Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Cali wasn’t sure she could take much more excitement, and her threshold was high. She was positive she had just heard Jory say he had quit and hadn’t taken her job—that he’d been, in fact, trying to get fired. Her senses were at peak awareness with his proximity, and his smell invaded her brain, making her endorphins surge. The affection and outrage in his eyes stopped her breath. She had to admit, she had no idea what was going on.
And then there was Howard. Whose face was very red and whose finger was pointing at Jory. “You pathetic moron. I knew you could only have done something that stupid for pussy.”
Jory put himself between Cali and Howard. “Excuse me?”
Cali tried to edge around Jory, but even though the supply closet set wasn’t really the size of a closet, because a camera had to shoot in it, the room wasn’t large either. After a few tries at being delicate, she pushed Jory out of the way. “Something stupid like what?”
Howard turned to her, his shoulders scraping against the shelving of the faux closet, toppling the paper towels stacked there onto his head. He batted them away with wild hands, voice filled with contempt. “Don’t think you’re safe just because you manipulated this dumbass into notions of nobility.”
“What notions of nobility?” Cali skipped over the obvious insults.
“I’ll have you both blackballed from any production in the English-speaking world by the end of the day. And the non-English-speaking world by the end of the week!”
“For what?” she gritted out. Cali’s dam of patience for this megalomaniac was cracking.
“I’ve already quit!” Jory growled through clenched teeth.
Cali turned to him. “You keep saying that.”
Jory kept his attention on Howard. “And I called Jeff Cummings to withdraw my name from consideration and put Cali forward for the job. He doesn’t have a high opinion of you, by the way. Seems that he thinks you’re an asshole and was all too ready to hear about an up-and-coming female director.”
Cali was still not following the plot. “You know Jeff Cummings?”
“I do now.”
Howard wedged himself between them. “I’ll have you both escorted off set for gross negligence.”
Cali was on the edge of enough. Jory apparently believed in her—was taking a bullet, which had always been her thing. To have someone support her when it disadvantaged their own path was a heady feeling. To not have to act alone, to be part of a front, gave her a strength and clarity of mind that broke through all her doubt and self-sacrifice. And this guy, this showrunner was threatening him. Trust was definitely a skill she’d have to work on, but protectiveness was something she knew well. She grew to mama-bear size.
“How have we shown gross negligence, hmm, Howard? By turning your mediocre show into gold? By staying on budget and bringing out the best in your crew while you swan around making arbitrary decisions that make no sense? By moving this story into the new world while we suffer under your old-boy attitudes?” Cali closed in on him. “I am so sick of being second-guessed by fuckwits who are holding onto their white-middle-aged-man privilege by their fingernails. I am so tired of being told what’s right by men who are terrible at their jobs while I do all the work and they get the accolades.”
“I own this business,” Howard roared.
Cali’s spine elongated. She was on fire and she was going to ride it until she went supernova. “You are a dinosaur, and the big meteor is coming. I saved you by coming in here. You should be on your knees in gratitude. Instead, you’re trying to fire me and my DP, who is a fucking genius, because you’re a petulant little boy.”
“Someone’s getting fired.” A fourth voice cut through the closet with all the authority of a deity.
Everyone looked over and saw Melanie, insinuating herself into their tight circle and somehow holding all the power.
Howard tried to back up but took a shelf corner to the head. “Thank you, Melanie.” He said, rubbing his temple.
Melanie spoke in a measured tone, “Don’t thank me, Howard. Jory can’t be fired without extensive evidence of gross misconduct.”
“I put the cast and crew in danger,” Jory barked out. “I should be fired.”
“And you will get sanctioned.” Melanie addressed Jory dryly. “The circumstances do not call for termination because no one is filing a complaint. You stopped the shoot in a timely manner, and you’ve had an exemplary record up until this point. But consider yourself warned.”
“It doesn’t matter. I quit.”
“You can’t quit without a two-episode notice.”
