Chapter Ten
Will
Two weeks had passed since I managed to land that new investor, and the movie had been ticking along at a decent pace since then – it had been hard work keeping her on board, especially when I made it clear that nothing was going to happen between us, but she had wired us the money and given us the opportunity to actually finish making this damn film.
“I really like the way this is framed,” Derrick remarked, gesturing to one of the feeds as our leading man leaned up against a table in the center of the set. I grinned at him.
“You think? Maybe I’ve got an aptitude for this after all,” I teased, and he rolled his eyes at me playfully.
“Don’t get too cocky,” he warned.
It had been rough at the start, but the two of us were actually starting to get along pretty well as filming drew to a close. I couldn’t believe it had been three weeks already, with only about a week to go till we were done. At this point, we were really just going over shots we’d done, hinting at themes that had emerged over the course of filming that hadn’t been obvious before. I loved the way the movie was coming together, loved how gorgeous it was turning out to be, and prayed to fucking Christ that the investors and everyone else who’d thrown their weight behind it felt the same way.
“So, what do you want to do for the closing scene? Have you given it any thought?” Derrick asked, but I was distracted by the sight of Dina wandering on to the set to touch up some make-up. My God, that woman…
Ever since she had run out on me at the fundraiser, I had assumed that anything that might have been between us was firmly and thoroughly dead in the water. I’d never been stood up like in my life – well, since I got famous, anyway – and I had to admit it had me even more intrigued about her and what kind of woman she was and why she seemed so happy to kiss me but so reluctant to take things further.
Not to mention the fact that, fucking hell, she always seemed to know exactly when to saunter out in front of me to completely rip my mind away from whatever I was meant to be focusing on at the time. This particular afternoon, she had scraped her hair back into a high ponytail that bounced around with a lively jolt with every step, along with loose jeans that showed off a thick strip of skin. She had to keep hitching them up, looping her small fingers through the belt loops and drawing attention to the way the pants hung off her hips delicately. I wanted to touch her so bad that sometimes I felt as though my fingers itched with the need of it. I forced myself to turn my attention back to Derrick, focusing, as I was meant to, in the moment.
“Yeah, you know, I really haven’t given it much thought,” I admitted. “Maybe we could take some time out to think about it later?”
Derrick followed my gaze to Dina, and then looked back at me slowly with his eyebrows raised.
“Something happening there I should know about?” he asked, cocking his head. Shit, was I really being that obvious about it? I shook my head.
“Nothing’s going on between us,” I replied truthfully. Derrick eyed me with suspicion, but shrugged.
“Whatever,” he yawned. I knew he didn’t give a shit about any of it unless it was getting in the way of the movie, and I was doing a fine job keeping my eye on the ball. Well, most of the time.
“I think we’re going to have to stay late today,” Derrick nudged me. “This scene, I want natural, dark light. I think it’d work best.”
“Whatever you say,” I agreed. “Should we let the crew know?”
“We’ll only need a skeleton crew,” he nodded. “But yeah, it’ll probably be much later tonight when the light fades entirely.”
“I’ll get it under control,” I replied as I got out of my seat to wander around and tell everyone what was going to happen this evening. I got on better with the crew and the cast than Derrick did – as a guy who’d only really been a director, he didn’t have that great a grasp on how to handle the day-to-day compared to me. In fact, I quite enjoyed being back in the swing of things, hanging out with everyone like I was a real person as opposed to some celebrity who had to be sequestered away at every turn.
Not to mention the fact that if I got to go and tell everyone, I would have to break the news to Dina, too. It wasn’t that we hadn’t spoken since then, but rather that we had kept everything pointedly above-board, not discussing anything too serious beyond the best kind of coffee to keep you awake all day. Maybe if I could get her by herself, it would be different.
I made my rounds, pointedly going to everyone but Dina first so it wouldn’t look like I was hustling to see her again, and then made my way to the make-up trailer. I paused for a moment outside the door, lingering in that tantalizing moment before I actually laid eyes on her, and then lifted my knuckles and knocked.
