Chapter 26 Josh
Josh
This Watford place is a total shithole. But never mind, because I needed an NA meeting after today’s shoot with Elle. I was crawling out of my fucking skin after we wrapped the kissing scene, wrung out with emotion and boiling over with desire.
This morning was all kinds of crazy. After pissing Elle off, I went on set legit on edge.
But I channelled that edge into Dominic, into his emotional state at being so close to getting this woman locked down and being so impatient for stuff she had no clue about.
Into the tightrope he had to walk between worshipping her, and giving into his pent-up desires, and not scaring her the hell away.
Man, I knew how he felt.
My brain got all twisted up between Dominic and Georgiana and me and Elle.
The strength of my feelings for her and the heat of my desire and the years of fucking history and yearning entangled themselves with Dominic’s desperation to enter into a state he’d scoffed at right before he saw Georgiana.
He did a hard one-eighty and fell, big-time.
I fell years ago, and I was still flat on my fucking face.
Anyways, with all that shit in my head, I just went for it. Didn’t overthink it—trusted the process. All I knew was, whatever I felt for Elle would enhance my performance, not damage it. And despite what she said, whatever spark of anger I ignited before the camera rolled lit a fire under her, too.
I demanded; she resisted.
I pushed; she surrendered.
It was hot as fuck.
I wasn’t on the call sheet for the rest of the day so I took off as soon as I could and headed back to the hotel for a shower and googled up the closest NA.
I’ve been to a few meetings in London, but this is my first one while on location, and I need to get involved.
I thought about joining my local LA one on Zoom, but it’s better in person.
Trouble is, NA meetings are a nightmare if you’re famous.
So I hit this one up in Watford. It’s in a depressing fucking building on a depressing street.
The requisite plastic chairs are laid out in a circle.
I’ve opted for a baseball cap and a face mask—no longer mandatory in the UK, but a handy disguise.
I don’t mean to be aloof, but I’m not here to buddy up. I sit quietly and I listen.
I focus on absorbing others’ stories, their observations, their pain.
These people are a world away from me in lifestyle terms, and yet we’re all here.
Addiction is an awesome leveller. One guy, who seems to live with chronic pain and got addicted to pain meds (so common), fell off the wagon last night and is super cut up about it.
Poor schmuck. It sucks, and it brings back my usual guilt.
Imagine trying to manage pain without the relief because you got addicted to the one thing that helps.
I have no such excuse. My story is so freaking predictable.
Party-boy-actor gets dependent on uppers to get him through his crazy lifestyle and downers to help him level out, and somewhere along the way, lost his ability to function without them.
If I couldn’t feel good, I didn’t want to feel anything.
Except when I met Elle Hart, the biggest fucking walking dopamine hit on the planet. And I had to fuck that up, too.
I dig my fingernails into my palm. Hard.
Shit, that hurts.
The pain is good.
The pain means I’m feeling.
Feeling is what we all fear, especially me, and the pain reminds me that on the other side of that fear is nothing I can’t handle. I can survive this. I’ve survived so far.
I think back to Step Nine on the ride back to the hotel.
Make direct amends to the people we’ve harmed.
I can’t make direct amends to Elle for my fuckups back then, but I sure as hell can make amends for today. Even if she won’t take it, she deserves an overture from me.
I pull up her details on WhatsApp. We exchanged numbers after that first table read, though she made a very big point of dragging her feet. I sigh and punch out a message.
Hey. I was a total douche today, bringing up our past. I guess I was getting into the mood of playing Dom in full asshole mode, and I took it too far. My timing sucked. Not cool. I’m sorry.
She types back almost immediately, and I suck in a breath as I wait for her reply.
It’s ok
I’m pretty sure that’s the equivalent of I’m fine.
It’s really not tho
You’re right. It’s not. You’re an arsehole. I don’t think you need much help getting into character
Fair. U ok tho? U survived kissing me?
Because I barely survived kissing her. Fuck knows what it’ll be like when she’s mostly naked and writhing underneath me. On camera, I mean.
Obviously.
I’m fine. Clearly your sexuality is not as lethal as you’d like to think it is.
Ha. Baby, the only one with lethal sexuality is you. A few on-screen kisses and you slay me. Fuck, that feeling of sliding my tongue into her mouth. Tasting her again. Drinking her in. I felt like someone was gonna pull me off of her, or she was gonna slap me around the face, but no.
This job is a gift sometimes.
Me (deciding not to mention her lethal sexuality):
LMAO. Hey, wanna run lines in the morning?
I freeze as the ticks turn blue, and I wait to see her typing. Nothing. Have I overstepped? Maybe I shouldn’t be so impatient. I played nice and apologised. I should have left it there, not pushed her.
She’s typing.
I’m free now actually
Oh my God. Oh my God. I cannot be in her room with her. It’s a bad fucking idea, no matter how bad I want to lower myself into a chair and feast on her creamy skin with all that makeup scrubbed off her, and her pale blonde hair, and her yoga pants or whatever she wears when she’s off set.
Amazingly, because I have no sense of self preservation, I don’t go with a no.
Cool. On my way back from Watford. Give me 30mins?
Watford? WTF?
NA meeting
Oh. See you then.
I can’t get back there fast enough.