Hot Set (Art of Love #2)

5. Brandon

Chapter five

Brandon

T here was a time in my life when I thought Seth Doxon was the biggest pain I’d ever have. I was certain many times that I’d actually died, landed myself in Purgatory, and ended up with Seth as my eternal torment, like a harpy with a pitchfork. That was before I met Caitlyn Braden, the leading lady of my film. When I arrived on set and was told she demanded to see me, I knew something bad was coming. I just didn’t know how bad.

I walked past Bioncia, brushing glitter on her arm, and Samuel, pinning up the hem of a massive, colonial ballgown. There was Caitlyn, a lanky blonde with an innocent, angelic face and large, blue eyes. Although I’d never been attracted to women, she was unquestionably pretty. Unfortunately, that positive attribute didn’t extend to her attitude. She always had something .

Caitlyn looked up at me and rolled her eyes. “So, there you are.”

“Yes,” I said. “I was checking in on Seth.”

“Oh, well,” Caitlyn said, “I just wanted you to know that I’m not going to be able to pursue this project any longer.”

I stared at her, uncomprehendingly for a few seconds. “I’m sorry?” I eventually asked.

“Look, I just can’t keep dealing with this,” Caitlyn said. “This environment just isn’t conducive for my development as an actress.”

“Not conducive to your development as an actress,” I echoed.

What did that even mean ?

“That’s right,” Caitlyn said, “So, I’ll stay out the week, but after that, I’m out. It’s nothing personal, Brandon. I just have better opportunities that I could be pursuing.”

Seriously? I didn’t doubt that Caitlyn, being pretty and with a semi-impressive CV, could find another acting job. But was she seriously going to drop and leave us in the middle of a production? How were we going to replace her? She was supposed to be our Final Girl, the only survivor of the time-traveling zombie apocalypse. How much could we film in a week? I didn’t know everything there was to know about film, but I’d at least gotten a good gauge on how much we could accomplish.

There was no way we could possibly film all her scenes in a week. We would have to have rewrites. I pinched the bridge of my nose and gazed helplessly at her. “Are you sure?” I asked. “Cait, if there’s something actually bothering you, surely, there’s something I can do. You can’t just leave in the middle of a production.”

“Of course, I can,” Caitlyn said. “Look. I’m sorry, Brandon, but I’ve given this a ton of thought. And I’m not staying longer than a week. You guys are just going to have to deal with it.”

And by you guys , she meant the writing team and I would have to pull an all-nighter, scrambling to rewrite the script in order to compensate for her absence. No, just the writing team and me wouldn’t be enough. It would take everyone to get this script ironed out and fixed. We’d probably have to kill off her character, which would have been easier if we hadn’t already planned her arc as the Final Girl. And we hadn’t filmed all the scenes chronologically, so we’d have to figure out what we’d filmed and hadn’t. This was a disaster. Kill off her character? How about kill off her.

God, why hadn’t I just stuck with nude modeling? That was easy. Sure, it had threatened to send my father into an early grave, but I wouldn’t have had problems like this .

“Okay,” I said. Because what else could I say?

“Thank you,” Caitlyn said.

Then, she strode past me on her high heels. Absolutely no remorse at all. I pulled out my phone and texted Scott to come to the set right away. I’d considered just spilling everything on the phone, but knowing we were going to be pulling an all-nighter rewriting a script was something best shared in person.

I ran a hand through my hair and glanced up, pausing when I saw Alex. His dark head was leaned in close to Bioncia’s, and the two of them were looking over a wide spread of brightly colored powders. Celeste, one of the extras, sat in the make-up chair. Her face looked about half-finished; her pale skin was covered in blotches of green and blue that, I knew from experience, would become rotting flesh.

Alex lifted a bright red pot of powder to Celeste’s face and said something to Bioncia. Well, at least something was going right. Alex seemed enthusiastic enough, if his smile was any indication. He knew make-up at any rate.

And he was cute. And straight.

Meaning I needed to be careful around him. Obviously, I had no problem taking “no” for an answer. I didn’t expect every single man in the world to swoon over me, but I didn’t want Alex to think I was trying to pressure him into something. I didn’t want him to misinterpret anything or make things awkward.

I still hadn’t seen Seth, but that would probably be a headache, too. At least I could depend on Seth not to quit. Probably. Hopefully. Maybe Alex and Bioncia weren’t quite the distraction I needed, but at the moment, I really just needed to see something go right. I headed over to them as Bioncia began dabbing a pasty liquid on her wrist.

