Chapter 17

Jarryd

“This is the one that bothers me,” Luke said and shifted in the seat across from me, tapping his pen on the side of the page, brow wrinkled above his reading glasses. “I’m not sure it needs a rewrite but it feels so… empty.”

“Vacuous,” I said.

“Right.”

We’d chosen to have the meeting in his room, at the small table that room service had brought in for exactly this purpose. Luke had thrown the curtains open the minute we entered, affording us with a view of the forest out back, the trees silent witnesses to our discussion.

Wind toyed with their leaves, and a cat meandered through the long grass near their base. It wasn’t Mistress, but I sat up and peered at it, nonetheless. Was it crazy I was disappointed that it wasn’t Aurora’s cat out there? Yeah, you’ve officially lost it.

I dragged the end of my ballpoint down the bridge of my nose.

I’d lost Aurora in the fray this morning. A nightmare moment for me, and likely for her, too. She’d run, and I’d tried to follow, but the press of bodies had held me back and then Felicity had made an appearance… what a shit show.

Finding her after that was out of the question. The RV had been empty. The tent at the fairgrounds, too, and heading back to the hotel had only served to put me in contact with Luke, who’d insisted we do this. Now or never, baby.

“Are you listening to me, Tombs?” Luke intoned. “I don’t think you heard a damn word I said.”

“I’m listening. I’m just… dissatisfied.” And distracted. And a total jackass for thinking I could keep Aurora. She was pure and free, and I was tied to this movie and the people involved. Which meant I was tied to Felicity, too.

“With the script?”

“Yeah. I feel—look, I started writing the damn thing when I was with Felicity,” I said. “She was the one who wanted me to do a romantic thriller, for fuck’s sake. This is the result.”

“Meaning what?”

“That the core idea is based on a time in my life I’d rather not revisit,” I replied, evenly.

Luke dropped his pen and glared at me. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

“What?”

“You can’t give up on this project, now, Tombs. We’ve invested too much time and effort into it,” Luke replied.

I sighed and massaged the bridge of my nose, pen caught between my middle and index fingers. “I’m not saying I want to give up on it.” But I do. I do, and at the same time I don’t, because I’m nothing without work. I’m nobody without it. Isn’t that right? “I’m saying there’s a reason it’s not as good as it could be.”

“Well, that’s why we’re here,” Luke said, and his shoulders relaxed, at last. “We’re going to fix this and make it great. I mean, the title’s good already. Pride’s Death. That’s a strong starting point.”

“All right, so the problem with the scene,” I said. Shit, this would have me in a depression in short order. I didn’t want to be here. An image of Aurora spun out of my memory. Not naked this time, no, but sitting on the front steps of her RV, holding the rose quartz crystal between her palms, lips moving soundlessly, her hair curling around her shoulders, falling past the straps of her camisole.

“Jarryd!”

“What?” I blinked out of the vision.

“Dude, you’re seriously not even here. What’s this about? Is it that chick?”

“No,” I said, a kneejerk response. “This scene is empty, like you said. It’s got nothing of substance. So, Felicity meets the main character, right? And then what, there’s chemistry and they talk. There’s no tension.” I struck the page between us. “No heat.”

“There’s nothing about heat in the script.”

“Exactly,” I replied.

Luke shook his head. “No, Jay, I mean there’s been no mention of heat prior to this. Are you suggesting that there’s no heat between you and Felicity?”

“Would you stop doing that?” I snapped. “Stop turning this into something personal. It’s not personal.”

“You wrote this script,” Luke said and snatched it up. He held it, waved it, almost whacked me on the damn nose. “Of course it’s personal. It’s your vision.”

“Not anymore,” I grunted.

Luke threw the script down, and it slapped onto the table. He scraped his chair back, neck red and forearms cording with restraint. “Cut the shit, Jay. This isn’t about the script. This is about the girl.”

“What?”

“That fortune-teller chick. You’re obsessed with her.”

I didn’t get up, didn’t rise to his taunt. Focused on the window view instead—the cat had disappeared, leaving nothing but empty space among the trunks of those trees. I shrugged my shoulders, looked back up at him. “We’re here to discuss the script, Luke, not whatever may or may not be going on in my personal life. I thought you understood that.”

“No, I thought you understood that,” Luke replied. “You’re not even focused on what we’re doing. You’re wasting my time. Hell, you’re wasting everybody’s time with this shit.”

“What do you want from me?” Lately, it seemed everyone wanted something. A little piece of Tombs for their collection. Felicity wanted the fame and the money. Luke wanted the time. And what about Aurora? What did she want?

