Frank found me before we went on.
“We have the numbers back from your interviews yesterday, and the focus group loved you. They found the Hannah Minacci shtick to be funny.”
“But I was serious,” I said.
“You came across as being sincere. Hannah wasn’t as pleased, though. Her social media accounts blew up. You might have to mend some fences there,” Franks suggested.
Hannah was a big girl; she could handle a few tweets. If anything, it gave her some much-needed publicity. Not enough people were downloading pictures of her. I wasn’t worried she’d be mad about it.
We were called out to do our portion of the show.
◊◊◊
We had done our usual routine—show the clip and talk about how good the movie was going to be—when the interview took a sudden turn.
“I hear you were hazed a little while making the movie,” Lucy Kim said.
This wasn’t in the talking points. I glanced at Bree, and she wore an innocent expression on her face. I suddenly got worried.
“They pulled a trick or two, but it was all in good fun,” I said.
“I believe we have some video of David when we tricked him into thinking he’d be doing a lip-sync battle with Craig Wild,” Bree said, perking up.
They played portions of the video. I noticed that they showed me with my shirt off.
“He was like a little brother to us,” Bree said. “He also wanted to learn to dance.”
They showed me dancing between takes, which made the audience laugh. Of course, I had my shirt off for some of them, because they liked me to show off Stryker’s tattoos.
“He seems to have his shirt off a lot,” LeAnn Michaels commented, picking up on what I’d just been thinking.
“That’s the model in him. If you asked, he’d take it off now,” Bree said.
“Who’d like to see David take his shirt off?” Janelle Morrow asked.
I guess there were a bunch of dirty old ladies in the audience.
“I’m not sure my mom wants me taking my clothes off on national TV,” I said.
“The reason I brought up the hazing is that little David pranked me back,” Bree said, and I blushed, which caused everyone to want to know what I’d done.
“Bree and I were in a marathon interview session, and she received a text from a guy she’d just met. She looked at it while I talked to the person doing the interview. The interviewer asked her a question, and for some unknown reason, she handed me her phone. I helped her out and set up a date for her,” I said.
“Here’s what he added,” Bree said, and handed her phone to Janelle Morrow.
Janelle’s eyes got big, and she covered her mouth. She handed it to Lucy Kim.
“You are a naughty boy,” Janelle Morrow said, giving me a stern look. “What did your date say?”
“It took me a while to calm down, but he showed me the text messages,” Bree said. “I quickly figured out what had happened.”
“I asked him if he wanted to have a good time,” I blurted out.
By now, Bree’s phone had made the rounds, and LeAnn locked my eyes with hers.
“Is that how you plan to play it?” she asked in a stern voice.
“That and buy Bree an expensive gift. I’m thinking it might be jewelry.”
“He got me good. I can’t wait to see what happens when we start making the next
As I was walking off the set, the next guest stopped me.
“Hang around. I need to talk to you,” Jeremy Pike said.
I returned to the green room, and everyone was smiling. Bree had let them in on the secret.
“The look on his face was priceless!” Bree crowed.
“You got me. You’re just lucky they didn’t say what I texted,” I admitted.
Bree handed me her phone. The text read ‘
“Talk to Caryn, and I’ll have her pick out your gift,” I said as I hugged and kissed Bree goodbye.
Caryn was the only one going with me to Chicago. Frank had had a client do something stupid, and the studio rep planned to remain in New York. He was to make sure Craig didn’t get up to any mischief while he did
◊◊◊
Jeremy Pike was in his mid-20s. I really didn’t know what he wanted, but I waited for him. Caryn returned to the hotel to pack. We didn’t have to leave for nearly four hours, so I had time to meet with him. We found a restaurant where we could grab some lunch.
“David, I don’t think you believe in what I do,” Jeremy said.
“I’m not sure what you do,” I admitted. “I just know it’s some kind of psychic stuff.”
“Let me give you some background. I was raised in a small town, and my parents were very religious. When I told them I knew things, they thought I’d been spying on them and their neighbors. I quickly learned to keep my knowledge to myself. It wasn’t until I left for college and got out from under them that I had the courage to admit that I had a gift. Some of what I do is talk to the dead, and some is just intuition,” Jeremy said.
He looked over his coffee cup to see how I had taken his little speech.
“What does that have to do with me?” I asked.
