Chapter Three
Dominic
New set, new job, new side of the country. There was nothing better than this feeling, the feeling of getting to start over again. It was one of the reasons why I’d become so addicted to the industry in the first place; I loved the fact that I could pick up and start over pretty much whenever I felt like it, find myself a new bunch of friends and colleagues and flirts to pass the time. It was just that this time around, there were some old ones, too.
One in particular. I had only bumped into Tennessee once since I’d arrived on set, but our one encounter had been enough to tell me exactly what she thought of me. I wasn’t surprised; I’d been an asshole when I’d dumped her with no warning to take off across the country, but what did she expect me to do? We were young and I was sure that we were just having some fun. I’d convinced myself that you didn’t meet the love of your life at twenty and that both of us would be better off exploring what else the world had to offer in the meantime. Now, though, I wasn’t quite so sure of that.
But hey, she had made it clear she didn’t want a damn thing to do with me, and while I didn’t mind flirting with her a little when we bumped into each other around set, I wasn’t going to turn it into a thing. I was a grown-ass adult now, way different than the spontaneous, ridiculous kid she had known back when we were training together, and it wouldn’t hurt me to act like it once in a while.
I couldn’t help but watch her sometimes, though. I mean, sue me: she looked so good when she was actually stunting for Julia. She had such precise control over her body, her muscles flexing and her brow glistening as she focused on nailing these specific moves. She wouldn’t let anyone yell “Cut!” until she was satisfied that she had done the best she could; that kind of dedication had gotten her far, it seemed, in the time since I’d seen her last. She had always been driven, but seeing her now, it was clear she had put all her time and energy into her career and it had paid off big-time. I had never seen anyone with such utter sureness and comfort in the way they moved their body. Well, anyone except me, of course.
That’s how I got talking to Julia for the first time, in fact – I was standing at the edge of set, waiting to get called on, and was watching Tennessee at work. She had shot a few looks over in my direction that told me she was all too aware of my presence, but she was doing her best to pretend that I wasn’t there and I was happy just to take her in. But then, after a few moments, I sensed someone sidling up behind me and turned to find myself looking at Julia.
One of the things about working on big movies for so long was that I didn’t get crazy-nervous when I was confronted with starlets like her anymore. I had hung out with any number of big, sweeping Hollywood stars, and Julia was just another one of them as far as I was concerned. I saw so many of the crew running around after her like she was some member of royalty, but I knew that treating her like a damn human being would get me further than that.
“Hey,” I greeted her, and she smiled at me nervously.
“Hey,” she replied, her voice a little higher-pitched than I’d heard it before. Well, well, well, was she nervous about talking to me? Was she into me? I turned my body towards hers, grinning widely, fixing her with my full attention, and she flushed slightly and shifted her weight from foot to foot.
“You’re Julia, right?” I cocked my head at her and she nodded.
“Yeah,” she replied, and I could tell that she was surprised I had to ask. She would have to learn that no-one on this set got special treatment from me, no matter whether it was a below the line wage earner or her, one of the biggest up-and-comers on the planet.
“I’m not keeping you from anything, am I?” she asked, eyes widening, as she glanced towards set. I shook my head.
“I was just watching,” I gestured towards Tennessee who was still hard at work in front of me. I noticed her eyes sliding briefly in our direction, but she quickly returned her focus to work.
“She’s amazing, isn’t she?” remarked Julia, and she sounded almost envious. I wasn’t sure if it was of Tennessee’s evident talent or more because I had focused all my attention on her for the last twenty minutes. I nodded.
“She really is,” I agreed. “We trained together actually, years ago. She’s always been that good.”
“You trained together?” She smiled, amused. “That must have been a while ago.”
“How old do you think I am?” I shot back playfully. “We can’t all be ingenues, you know.”
“Maybe I could give you some hints,” she cocked an eyebrow at me, and I felt that little tingle at the base of my spine that I always felt when someone new was showing interest in me.
“Maybe you could,” I agreed, planting my hand on a pillar next to her and turning my attention to her in it’s entirety. She clasped her hands behind her back and grinned up at me, letting the atmosphere linger for a second.
“Dominic?”
