Unscripted (39 page)

* * *

“Hey.”

Mason glanced over at me, then back at his laptop. “Yep?” I didn’t say anything for a moment, just admired his profile, set off by the shadows and firelight in my living room. It was still too warm for a fire, but I had lit one anyway, because I was feeling soppily romantic. When I didn’t speak, he asked, still looking at his computer, “Faith? What?”

I crawled across the small space between us and planted a kiss on his soft, sexy lips. “I’ve missed you.”

He smiled. “I’m right here.”

“You know what I mean. I don’t like this three-hundred-miles-away thing. Not one bit. You’ve gotta be closer to me. I demand it.”

“You
demand?
” He twined a curl of my hair in his fingers, the gaze from his warm brown eyes, so dark in the half-light, making me tingle. “And for your information, we’re only about seventy miles away from each other.”

“Don’t burden me with details, mister. Where have you been looking for jobs?”

“Lots of places.”

I scanned the list of prospects on his computer. “None in L.A.? How come? There are, like, a million colleges around here.”

“And no openings in their theater or film departments. Think about it—a million colleges, but all of them within spitting distance of the entertainment industry. That means ten million showbiz-experienced applicants.”

“You just sound too scared to apply to the big theater and film programs. Or,” I hesitated, then rushed on, “don’t you
want
to get a job closer to me?”

“Oh, I do,” he murmured, reassuring me with a returned kiss, then sat back and dragged his long fingers through his unruly hair. “I don’t know why I’m bothering right now, anyway. Nobody’s listing jobs for next fall this early. They’ll start showing up in the spring.”

My heart beating triple time, I spoke before I could chicken out. “Sell your house. Move to L.A.”

Bewildered, he stammered, “Wh–what?”

“Move here—live with me. Be unemployed as long as you like; my money is your money.”

Mason blinked rapidly, trying to parse what I had just said. “Faith . . .” he started slowly, “that’s—”

“Insane, I know. Too fast, I know. I don’t care.”

“May I remind you,” he said with a smile, “of what happened the last time you let someone live with you, and you said something along the lines of ‘my money is your money’?”

“What . . .
Jamie?
”

“Wha’ about Jamie?”

Ugh. Yep, nice romantic setting, in front of the fire with my man . . . until my stepbrother trooped through the scene, flattening it as effectively as Godzilla flattened Tokyo. And speaking of that . . .

“Don’t you have that
Jamie Takes Tokyo
kickoff party to go to?” I growled at him.

“Iss only eight o’clock!”

“Do something unexpected—go early.”

“Can’t, can I? I’m the star of the show. I’ve got to make, you know, an
entrance
. All right, Mason?” he greeted my boyfriend. Jamie liked Mason a whole lot. Not enough to make himself scarce when it mattered, but still—it was nice to know my stepbrother approved.

“Jamie,” Mason said cheerfully. “You know, I think Faith is right. The earlier you get there, the more wide open the field of, you know, female companionship candidates.”

“That is true,” Jamie said, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

“Didn’t Trev say he was having a pre-party party at his place?” I added, nudging him out the door with every ounce of will I had.

“His parties are always naff.”

“Well, go liven it up, then!” I said through clenched teeth. What did I have to say to get him out of the house for the rest of the night?

Jamie considered, then said, to my immense relief, “Yeah, all right. But just for you two lovebirds.”

He retreated to his bedroom to primp a bit more, and Mason and I laughed quietly together.

“So,” I said, getting back to the topic at hand, “when can you move in?”

Mason shook his head dazedly. “Faith, you don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Yes, I do. And don’t go calling me a bossypants, either—I know I’m making selfish demands, and I’m not apologizing for it. Not this time. I want to be with you. I love you, Mason. Don’t say no.”

He didn’t say no. He didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he whispered, “I love you too.”

Our kiss would have been a passionate one ifJamie hadn’t trilled “Byeeee!” and slammed the front door just as our lips met.

“I move in, he moves out,” Mason murmured against my mouth.

“He was supposed to have moved out weeks ago. Remind me to call MTV and nag them to set him up with his own place. And—hey, was that a yes?”

“Yes.”

He drew me into his arms, and we leaned against the sofa, watching the fire dance.

“You won’t regret it.”

Kissing the top of my head, he said, “Oh, not for a second. But I’m not mooching off you. I’m not Jamie.”

“You’re definitely not,” I agreed. Then I ventured, “You know, I can give you a job on
Modern Women
.”

“What? No! That’s unethical. That’s . . . nepotism.”

“That’s Hollywood.”

“Sounds highly suspect to me.”

“Happens here every day, sugar. In a way, it happened to me, didn’t it?”

“Is that still bothering you?”

“Actually, it’s not. Sure, my mom helped me get started, but if my show had sucked, it wouldn’t have mattered—it would have gotten canceled. But as for you, don’t forget that you interviewed for, and got, the job when I was off the show, no undue influence from me. I could say we just, you know, held the job for you until you were ready to take it.”

“Nice try. But I can’t accept.”

“I thought you always wanted to work with me.”

“I did. I do. But not like that.”

“Freelance. Script consultant.”

“Not even.”

I shook my head. “You are a disgustingly upstanding individual, Mr. Professor Mason Mitchell.”

“To my everlasting detriment, I’m sure.”

“Can you at least help me with one of the story arcs I’m stuck on? I promise not to pay you or give you a writing credit or any other proper recognition.”

