Porter (Dick Dynasty #1) (8 page)

“I’ll see what I can do. Can you grab me the script for this project? I want to glance through it one more time before I listen to this guy drone on for the next two hours about his ‘artistic vision’ and how his movie just
has
to star Angelina.”

“And that bullshit is
exactly
why I just guard the door,” Mitch spun on his heel, snapped his fingers out to the side, and shook his head. His inner diva always did a hell of a job expressing his distaste.

My phone vibrated on my desk as Mitch dropped the miniature manuscript on my desk.

“Thanks, Snookums.”

“Mmmmhmmm,” was the only response I got as he flitted back to his desk.

I decided the text message would be more fun than a read through of a script that was doomed to be completely rewritten at least three times during production.

I’m bringing The Kit to your office on Friday. No time to change at home before your date with Ryder.

I groaned and shoved the phone off the edge of my desk. The three hour phone call and light-speed ingestion of my lunch had driven all thoughts of my impending ‘date’ with Porter Hale to the darkest corners of my mind. I might have actually gotten lucky enough to forget about it entirely. Then I could have just texted him the day after with a lame excuse about work being too busy and we would have been even. He spills my drink, I let him sit alone in a restaurant for an hour, and we never have to speak again. It seemed like a pretty good pipedream at the time.

Then Becks happened.

Her and that damn kit.

She always ruins my fun.

The Kit had made its first appearance at our senior prom. I hadn’t intended on going at all. I’d bought a few pints of ice cream and a stack of the latest chick flicks. Then a crazy ginger girl dressed to the nines showed up on my doorstep with a dress and corsage in one hand, and an ominous duffle bag in the other.

“Please tell me we’re not burying your date’s body already,” I had said with a suspicious glance at the massive black bag.

“No. He’s still alive and well. He took off with your date to do God-only-knows-what while I try to salvage what’s left of your dignity.” The duffle hit the floor with a thump and several rattles. I remember feeling like prey caught in the crushing embrace of a human-sized snake as she pushed me down onto the couch and went to work.

A flat iron, round brushes, a blow dryer, dozens of shades of nail polish, eye shadow, lipstick, foundation (both liquid and powder), blush, files, buffers, tweezers, and something in a box that said
Summer’s Eve
tumbled onto my parents’ living room floor. Thankfully, the last one went back into the bag almost immediately.

It had taken just over an hour and a half for her to squeeze, tweeze, brush, blow, paint, and primp me into what she still calls ‘The Prom Night Miracle’.

It was only the first of many run-ins with The Kit and I wasn’t looking forward to another.

I glanced at the clock in the bottom corner of my computer monitor and squared my shoulders. I had five minutes to make myself look presentable and get to the conference room where the meeting was to be held.

Lucky for me, it was right across the hall from the executive restroom I shared with one other casting director.

I slid the deadbolt into place behind me and turned to study myself in the mirror over the sink. I blanched as I realized it looked as if I
had
decided to drink the ranch out of the container. I’d start there and work my way up.

I quickly wetted a paper towel and wiped the creamy mess away from my lips before digging into my purse for the spare tube of lipstick that years of being around Becks had taught me to carry. I recolored my lips and ran a brush through my slightly disheveled hair.

I had learned a long time ago that, in my line of business at least, less is more. I have good skin, dark, thick lashes, and natural volume to my hair that made blow dryers an unnecessary appliance in my house. If I put the extra effort into being girly, it never failed that the Good Ol’ Boys mentality would take over and even the most liberal thinking man would treat me like a coffee fetcher.

Sharp, professional, and ballsy was the way I preferred to come across and it had worked well for me—much to Becks’ dismay.

With my proverbial game face in place and a quick glance at my Tiffany’s watch, I strode from the restroom without another glance at the mirror.

“Gentlemen!” I said with a smile as I entered the brightly lit conference room, “Let’s get this party started, shall we? Can I have my assistant get you anything? Coffee? Tea? Water?”

Both men politely declined my offer and gestured for me to sit.

“We’ll try to make this as painless as possible,” the larger of the two men, Tyler Gainsworth, a man I’d worked with a handful of times before, said, “I know how much you love being told how to do your job.”

“I appreciate that, Ty.”

“I have to assume that you’ve read the script at this point,” Nathan, the squirrely little red head Ty had introduced via email, interjected.

“Of course,” I replied coolly, “I assume we’ll focus mostly on Ashley and John then touch on the seven supporting characters, three female, four male, and then you’ll propose a final headcount for extras, am I correct?”

Nathan was clearly new to the business and hadn’t quite figured out that these meetings almost always followed the same format. He recovered from his surprise quickly enough and nodded curtly with a tight smile.

“Great,” I said, just as tightly, “Let’s get on with it. For Ashley, I see someone who appears to be in their early twenties with mid-length blonde hair; wavy, not curly. She needs to have big, green, innocent eyes and pouty lips. Very ‘girl next door’. I see Taylor Swift without the twang.”

Ty’s eyes had lit up as I described his girl. I’d seen it a hundred times before. Whenever a producer finds someone else who can see his vision as clearly as he does, there’s a fire that kindles inside them. It’s a very dangerous fire that can burn out of control in a flash and completely derail a meeting for
hours
.

The idea of letting him detain me in an attempt to get out of dinner that night was a tempting one.

Sadly, I’d rather hang myself than be trapped in a room with a producer for any longer than absolutely necessary, so I pressed forward.