A voice cut through our little flirtation, a voice I recognized. I turned around and found myself face-to-face with Tennessee once more. She was eyeing the two of us with something between amusement and disdain.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“They need you on set,” she remarked, and she looked between Julia and me. Julia blinked back up at her, oblivious to the tension that was building between the two of us.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” I assured her. “And usually they’re the ones who come get me. Or did you pick up a PA job on the side to make ends meet?”
“I don’t need to pick things up on the side, Dominic,” she shot back, clearly irritated. “That’s just you.”
“Jealous I wasn’t watching you the whole time?” I teased, and glanced over at Julia. “I found someone else to talk to, that’s all.”
“Trust me, I’ve heard your conversation,” she scoffed. “There’s nothing to be jealous about.”
Julia’s eyes were darting back and forth between us and I could tell she was loving the drama that was unfolding right before her. As for me, our chemistry was crackling in the air between us once more, and my God did it feel good to be verbally jousting with this woman again. I forgot how little shit she took, how happy she was to put me in my place. It was one of the things I’d loved most about her. Still did, it seemed.
“Well, try and keep your envy in check for now,” I shot back, grinning widely – I just couldn’t keep it off my face. She brought out this kind of attitude in me and I didn’t know how to stop it.
“I’ve been there, done that, remember, Dominic?” she threw back in my direction, her voice simmering with irritation. “I don’t want another go around.”
She turned to Julia and addressed the next statement to her, even though I knew it was meant to land with me, too.
“You’re welcome to him,” she announced, and stalked off, leaving me standing there looking after her and feeling as though she’d just slapped me across the face. I knew I shouldn’t have let that kind of shit get to me, but boy, it was rough knowing that someone you’d cared about so deeply now viewed you with something close to utter disdain these days. Julia paused for a moment before she spoke, as if waiting for the air to clear around us.
“So, you more than knew her while you were training, right?” She raised her eyebrows pointedly. I opened my mouth to shoot back something witty, but found my mind had gone blank.
“They need me on set,” I cut her off. “I should get over there. I’ll catch you later.”
Before she had a chance to get another word in, I marched off to get ready for filming, and watched from afar as Tennessee headed back to the trailer to get her harness removed. Her face was set tight, and I couldn’t help but think about how different she looked compared to the last time I’d seen her before I left our apartment for the last time.
The memory jolted in my head and for a moment I found myself shocked to a standstill. I hadn’t thought about that in… well, since I’d walked out the door and left her behind for what I thought was for good. She had been fast asleep and I had left a note for her near the coffee maker, and then had grabbed the last of my stuff and gone to get one last look at her before I left her. She looked so gorgeous, her hair cropped flat-short against her head and her body sprawled out across the space that I normally took up. And I remembered, vividly, that feeling – the sensation that lanced through my body and told me to stay, that told me I would have been completely crazy to leave this woman when all I could feel looking at her there was love and adoration and admiration and the promise of a future that we hadn’t discussed but that seemed an inevitable part of wherever we were barreling towards as a couple. I adored her and leaving her was harder than I ever thought it would be – that’s why I had to do it while she was asleep and without letting her know where I was going. Because if she’d asked me why I was leaving her, if she’d asked me to stay, I knew I would have crumpled right away and given in to anything she wanted. Because I was so in love with her it felt almost stupid, dangerous – far more risky than any of the crazy stunts we tried to one-up each other with every time we were in training. So I left, because staying felt crazier. Staying felt scarier.
I was pulled back to reality by the sound of my name being yelled by someone back on set; I tossed a hand in the air to let them know that I’d heard them and that I was on my way already and they could stop yelling at me. I stalked off to get myself ready, all thoughts of Julia and the flirtatious little looks she’d been giving me firmly out of my head as my brain filled once more with Tennessee.
Which was dumb as fuck, because if that conversation had underlined anything for me, it was that she didn’t want me. She would never want me again. When I’d left her with no damn notice or good reason or warning, that had been me cutting off any chance I might have had with her. And that couldn’t help but hurt a little.
Still, I had a set full of people to pass the time with. And it wouldn’t exactly be a set with me on it if I didn’t find a way into the pants of at least a few of the cast and crew members. I had a couple of months of this to get through, and I wasn’t going to let some old fling get in the way of my good time.