“Just wondered. I’ll talk to you late tonight after my shoe-company meeting. We need to coordinate better,” I said.
“Your PA trying to freeze out the girlfriend?” Halle asked.
“That’s what I need to find out,” I agreed.
Brook laughed.
“How dumb is she? Does she expect we would break up because you kissed Halle?”
“See, Brook thinks it would be okay to kiss me.”
“Whoa!” I said with my hands up as Halle made kissy faces at me.
“Get him, Halle,” Brook teased.
I beat a hasty retreat as both girls laughed at me. It was good they were friends, or I might get the wrong idea. Halle was Halle James, after all, and damned good looking.
◊◊◊
Halle was right, it did take them forever to come back and get us for the next scene. Kitty liked the direction the ad-libbed dialogue had gone and put the writers to work. In the meantime, I discovered I had a trailer of my very own parked outside with about ten others. Another perk the J-drama was missing.
“Do you think Halle’s dating Ben?” I asked Lexi.
“You know how those on-set relationships go,” she said with a shrug. “I hear that they’re always in each other’s trailer, so anything’s possible.”
Reading lines was my guess.
The advantage I had over Lexi was I knew both Halle and Ben. Halle had her mom to draw experience from, and Rita had made it clear to her daughter that an on-set romance was a recipe for disaster. After the fiasco with Zander, I would lay big money on her not going there. Ben was also a stand-up guy and currently ‘in love.’ Isabel Alexandra, his
“What about Brook?” Lexi asked, taking the bait.
“I don’t know. I’ve been here for several days, and she never seems to have time to talk to me. If I didn’t know better, I would worry she hooked up with Darius.”
“Who’s that?” Lexi asked a little too casually.
“Just some guy who seems always to be hanging around. You know the type. I catch him looking at Brook like she’s something on the menu. He has a reputation with the women,” I said.
His reputation was he was either not interested in them or scared spitless. There was a grain of truth in what I said because he did have a crush on Brook.
“She mentioned a Darius. I didn’t think much of it when she said something because it sounded like a group outing,” Lexi said.
“I should fire you right now,” I said, getting serious.
Lexi was a smart girl. She figured out I’d caught her.
“I just thought it was for the best.”
“Best for who? Brook, me, or you?” I asked.
Lexi blanched at that and then blushed. She decided her best course of action was to bolt. If she’d known me better, she’d have known that was precisely the right thing to do. I got mad quickly, and if you pushed me, I might say something that I shouldn’t. Give me a little time, and I calmed down and was able to see reason.
◊◊◊
It was good to see Halle again. Ben and I hung out for a bit between takes. He mentioned a party he knew about.
“Do you think I could bring my J-drama castmates? They want to go to a real ‘American’ party.”
“My friends are a little rowdy after they’ve had a few. You sure they’re up for that?” Ben asked.
“I don’t see why not unless your friends would take advantage of someone,” I said.
You never knew.
“No. They might hook up with them, but it would be because the girls wanted to. There’s enough tail at these events that you don’t have to work too hard. I bet we could even find a girl for someone who looks like you,” he said as he threw a face.
“Jerk. I don’t need to hook up, I have a girlfriend.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
I sent a text to Misaki to tell her where and when. Ben said to have them say they were his guests. It turned out it was being hosted by one of his girlfriend Isabel’s friends. He told me that if I wanted to invite some others, there would be plenty to drink, and it was usually fun.
With that in mind, I sent another text. This one was to Ridge and Bill, my friends who played football at USC, and asked if they wanted to come too. I did post a link to the J-drama’s website so Bill could see who would be there. He’d admitted to discovering he had a thing for Asian girls since he moved out to LA. Bill promised he would be there and said I had to introduce him around.
Lexi found me and reminded me that we had to get going. She hadn’t quit, so I let it go for now. At some point, I would have to exorcise the bitch out of her. I wondered where I might find a priest to help me with that.
◊◊◊
Gordon Parker from Springbok sent us a text that he was pulling up to the restaurant. He’d picked a trendy spot in Hollywood, close to the studio. Dad and I had just arrived and were waiting for Manaia to deal with the valet, so we received the full effect of Mr. Parker’s arrival. As soon as I saw him, I had to smile. He looked like one of those guys who believed they could sell you anything while they bled you dry. He’d pulled up in a Lamborghini.
“This guy must be loaded,” Dad said.
“I doubt it. That’s a rental,” I said.
