Chapter Ten
Hannah
“Hannah! Can you help me with these bags!” I heard Carrie stumbling through the front door as I rushed down the stairs to help her. She collapsed in the middle of the front room with her luggage piled around her as I closed the front door.
“Carrie? Are you all right?”
She took a deep breath as she laid sprawled out on the floor, “Why oh why did you let me take all these bags on a two-day trip!”
I laughed, pulling one of her bags to the side. “I told you, Carrie. You were only going to be out of town for two days at a photo shoot, but you felt you needed 30 outfits, and you know how you are when you get your mind made up. There is no hope for anything else.”
She pulled herself onto the couch. “Um, it was only 20, and I needed every last one of them, thank you very much.” She took a towel and wiped her forehead. “I had fun, but I am glad that is over. But you? How was your little shindig over at the movie studio?”
“Oh, yes. It was good! And speaking of that,” I said, standing up, “I need to meet up with Ezra at Bookers so we can get ahead of the script.”
She smiled. “A date? Really?”
I rolled my eyes, “No, not a date. A business meeting. Yeah, let’s just call it that.”
“Bullshit. First, you tell me that the man is fine and next thing I know, you are going out to dinner with him. Please. That is a date, and you know it.”
I laughed. “Whatever, Carrie. I need to go get ready, though.”
I turned to walk back upstairs as she called out to me, “But wait! Hannah, who is gonna help me unpack?! I didn’t plan on doing this by myself! Hannah!”
“What?!” I yelled as I was halfway up the stairs.
“Does he have like a cute brother or something? If he does, send him my way!”
I chuckled to myself as I went upstairs and got myself ready to meet Ezra at the restaurant. It was a nice place in North Hollywood that offered everything from seafood to good old-fashioned burgers. Nothing too fancy, but far from a hole-in-the-wall spot.
He texted me just as I pulled into the parking lot. “Hey, I’m here already seated. Just come on in and walk to the right. You can’t miss me.” I walked into the building and followed his directions. He stood up and pulled out my chair as I approached.
“Hello, beautiful,” he said as I took my seat.
I smiled. “Hello, Ezra. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” He walked to the other side of the table and took his seat. “How was the traffic?”
I placed my purse in a vacant seat beside us. “It is Hollywood, what do you expect? People are driving 10 miles an hour just so they can be seen and slowing up everyone behind them.”
“You remember that game, Mario Kart?’”
“Do I? It was one of my favorite games growing up.”
He leaned closer to me as if he were ready to tell me some deep, dark secret. “You know, I wish that my car had that little turtle so I could spit it out at those kinds of drivers. Like, seriously. Why the hell are you going 50 in a passing lane? I mean, seriously?”
“Right! My God, I hate that more than anything! I wish they could get a ticket for that! I would snitch every damned time!”
Just then, the waiter approached our table with an appetizer. “Fried mushrooms and pickles,” he said as he placed the steaming hot plates of food on our table. “And two Sprites. Are you all ready to order?”
“Um,” he said as he looked at me while my mouth hung halfway open like a garage door. “No, give us a minute, please.” He bowed his head and left us alone at the table. “I hope you don’t mind these appetizers. I always get–”
“I LOVE fried pickles and mushrooms! Love, love, love them! Did we just become best friends?!”
“Yup!”
We laughed together as I scooped a few pickles onto my plate and covered them with ranch. “So, how long have you been acting? Is this your first big movie? Sorry if I am acting like a groupie, but I just want to get to know the person I will be acting alongside of.”
“Oh, no problem. Just um… let me get a bite of this food first.” I sunk my teeth into the pickle as my eyes rolled to the back of my head. “My God, this is good. So, so, soooo good.” I wiped my mouth with a napkin, then took a sip of my drink to cool down. “So, my acting career. Um, this is my first big time movie. I’ve done a few commercials and some webisodes and things like that for a few friends, but that’s it. Nothing on this level. What about you?”