“I want you to fucking be here instead of out there with some chick you barely know.”

“Don’t go there.”

“I’ll go wherever the hell I like.” Luke kicked the chair aside, pressing his fists to the top of the script. “Do you understand that I’m here spending time on this with you? The least you could do is be present with me. You’re making me sound like a whiny girl instead of a business partner.”

“Dude, I’m right here.”

“Then talk to me about the scene instead of daydreaming about what’s between Aurora’s legs.”

I shot upward, out of the chair. “Don’t push me, Luke. I’ve been pushed too often of late.”

“Christ, you’re so self-involved. Do you even realize what’s at stake here?” Luke’s stare heated.

I held back. This was my friend. Luke had been there for years, since the start, since I’d been an aspiring nobody without any guidance, without a clue or a hope. And now? I held two fists and pictured slamming them into his chest, knocking the wind out of him so he couldn’t speak anymore.

“Do you know what’s at stake?” he barked.

“Of course I fucking know.”

“I don’t think you do.” Luke straightened. “This movie is too big already, understand? People are involved. People have invested their time and money into this project. If we don’t finish this, they’ll lose their damn jobs. That’s money they counted on to feed their families. To pay their bills and school fees for their kiddies. Maybe that doesn’t matter to you, but it does to me.”

It mattered—I’d made sure that everyone who worked on my movies was compensated handsomely. That they didn’t want for anything, and the projects had always wound up successful as a result.

“Of course it matters to me,” I replied.

“Not as much as you matter to you. You’ll dump this project, won’t you?”

“What am I supposed to do here? If it doesn’t work, I’ll only bring everyone down with me. I don’t want everyone to fail if I can fail on my own,” I said.

“So, that’s it. That’s what’s really in your mind,” Luke snapped. He knuckled his forehead, pointed at me. “You’re a quitter.”

“Fuck you.”

“I never saw you as a quitter until now. You’re putting some bitch ahead of this movie and everyone else.”

“Luke!” I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him toward me, bumping him into the table, first. “Don’t you fucking dare call her that.” I shook him, muscles trembling, the ache surreal. This was my friend. My friend, and I wanted to beat the living shit out of him.

“Let go of me,” he said.

“Apologize.”

“No. If using that type of language will snap you back to reality then no.” Luke fisted my collar, too, and held it fast.

I strained against my temper, the slow burn that had started at the beginning of this week built, higher, higher. I didn’t want to explode on him. “You don’t understand what’s happening here.”

“Yeah, I do. You’re a selfish jackass.”

I dropped my hands, and he did the same, trembling with anger. He wasn’t the same as me when it came to this. He was prone to rage, and this had pushed him to the edge. “If that’s what you think, Luke then fine,” I said. “I don’t want this project to fail, but it’s been doomed from the start.”

“Doomed. Christ, since when were you fatalistic?” Luke backed away, one step at a time, eying me as if I’d contracted a dreaded fucking disease. “No, you’ve got pussy on the mind. That’s all this is.”

“I don’t.”

We squared off, the anger dissolving piece by piece—my jaw unclenched, he ran fingers through his hair, ruffled it.

“Whatever, man,” he said. “I don’t think I know you anymore. The Jarryd I knew wouldn’t give up on a project until it was perfect.”

I wasn’t that Jarryd anymore. Or maybe I was but different. Was it wrong to express unwillingness to waste time on something? Better to cut my losses now. If I’d cut my losses with Felicity, I’d never have gotten hurt or caught her cheating.

There had been warning signs.

“Call me when you’ve gotten over whatever this shit is,” Luke said then spun and stormed from his own hotel room. He slapped the door shut behind him, and I flinched at the noise.

Christ, what was the point in any of this? I’d fallen for Aurora, no point in denying it now, yet I’d managed to isolate her. Luke, my best bud who’d been there for me through thick and thin, thought I’d changed. Everything crumbled around me, and I couldn’t catch the pieces fast enough—couldn’t make the right picture with the rubble.

I picked up the script. The title Pride’s Death mocked me with its bold font, its demand for creation. I tossed it aside and pinched the bridge of my nose again. Fuck it, I didn’t give one shit about the script or the movie. I’d hurt Aurora. Or the fact that I was famous had hurt her.

I’d find a way to make this right.

“What are you doing?” I muttered. “What are you doing? This can’t go anywhere, can it?” But it had to go somewhere now. I’d already fallen for her, and I wouldn’t let her go, this beautiful, free woman who’d shown me what it meant to relax.

I grabbed my jacket from the back of my chair and left Luke’s hotel room.