“John is a little more the bad boy type with a gentleman’s charm. He’s got the good looks and he knows it, but doesn’t really rely on them to get him where he’s going. We need tall. Six foot. Maybe six two. Short black hair and brown eyes. Tan and muscular, but lean as opposed to bulky. Oh, and he needs good hands.”

I pulled myself up short at that point before I rambled on to the point of losing them. Tyler was already starry eyed and in love with both assessments and, by the surprised look Nathan hadn’t been able to conceal, he was too.

With the big ones out of the way, I gave a quick run down of the minor characters and got an estimate for the extras head count before rising from my chair and ushering the two of them out the door before they could remember that they think they know what’s best.

That was how my entire week went. Meeting after meeting with too many cocky, pompous, sexist dimwits who marched into my office to tell me how to do my job and got shut down at every turn.

Friday had finally arrived and as I all but shoved the last team of morons out of my conference room, the entrance at the opposite end of the room burst open to allow Mitch, Becks, and The Kit into the conference room.

“Sit,” she commanded.

I briefly considered bolting out the door I had just ushered Ty through and begging him to hit the emergency button on the elevator between floors. I quickly abandoned the idea when I remembered that Becks is a ninja and would have caught me before I even made it halfway down the hall.

I begrudgingly shuffled my way across the room and unceremoniously dumped myself in the leather chair between them.

Before I could even groan about it, there were twenty fingers in my hair and I swear to God, Becks was unpacking The Kit with her toes.

“We have just shy of thirty minutes to get her out the door and on her way to The Hills. I’ve done more with less, but we’ll be cutting it close none-the-less.”

“Oh honey,” Mitch crooned, “I can get a drag queen in full makeup and dress in less than fifteen. I bet we can have her done in twenty-five.”

“I hate you both,” I grumbled.

There was a queasy feeling in my stomach and the only way I could make it stop was to imagine Porter going through a similar form of torture.

“Christ Almighty, Lorraine!” I screamed at my stylist, “Don’t you usually count down before you do that? Fuck!”

She just shrugged her shoulders before dropping the white strip of paper covered with wax and what used to be the hair on my balls.

“You want emergency appointment, I give you emergency service. No time for counting.”

I had been going to Lorraine for all of my grooming needs since I was eighteen, but still had a hard time deciphering her thick Korean accent most days. It might’ve been the blinding pain that kept me from deciphering the words that came out of her mouth.

My ears were still ringing from her last tug when she dropped the ice pack on my groin with simple instructions even her accent couldn’t muddle, “You keep there.”

“Yes ma’am.” Was my voice an octave or two higher than normal, or was it just me?

I pressed the freezing cold bag to my traumatized scrotum and laid on the table breathing as if I were in labor. There
had
to be a way I could get them to give me laughing gas before my next appointment.

“It’s a good thing my junk is insured, Lorraine. I’m convinced you’re going to tear the thing off one of these days.”

“No,” she said with a knowing grin, “I like your movies too much! Beaber Feber is my favorite!” She waggled her eyebrows at me and threw her head back with a laugh that made my skin crawl.

“Do you mean
Beaver Fever
?” The mispronunciation was a train wreck I didn’t even want to think about.

“That’s what I say! Beaber Feber! Don’t you speak English?”

She went on a tirade in Korean that I could only imagine had something to do with stupid Americans and their inability to understand their own language.

I bit my tongue and let her do her thing while my balls finally came out from their hiding place just beneath my tonsils.

“You have hot date tonight?”

“Sort of,” I sat up from the table and reached for the jeans around my ankles, “I mean,
she’s
hot, I just don’t know where it’s gonna lead. Clearly, I
hope
to take her to bed, but she’s not like other women. She’s a bit hot headed and a lot guarded. It wasn’t such a good combination for our first encounter. She’s almost kind of scary.”

“Ooh,” she said with a solemn nod, “You really like her. I see.”

“No!” I defended, “It’s not like that at all!”

“No no no,” the three words came out as one, “I see your eyes change when you talk about her. Is okay. You need to be careful though. Don’t let her break my favorite client!”

She scampered through the door before I had a chance to convince her that I was only trying to get in with her casting firm.

I had already banged my way into one industry; I wasn’t above doing it again.

I jerked my jeans up around my hips and fastened my belt before walking out into the lobby to pay the bill for my torture session.

“Always a pleasure, Lorraine,” I said as I signed the credit card receipt.

“The pleasure is always for me,” she replied with a wink.

My smile faltered and I waved awkwardly as she once again began to laugh at her own joke. She had an insane talent for making a run-of-the-mill appointment to wax my balls an intense exercise in awkwardness.

Unfortunately, she was the best, and I only used the best. Especially when my dick was on the line.

I slid my aviators back into place as I stepped onto the sidewalk and into the late-afternoon sun. I’d made it out of the appointment with time to spare and headed for my Land Rover.

As I drove, I tried to piece together how the impending conversation would go.

She’d still be frosty for sure, but even her ice queen act couldn’t hold up against my charm for too long. I would just have to pour on the boy-next-door appeal and come off as harmless. If she knew my angle, she’d shut down in a heartbeat.

Holly Nash would definitely not fall for the bad boy porn star act that got me between most thighs. No, Miss Nash was going to take some work. Work that I fully intended on turning into a game.

With any luck, we’d both enjoy it in the end.

I pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant ten minutes before seven and parked in a stall at the back of the building. The mirror in the driver’s side visor helped me soften my appearance a bit. I pressed my hair forward and the bangs up and to the side so that I almost had a pompadour. There wasn’t much I could do about the scruff on my jaw, but the aviators had to go.