Blurred Boundaries (9 page)

Tam nodded and rested against the nightstand. She understood. She was in the same boat as Rock with her career hanging in the balance. However, they were both rock stars and would go down swinging.

At 5:48 in the morning, the day was already off to a seriously sucky start. Evan held a cooling aloe vera cloth to the top of his ear. He didn’t dare check the spot out in the mirror. Judging by how it felt, half his skin had come off along with that prosthetic piece.

Instead, he used the mirror to keep his eyes on Marguerite who was wringing her hands and pacing behind him in the tiny trailer.

“Oh, my God. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what got into me.”

He reached over his shoulder to grasp her arm. “I’m pretty sure I’ll live.”

She picked up one of his werewolf ears and inspected it. He stopped himself from looking at it. Seeing a flap of his skin still stuck to it would not help anybody. She scrubbed the spirit gum away with some rubbing alcohol then met his gaze. “Yeah, but once this goes on again, you may wish you hadn’t.” She sighed. “If I hadn’t put the thing on crooked to begin with. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”

Evan knew. It was the same thing that was wrong with everybody else. Gavin. The entire set had a completely different vibe today and the man hadn’t even arrived yet. No one even knew if he planned to show up that day or not. Still, word had gotten out about the switched scripts and how he was back in the mix. He was not happy with what they’d done the past few days. The threat of enduring Gavin’s ire had everyone jumpy.

“Don’t worry about it.” Evan summoned enough courage to check out his ear in the mirror. It was a pretty angry shade of red, but it didn’t look like the skin was too damaged. “Hey, what about that liquid skin the medic keeps on hand for cuts? You think that would seal it up enough for you to reapply the ear?”

Marguerite paused in her anxious scrubbing. She nodded. “Yeah. It just might.” She reached for her radio and asked an available PA to bring some to the makeup trailer.

While they waited, Marguerite got busy on his other side. The scene didn’t call for him to go full werewolf, so she only had a bit of hair to add to his sideburns and jaw in addition to changing the shape of his ears. Even so, she fussed over every single strand. It had to be just perfect.

“You’ve done this how many times, now?” Evan asked when she stepped back for the millionth time to inspect her work and found it lacking. “You’ve got this.”

“I know. It’s just…” She sighed. “Are we going to be shut down?”

Evan shrugged. “We’ve come too far. I don’t think he’d stick his neck out to do that at this point.”

“But you don’t know.”

Evan shook his head. “What I do know is that Rock is committed to moving forward. So is Tam. I figure it’s our job to back them up.”

“You sure have made a 180 on Ms. Tamara Keller. Wasn’t so long ago you wanted to break all her fingers so she could never write another thing ever again.”

Evan felt his face heat at the reminder of exactly how anti-Tam he’d been before she’d arrived. Now, a few short days later, he was her biggest fan. With Marguerite working on his makeup, he couldn’t actually turn away to keep her from seeing his embarrassment.

It wasn’t because they had somehow managed to share a bed every night since he’d summoned her. Or maybe it was. Being around her as much as he had showed him how hard she worked. As someone who abhorred laziness, her work ethic had gone quite a long way toward impressing him.

Then there was the way she’d handled everything that had been shoved at her while serving as producer in Gavin’s place. He’d either watched the way she met each challenge head on or heard tale of it. Not the least of which was the altercation with Frederico. That one, he was sorry to have missed. According to the buzz around the set, it had been legendary. It had also gained her the respect of almost everyone involved in the shoot. Almost, because Audra was still giving Tam a bit of a hard time and he wasn’t sure why.

“Let’s just say, I might’ve been a bit hasty in my assessment.”

“Who would blame you? That original script was a nightmare.”

The trailer door opened. A PA brought in the liquid skin they’d requested and bolted before they could barely even say, “Thank you.”

Marguerite and Evan exchanged puzzled looks. “What do you think that’s about?”

“Are you really in a hurry to find out?”

Marguerite shook her head with an exaggerated flutter then patched up his injury before taking another stab at the werewolf ear.

“I wonder if she’s single?”

“Who?” Evan pretended not to know even if he’d caught himself wondering the same thing on occasion. Other than her penchant for Bon Jovi, he knew next to nothing about Tam’s personal life.

“Really?”

He should’ve known better. Marguerite called him out on his “ignorance.”

“We’re still talking about Tam?” He wasn’t going to give in, though. “I have no idea. I think she might be. I haven’t noticed her fielding any personal calls or texts since she’s been here.”

“That’s good.” Marguerite mused.

“Huh?” Now, Evan was really lost.

“My brother needs a strong woman to whip his lazy backside into shape. Get him out of Mama’s basement.”

“I don’t know. You really think he’d be Tam’s type?” Evan couldn’t put a finger on why the thought bothered him so. He surely had no claim on Tam. A better question was, did he want one? Speaking of types, she was more of the girl next door kind of woman that he generally stayed away from. To be honest, had he passed her on the street, he probably wouldn’t have taken a second look. Since they started working together, she’d somehow wormed her way under his skin. He enjoyed being around her. She was cool people. But did that mean he wanted to date her?

“…And then he smiled at Mama and said, ‘Please.’ Can you believe it? Just like that.” Evan tuned in to Marguerite’s rant just in time to have no idea what was going on. As best he could tell, she was still talking about her brother.

“That is pretty unbelievable,” he said with caution when it became uncomfortably obvious that she was waiting for his response. He only hoped it was the right one.