He laughed. “Love to.”

* * *

“
How
many new interns?
Paid
interns?”

“Five. Er, wait—six.”

“And we can afford this?”

“I’ll supplement by giving up part of my salary if I have to. This is important to them.”

Jaya was silent. I looked up from my laptop; she was in the chair on the other side of my desk, long legs crossed, shaking her head.

“What?” I demanded.

“Nothing,” she said after a moment. “You’re acting weird is all.”

“No, I’m not. We’ve always offered lots of internships; this is no different.”

And it was important—I wanted to give the kids a home of sorts, if they wanted it. It turned out that nearly every second-year IECC theater major asked me for an internship, except for Alice and Michael. Alice was freaked out by the hugeness of it—a major studio, L.A. in general—so she opted out. And Michael confessed he only studied theater because he thought he could “bag chicks” that way. He was going to stay at IECC and, I heard from Brandon, switch to a phys ed major. All the other students were eager to join the
Modern Women
crew in some capacity—even Kaylie, which shocked me to no end. But she insisted that she was over Alex—or working on it—and could handle being on the set with him every day. That remained to be seen; I promised myself to keep a close eye on her to make sure she wasn’t hurt all over again.

The cast and crew were pleased with the news; new interns meant more hands on deck, and we desperately needed them if we were going to produce a quality show to get us back on top in the ratings, not to mention that now the lowly assistants would have folks lower down in the pecking order to kick around. It also meant, to some lecherous few, fresh meat.

Evie pulled me aside later that day and said, “Faith? I need to talk to you. I need an assistant. To, you know, help me with . . . stuff.”

I knew this was serious, because she didn’t drift off to text somebody in the middle of our conversation. Instead, she was actually looking at me, quite alert and focused. I also knew exactly what she was getting at, but I fought down a smile and played dumb.

“Don’t you have an assistant already, Evie?”

“Um, yeah, but I don’t like her. She can never find my false eyelashes when I lose them. I want a new one.”

“This isn’t like trading in a car when you get tired of it, you know.”

“Faith—!”

“Well, I could assign you one of the new interns, I suppose. I think Kaylie—”

“Oh. Um?”

“Yes, Evie?” It was getting harder and harder to keep a straight face. I would never make Kaylie be Evie’s assistant—not unless I wanted one of them to end up dead—but I knew Evie would nix that pretty quick. And she was faster on the draw than I thought.

“I was thinking maybe . . .”

“Yes?” I prompted again.

“Maybe I could have Elias?”

I hid my grin by looking down at the script in my lap, wondering what had happened to Chasen, but not really caring one way or the other. “No problem, Evie. I’m sure he’d be happy to, um,
assist
you.”

She let out a huge, relieved breath, her impressive breasts giving a mighty heave under her sheer top. “Cool. Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

I was pleased with myself for, oh, about thirty seconds—right up to the moment Jaya came flying toward me, brandishing her tablet. “Take a look at this.”

Groaning, I took it from her. Mrs. McNulty. Again. “Son of a bitch,” I muttered. “These are scans of our
sides!
Alex’s scenes! Jaya, this is going too far.”

“I agree.”

“I want the mole out. Now.”

“And just who do we fire? There’s nothing on this site that says who Mrs. McNulty is—nothing. No identification—”

“There are ways to find out who’s behind a blog. I don’t know how, but Sean would.”

“Who’s Sean?” Jaya asked, nearly tripping over cables while she tried to keep up with me as we zigzagged through the rooms on the set toward my office.

“A computer nerd. I don’t have his number anymore—I’ll get it from Jamie. In the meantime, you and I are going to sit down and try to figure out—”

It was like someone had reached into my throat and yanked out my vocal cords. I’d flung open the door to my office and found . . . well, skin. A lot of it.

“Ohhh shit,” Jaya groaned from over my shoulder.

“Faith!”

There was a mad scramble as Alex and Ashley scooted off my desk, both of them looking around wildly, as though not sure what to do next. Well, I could help there.

“Put those away, Ashley,” I snapped, averting my eyes, studying the crisscross of pipes in the soundstage rafters.

“Faith,” Alex said again. “We . . . we were just—”

“Oh, don’t tell me. Let me guess. You were dusting my desk with Ashley’s ass. No, wait—she was helping you block a David and Sabrina scene and you decided to employ a little method acting.”

“It’s not what it—”

“Hold it!” I jabbed my index finger at a plaque on my wall. It read “Cliché-Free Zone.” “See that? It applies to real life as well as scripts. If you can call how you live your life ‘real.’” And yes, I was intentionally throwing his favorite word back at him. He missed the reference, however, as he was preoccupied with frantically putting himself back together.

“Faith, please! I didn’t—it’s not—she doesn’t mean anything to me!”

“
What
did I just make you read?” I snapped, while Ashley squeaked, “Hey!”

I rounded on her. “Does he mean anything to
you?
”

She looked confused. “Well, no . . .”

“So what’s the problem? And you missed a button.”

“Faith?” she whimpered. “Am I in trouble?”

At this point Jaya took over, as her question had pretty much rendered me speechless. “Ashley, come with me.”

“But—”

“Just stop talking.” And Jaya shoved her shoulder until she had gotten her out the door.

That left me alone with Alex. “And you,” I snarled. “Christ, I could kill you right about now!”

“But—”