production Manager.
Sound Mixer.
Gaffer.
Writer/Story Supervisor.
And even then, depending on the shoot, we’ll add in more camera operators, grips, and boom operators.
But on filming days, each team tries to keep the number of crew to a minimum. The style of documentary filmmaking we do is cinéma verité. Meaning we’re a part of the footage, the narrative. The viewer understands that the famous ones are being filmed in their everyday lives by filmmakers, and the viewer hears our voices but doesn’t see our faces.
Charming Like Us (Like Us Series: Billionaires & Bodyguards Book 7) Page 11