“So the cops just left the donkey there. Right in the front yard.” She snorted and stood back to admire her handy work. “Looking good.” Given the fact that there had been cops and donkeys in her story, he had a feeling he should be sad he’d missed it. Maybe he could get Tam to ask her to tell it again and he’d listen in then.

Evan picked up a set of fangs and slipped them in his mouth. They were smaller than the full set he’d had to wear the other day. He bared them in the mirror and growled. “Approachable, yet deadly. Perfect. As always.”

“Too kind. As always.” She fussed with his ear. “Let me know the moment that gets unbearable.”

Evan turned his head to check out the side of his head. It had stopped stinging a while ago so he barely even noticed it. “Will do.”

“So. Wrap party. What do you think?”

“You’re giving me whiplash here.”

“To introduce Tam and Monte. For all his faults, he is pretty lovable. I bet they’d get on like gangbusters.”

He so did not want to co-sign on this matchmaking scheme of hers. Marguerite’s walkie squawked and Kyle called her name. Evan had never been so glad to hear that sound in his life because it usually meant he was late getting somewhere. She answered it.

“Go, Kyle.”

“Wardrobe needs an ETA on Evan?”

“Sending him over now.” Evan took the opportunity to slip away without answering Marguerite’s question. He waved at her and closed the door behind him. The morning air was already starting to heat up. Even with the prosthetics glued to his head, it was nothing like the hot seat she’d inadvertently put him in with all her questions about Tam’s love life.

That didn’t mean he wouldn’t continue to ponder it now that she’d brought it up. If he were completely honest with himself, he was getting way too comfortable sleeping next to her. Which is why he’d given her the bullshit excuse last night about superstitions when she’d moved to sleep in the extra bed. He still couldn’t be sure that she’d bought it. But she’d humored him. And they’d slept in the same bed for the first time on purpose. Keyword: sleep. And she’d still been at it this morning when he’d left.

Somehow, during the night, she’d ended up in his arms. And he had no complaints. He didn’t even mind the little puddle of drool she’d left on his shirt. Unlike the first morning when he’d had to run out, he woke up in enough time to just enjoy the peace of being close to her without all kinds of chaos waiting to break free at any moment.

From a distance, it almost appeared that she wore her hair in an afro. Close up, he could see that she actually had the tiniest little coils of curls all over her head. Crazy as it sounded, they reminded him of the metal springs in ink pens. Except they were so much softer. She had these insanely long eyelashes - without cosmetic help - that brushed the tops her cheeks. Her lips were…

Enough! Evan put a halt to his current train of thought. He’d mixed business with pleasure exactly once; with Audra. It hadn’t been a good idea. But Tam wasn’t Audra. She was… Stop it! Evan quickened his pace. The sooner he got back to business, the less time his mind would have to wander about where it shouldn’t.

Angelisa was waiting for him when he arrived at the wardrobe trailer. “Let’s get you dressed. They’re almost ready to go.”

“Sounds good.” Almost anything that didn’t involve Tam sounded fantastic at that point.

Evan allowed Angelisa to change his shirt so he wouldn’t mess up Marguerite’s work. Given the enlarged ears and extra hair, button downs were the best invention known to man. His character’s shirt was strategically torn and the thread holding the buttons on were loosened for the love scene they were about to shoot. He was about to be ravaged by a very hot guest star. For the life of him, he could not remember her name. Funny how he’d never forgotten Tam’s.

There was a knock on the door. “Some PA sent me over here for my wardrobe. Oh, hello.” Angelisa and Evan turned to see the very woman he’d just been thinking of. He smiled his welcome.

“Hi there.” The woman’s tone turned super flirty and she stepped up into the trailer crowding him. The top of her blonde head brushed his chin when she looked up at him. He couldn’t move away because Angelisa was still fussing with his pants.

“I was hoping to find you. See if you wanted to run lines. The script seems to have changed quite a bit since I landed the part.”

“Uh… yeah. There have been some pretty substantial changes per the network.” He frowned. “I’m sorry. Remind me of your name, again.”

“Ceely. Ceely Glynn.”

“I’m Evan. This is Angelisa.”

“I’ll be ready for you in a moment,” Angelisa said around a mouthful of pens.

“How lovely to finally meet you, Evan. I’ve been looking forward to working with you for a while now.”

“That’s kind of you to say.” Still, he couldn’t help but notice that she seemed to completely ignore Angelisa. He didn’t yet know her well enough to determine if she were just nervous or downright rude.

Evan continued searching his memory. He recalled seeing her headshots, but never actually meeting her. Maybe she hadn’t been around all week because she only had the one scene to shoot. “Did you just get in?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Last night. There must’ve been some mix up at the hotel because they put me with a roommate. What is that? But it’s okay. I straightened everything out. Got the suite I was expecting.”

Evan cringed. Tam was going to have fit when she heard about that. Angelisa stood and brushed the lint from his shoulders.

“Actually, we all have roommates to save on costs for this episode.”

The woman gave her a patronizing smile. “Of course the crew would double up.” Welp. That took care of his question. Rude, it was.

Evan was thankful for the werewolf teeth that were in his mouth. Even the smaller set required a bit of concentration for him to speak so he didn’t just blurt out his annoyance with the woman. She had a whole lot of ego going on and he had no proof that she could back it up with talent.

“Anyhoo, I’d be ever so grateful if you would help me get up to speed on these changes.” She actually batted her eyes at him. And he couldn’t be sure, but he was almost positive that she’d brushed her store bought breasts across his chest on purpose. Still, he was a professional. He was committed to making this episode work.