My phone pinged. It was Scott, announcing that he was on his way. Scott had a tendency to abuse emojis, and he’d put an enthusiastic smiley face at the end of his text. He probably wouldn’t smile much longer.

Bioncia pursed her lips together. “I think you’re right, Alex,” she said. “We should try spackling the blush on. We might be able to mix it with the foundation, and that should help it stick a bit.”

“And then, blend it in over the prosthetic?” Alex asked, tracing his finger over Celeste’s half-latexed jaw.

“I like it,” Bioncia said.

“Make it a little brighter,” I added.

Alex glanced over his shoulder at me. He had nice eyes; bright, like polished gemstones. My heart skipped a beat.

“We will,” Bioncia said. “We’ve already tested the colors under the lights. We need more red and some teal to balance it out.”

“Oh, good,” I replied. “You’re doing great.”

“Did you end up running into Seth?” Alex asked.

“Not yet,” I said.

“What did Caitlyn want?” Bioncia asked.

I sighed. “She’s out.”

“Out?” Bioncia asked. "Like out out??"

I nodded. Bioncia shook her head.

“She’s…?” Alex trailed off.

“Our love interest,” I replied. “To be honest, I really shouldn’t be surprised. She’s been a pain since the beginning.”

“That seems really unprofessional, though,” Alex said.

“It is,” I said wearily, “But it’s not like I can chain her to the set and demand she stay. I’m calling our head writer over, so we can stay up all night and shred the script.”

“I know! I can put on a wig and claim to be her,” said Celeste, who was brunette, three inches shorter than Caitlyn, and at least twenty pounds heavier.

“I don’t think that would fool anyone,” I said, “Although I appreciate your sacrifice.”

Celeste’s lips cocked into a crooked, fond smile. “Let me know if I can help,” she said.

“And me,” Alex said quickly, “Although I’m not good at much except make-up.”

At least he was good at something, though. The more things I tried, the less I seemed to be good at anything . Still, maybe this movie would pan out. Despite frustrations like this, I actually did enjoy working on this film and doing all the little things involved.

“Actually,” I said, “How do you all feel about coming over to my place and reworking this script to death? I’ll bribe you with booze and pizza.”

“I’m game,” Bioncia said, “And you know Seth will be. He’d agree to jump off a bridge for food.”

“I’ll come, too,” Alex said. “I’m not much of a writer, but I’ve been in enough productions to know how a drama is structured.”

Celeste shrugged. “I watch movies,” she said. “Maybe I’ve picked up a thing or two.”

And maybe between all of us, we’d manage to work this out. “Cool,” I said. “We’ll go to my place after work then and stay as long as it takes.”

“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Bioncia said. “At least, if Caitlyn is gone, we won’t have to deal with her drama all the time. Remember how she kept losing shoes from wardrobe?”

“She wasn’t losing them,” I said tiredly. “She was walking off with them, so she could keep them.”

“I’m sure, too,” Bioncia replied, “We call that theft, Brandon.”

Admittedly, Caitlyn would’ve had a harder time with it if I’d kept decent records like I was supposed to. Unfortunately, I had a bad habit of charging my card and never keeping track. I hadn’t thought to hire a bookkeeper when I began this venture, and now I wished, for the millionth time, that I had.

My phone beeped again, heralding Scott’s arrival. I smiled wryly. “Well,” I said. “It sounds like my reckoning has arrived.”

At least, Scott and I would have help with this; that might be enough to keep him from strangling me. I texted him to let him know where I was, and then I waited.

“With this many of us working on it, we’re bound to figure out something great,” Alex said.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “We’ll figure it out.”

Alex smiled brightly, and my throat went dry. My heart skipped a couple of beats. I’d been charmed by that smile when I met Alex at the bar. When Alex smiled, it wasn’t a nervous little upward tick of his lips or awkwardly close-mouthed. He smiled with his whole face, and his eyes brightened. I thought of saying something about how nice he looked, but he might take that the wrong way. I didn’t want him to think I was overstepping a boundary. But there was one thing I could do, and that was to make it my mission to always make Alex smile. He remarked, “This might even be for the best. What if the movie is better because of this setback? It might be.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It might be.”

I hoped so, anyway, because at the moment I had no idea how I was going to pull this off. Scott, dark-haired and red-faced, waved at me from across the set. There really wasn’t any way to make this situation better. We were so screwed, and Scott and I were in for a long night.