“Come in!” Dina’s voice came from inside, and I opened the door. She looked surprised to see me.
“Oh,” she raised her eyebrows, looking flustered and grabbing for a couple of brushes as though trying to seem busy. “Hi. Hello.”
“Hey,” I greeted her. “Look, we’re hoping to shoot later on tonight once it’s dark and I was wondering if you’d mind staying on to help us out later?”
“I…” She trailed off, and I knew what she was thinking. That as long as we stuck with only seeing each other during the day, we could hang on to this strict little thing we’d built where we pretended that nothing was going down between us. That if we could cling to the delusion that we were completely platonic, then we could make it to the end of the shoot without anything happening. She rested her teeth on her bottom lip, a gesture so insanely cute I had to fight the urge to wrap my arms around her and pull her against me at that moment. I cocked my head, patiently waiting for her answer.
“Yeah, of course I’ll do it,” she nodded, rolling her shoulders back, suddenly the picture of professionalism, and the moment of chemistry between us had skimmed on by. “I’ll get paid overtime, right?”
“And here, I thought you were just in this for the experience,” I teased. She rolled her eyes but grinned at my crappy jokes.
“Experience don’t buy me coffee in the morning,” she shot back, and I leaned against the door, relaxing into our usual banter. How was it that I’d only known this woman a few weeks? It felt like she’d been part of my life for so long, an ever-present feature in the back of my head no matter how hard I tried to shake her.
“Maybe I could?” I raised my eyebrows, and she looked up at me with a flash of amusement.
“Get me one for tonight,” she suggested. “I’ll need it.”
“Will do,” I promised, and found myself searching for a reason to keep the conversation going. I couldn’t come up with one off the top of my head, but neither of us seemed ready to give up yet.
“I guess I’ll see you back on set?” I suggested, not sure how to keep talking without making it obvious that all I wanted to do was spend the day in here with her, talking shit about coffee and gossiping about everyone else on set and who was dating who and what was going on between us. I wished I could have invited her back to my place, wished I could have found an excuse to bring her to my trailer and fuck her senseless.
I had never desired so much from a woman before in my life – I wanted to talk to her, to hold her, to kiss her, to fuck her, to show her off to the world as well as sequestering myself away with her. It was confusing in the best possible way, and I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how I’d gotten by without her before now.
“Yeah, I’ll catch you back there in a bit,” she nodded. I went for the door, but before I could get out, she spoke again.
“Will-” She cut herself off before she could finish her sentence, but I turned around at once, my heart bouncing up in my chest as I heard something else in her voice, something deeper, something that acknowledged what was happening between us. I met her gaze, and she regarded me with something between excitement and regret.
“I’ll see you later,” she shook her head, silently letting me know that I wasn’t going to get to hear anything that I really wanted to. I managed a smile before backing out of the trailer, leaving her with her brushes and her mirrors and the memory of the kiss that we’d shared barely a week before. And the week before that. Shit, how hadn’t we ended up in bed together before now? It seemed so obvious it was almost stupid.
The rest of the day went by as normal, with the handful of crew members who could use the money sticking around after the light outside started to dim, loading everything up into a truck so we could drive out to a new location, and setting up for the next bit of filming. It was a key scene, and Derrick had been right to suggest that we set it at night. The darkness, the dramatic shadows, the cool air around us – all of it seemed to fit the mood so perfectly. I took a deep breath of the beautiful, still night, and watched as the crew got everything ready for shooting. The scene was short, and in theory it wouldn’t take long, but I would have been happy to spend the whole evening out here.
“Will?”
I heard a familiar voice from behind me, and turned to find Dina standing only a few feet away. Even at that distance, I felt a pull in my belly button and took a step towards her to sate my desire to be close to her at all times.
“Yeah, what’s up?” I looked down at her, and her gaze flipped ever so briefly down to my mouth before she looked into my eyes.
