Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 63716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
“You also have a better chance of sleeping with her,” Garrett said unnecessarily.
I sent him a killing look, but I didn’t bother to tell him to shut the fuck up. He never had before. “She’s twenty-five,” I said instead.
Garrett smirked and held up his left hand where a gold band shone on his ring finger. Then he grabbed Con’s hand and tried to lift it up, too, but Con shook him off. I got the message anyway. All four of my friends had fallen in love in the last couple of years–all with women about Willow’s age. Which meant jack shit for me. I didn’t know what the hell was happening, but I wasn’t going to be next.
Landon’s advice stuck with me though. I wasn’t willing to fire Willow based on a strange, formless suspicion that she wasn’t what she seemed, but I could keep an eye on her. With that in mind, I made a point to meet up with the crew that weekend. They were at Pell Mell, an amateur skateboarding competition that Michio had won three years straight, before he went professional. Now he was one of the judges.
It was a skeleton crew consisting of Miller, a camera guy, and Willow. They stood together, conspicuous even in the crowd of hundreds that came to watch Pell Mell. It wasn’t just the bulky Sony FS7 in the camera man’s hand or the fact Miller raised the median age range by ten years. It was also Willow wearing all tailored black again, austerely beautiful in this crowd of skater-styled kids. As I moved through the crowd toward them, Willow caught sight of me and stared for a moment. I couldn’t see the expression in her eyes through her dark sunglasses, but her mouth stayed unsmiling as she leaned in and said something to Miller that made his head snap around.
I wasn’t close enough to hear him, but I could read his lips when he said, “Oh for fuck’s sake, Lewis, what do you want now?”
I grinned. “Just the pleasure of your company,” I said when I reached him. “And you never sent over the footage I asked for.”
“I’m not cutting you a fucking trailer. Not until it’s done.”
“You are cutting me a trailer,” I corrected. “And I still need it by Monday.” I was sending it to O’Conner’s agent as part of our next offer package.
“Does it make sense to make a trailer before the Olympics?” Willow asked with a frown.
“No,” Miller said as I said, “Yes.”
The camera man blew out his breath in a whistle and side stepped away. He motioned for Willow to come with him, but she stayed where she was. He shrugged as if to say, ‘your funeral’ and kept the camera trained on Michio.
“Why do you want it?” Miller asked suspiciously.
I considered telling him the truth, but only briefly. Miller was a genius who didn’t like other geniuses. In them, he saw every shitty thing that was true of himself, and he didn’t like it. He would make things ten times harder for me if he knew what I was planning. “I want to show the board. This has been a multi-year investment, Miller, they want to see something.”
He set his jaw obstinately. “I’m not risking a leak.”
I had a feeling he’d say that. “That’s fine. Send Willow with it when it’s ready.”
Willow’s dark red lips pursed, the first clear emotion I could read. Production assistant or not, she didn’t like me sending her anywhere. I concealed my grin. She brought out a perverse side of me that I hadn’t known existed.
Miller made an exasperated sound that I recognized as capitulation and stalked over to the camera man. He wanted him to get closer to the group of kids Michio was watching do tricks on the stairs just beyond the bounds of the actual competition.
“Someone’s going to get hurt,” Willow observed. I didn’t know if she was talking about the actual skateboarders or the kids who were also risking their brains, lying flat on the stairs and filming as the skateboarders flew over them.
“As long as it’s not Michio.” A quick glance told me there was little chance of that. Brendan might be an asshole, but he wasn’t an idiot. He was keeping his star client a safe distance away from the rabble. I looked back at Willow who was still watching the skateboarders. “How’s it going?”
This close, I could see her eyes slide toward me behind the dark lenses, but I still couldn’t read the expression in them. “It’s going fine,” she said neutrally. “Do you make it a habit to check up on all the new production assistants?”
“Just the ones I’m relying on to get me the material I need,” I said, referencing the trailer. And the ones I don’t know if I can trust, I left unsaid.