“Nope. This is my first time on the big screen as well. I’ve done made-for-TV movies and commercials for things that you probably have never heard of.”
“I bet I have. I have done a few commercials for bullshit products over my time. Shoot.”
“Roll-aid.”
I kept a straight face for a few seconds before I burst out laughing. “All right, you win. Shit, I’ve never heard of that before. What is it?”
He scooped a few mushrooms onto his plate. “It’s what I use whenever I have to talk to my ex because she is such a fucking pain.”
“Your ex?”
“Yeah. I mean, we’re not together anymore–”
“Yeah. I think that’s why they call it an ex?”
He paused and glared at me. “Listen, we can’t both be the asshole here, all right? It’s either gonna be me or you, and trust me; I have more asshole ammunition on standby. I was born for it.”
I slid another pickle into my mouth. “All right, it’s yours.”
“Good. So, what about you? Your commercials?”
“I’ve done things for regular companies. Workout gear, insurance companies, you know? Things like that. When you said, ‘roll-aid,’ I knew right from the beginning that you were going to win that battle. Roll-aid.” I laughed to myself as he sat across the table, fighting to keep his laughter away.
“All right, I’ll let you have that one. I’ve done some fucked up things for money, I’ll admit, but hey… I had to take what was offered.”
“So… we are both struggling entertainers who finally found a chance with this movie. Are you nervous?”
“Nah, I’m good,” he said as he took a sip of his drink. “I walked into that audition and damn near did a striptease, then told them that I was the man for the job and they should just go home for the rest of the day.”
My eyes widened as if I were trying to see the world at once. “Really? In front of Leonard?”
“Oh, no. It was three women. Elizabeth, um,” he tapped his finger on the table, “honestly, I don’t remember the other two. I just remember that I walked into that room and owned it. I was going to get this part if I had to kill somebody to do it.”
“That is funny. A striptease?” In my mind, I had already removed his shirt from his body. His muscles were bulging right in front of me, and on cue, I could make them flutter. I saw Ezra’s lips moving, but I couldn’t hear anything he was saying. He laughed out loud and gazed right at me, his sky-blue eyes snapping my mind away from the soft porno that was replaying in my head. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was funny.”
His eyebrows wrinkled. “What was funny?”
“Um, your umm, striptease?” He gave me a side-eye and moments later; I burst out in laughter. “I am sorry, my mind was somewhere else. What were you saying?”
“Wow, really?” He laughed. “Never mind, it wasn’t important. I was just saying how I was going to take you home and have my way with you.” He took another sip of his drink as he peered at me from behind his glass.
A part of me wouldn’t have cared if he had his way with me. In fact, my mind had already replayed the scene out 100 times. We ended up spending the rest of the night talking and laughing with each other like we were best friends catching up on old times. Before we knew it, two hours had passed, and we hadn’t gone over one line of the script.
“Well um,” I said, pulling the stack of papers from my purse, “I guess we will have to look over this another day?”
He laughed. “Wow, I completely forgot about that.” He looked at his watch. “We’ve been here for just over two hours. It didn’t even seem that long. It felt like we just got here.”
I looked at the empty plates of food in front of us, “Yeah, but these plates kind of give it away.”
“So,” he asked, “I guess we can try again… tomorrow?”
“Yeah, we can try again tomorrow. I’m free.”
“Yeah, me too. Tomorrow it is.”
He walked me to my car as the moonlight illuminated our path. I unlocked my door as he opened it for me. “I enjoyed myself tonight, Hannah.”
“Yeah, I did, too. I’m looking forward to tomorrow. Maybe we can actually read the script.”
We laughed together as he closed the door. I rolled my window down so he could speak. “Yeah, I think we can. Drive safe, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“All right.”
I mentally undressed him as he walked to his car. If I was nervous at all about our possible sex scenes, the fact that Ezra was going to be the man involved eased my anxiety 100 percent. To be honest, I was starting to look forward to it.