“I was just wondering where I should set up my crap,” she gestured to the bag in her hand, stuffed full of everything she needed to do her job. “I don’t want to get under anyone’s feet.”
“Here, let me,” I leaned down to help her with it, and our fingers touched for a split second – it felt as though someone had pressed an open wire to my skin, the sensation darting up my fingers and making me shiver despite the warm evening air.
“I’ll get you set up over here,” I turned away quickly, hoping she wouldn’t see the way my face flashed with surprise at the sensation of her touch. She blinked up at me a couple of times, and I knew that she’d felt it too.
The rest of the shoot went quickly, breezing by easily – we got everything we needed, and even captured a couple of really cool moments from the leading man. Derrick and I exchanged a look, and we both seemed to accept that this was about as good as we were going to get it, considering how tired everyone was after a long day of work.
“Okay, let’s head back to the set,” Derrick announced, getting to his feet and clapping his hands together. I leaned back in my seat and grinned broadly, stretching my hands above my head and letting out a satisfied sigh. Everything was going so much better than expected. Better than I ever-
“Oh, shit, sorry,” I turned around as my hands bumped into someone walking behind me. As I swivelled in my seat, I realized that it had been Dina.
“No, no, it’s fine,” she shook her head, the enormous bag tucked under her arm. She looked distracted – annoyed, even, but it didn’t seem directed at me.
“What’s up?” I asked, getting to my feet.
“I forgot my damn keys this morning,” she replied, pulling a face. “I need to call my landlord but my cell is out of charge.”
“You could charge it back at my trailer,” I replied without thinking, and then corrected myself, not wanting to sound too forward. “Or I could charge it for you. No big deal.”
“That would be great,” she sighed, running her hand over her face as though trying to wipe away the stress of the last couple of hours. “Would you mind?”
“Of course not,” I shook my head, and realized that she would be coming back to my trailer – the start of all the fantasies that I’d been having for the last week. I had to push that thought out of my head, reminding myself that just because I wanted it to happen didn’t mean that it was going to.
“Here, I’ll give you a lift,” I gestured over to the car I’d brought down which was parked just across from us. “Derrick will be fine to keep an eye on everything down here while we pack up.”
“Thanks,” she blinked up at me, and there was a flicker of something in her eye – a promise, maybe, a hint. I did my best to ignore it. I wasn’t going to get anywhere fantasizing about shit that I couldn’t be sure of actually happening. I had been burned before with Dina’s mixed signals, and as far as I was concerned, I would go into this completely neutral. Or at least, that’s what I kept telling myself.
We climbed into the car, Dina propping the bag up on her lap and winding down the window so she could dangle her arm out of it. The air whipped her ponytail around, strands breaking free and framing her face in the most painfully appealing way I’d ever seen in my life. She tucked them behind her ear as best she could, and I wished I could have been the one doing it for her.
We arrived back at the trailer after a few minutes, and I helped her put her bag inside and she quickly pulled out her phone and plugged it on to charge. Dumping her bag on the couch, she leaned up against the table, and for a second I had a powerful flashback to the last time we’d been in here together. I forced the image from my head. No, I had to be good. I had to be.
“Do you remember?”
Her voice cut through the chaos in my head like a hot blade, and my eyes flashed over to hers. She couldn’t be talking about what I thought she was talking about. Could she? But when I met her gaze, I knew precisely what she was referencing.
“Remember what?” I replied. I needed to hear her say it.
“Remember when we were in here last,” she shot back, crossing her legs. Her tone was neutral but in her eyes, I could see a sharp, stark desire that seemed to overwhelm everything else in the room. Nothing else mattered, the details in the corners of my vision fading to nothing as I looked at her. I took a step towards her, staring down at her, and she didn’t break my gaze once, head tilting back to look at me once more.
I reached out and tucked my hand behind her head. She didn’t move. Her lips parted, and she shifted her hips forward so they were pressed against mine, that thick strip of skin calling my name. I traced my fingers over it before locking them down on to her hip, and her mouth parted slightly. Shit, this was happening. This was really, truly happening.