“Oh. Oh yeah.” Jory rubbed the back of his neck, elbowing Howard in the ear. “I forgot about that.”
“And since Cali is delivering some of the best work of this season, firing her could result in a wrongful dismissal suit,” Melanie stated matter-of-factly. “Not to mention, firing the only female director would be terrible optics in light of the showrunner’s removal from the series because of the impending sexual harassment claim made by Alison Whitall. Howard, it is you who is fired.”
The supply closet went silent. Everyone’s attention turned to the man whose face had just drained of all color.
“That little tease is bringing a harassment suit against me?” Howard spat. “I’d like to see her try.”
Suddenly there was a crack of wood and their supply-closet world swayed. Jory had Howard by the throat up against the wall with a violence Cali had never seen. The flat pulled at its anchors and bowed, groaning under Jory and Howard’s weight.
“You creeped on my camera assistant, you fucking asshole? I. Will. End. You.” Jory pushed Howard, making the set undulate with every accented shove.
Howard ineffectively pulled at Jory’s arms to catch his breath.
Melanie raised her voice, “That’s enough, Jory! I do not have the energy for an assault case.”
Jory stared at him with sightless eyes as Howard continued to squirm.
Cali placed a hand on Jory’s back and felt heat pumping through his shirt. “Jory, stop.”
Jory took a breath and gave Howard one final shove. “I will bankroll any lawsuit Alison mounts against you and personally search for other women you have gone after.”
“Of which I’m sure there are many,” Cali added.
Melanie stepped aside as well as she could. “Frederick?”
Outside the supply closet stood a mountainous enforcer in a dark suit. “Mr. Fox. If you would follow me?”
“This will never stick.” Howard tried to straighten himself while glaring at all of them. “I will take each and every one of you down.”
Melanie gave him a smile that sent shivers down Cali’s spine. “I look forward to it.”
Frederick stepped aside to allow Howard to pass, leaving the three of them alone in the supply closet.
Melanie blew out a breath, the only evidence she was even marginally upset, and turned to Jory and Cali. “I trust you’ll be moving on to the next scene? Time ticks.” She brought her phone up to her ear and stepped out of the closet. “Jeff, how lovely to hear from you.”
Cali tried to make sense of it all. Jory didn’t want her job. He’d quit. Sacrificed himself for her. And then talked her up to Jeff Cummings. Jeff Cummings! She still had her job. Jory still had his job. And Howard was facing a lawsuit. She should say something but could only come up with: “What the fuck were you doing quitting?”
Jory turned to her, still flushed from pushing around Howard, shaking out his hands and rolling his shoulders. “That’s the first thing you want to say?”
“Yes. Why would you quit?” she demanded.
“Because it wasn’t right that you were being taken off the show. Because I didn’t want to get a shot at directing by usurping you. Because it tore me apart when you thought I had betrayed you like those men who messed up your mom and your sister.”
“Turns out my sister was the messer-upper.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Cali dismissed the tangent, more interested in Jory’s anguished face.
“Because you’re not the only one who gets to make sacrifices,” he added in a wry tone.
“I don’t love making sacrifices,” Cali said petulantly.
“No, but you’ve gotten used to it.” There was an earnest quality to his voice when he spoke again. “The production needs you. This business needs you. Your voice and your heart and your fire.” He swallowed. “ I need you.”
Cali opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. She may have swooned a bit, because Jory shot his hands to her elbows to steady her. “Not in the way that I become a burden like all your other responsibilities,” he continued. “I don’t want to be looked after.”
“Too bad—you might have to be.”
“I don’t want that for you.”
“But don’t you see how much you help me? I’ve never had someone support me like you do, and you should let me do the same. I have no real-world experience with this, but I understand that’s what a relationship is supposed to be.”
“I’ll try to get over my debilitating fear of bringing those I love down around me if you get over your need for people needing you. Let me be your supplicant, your man behind the great woman, your muse. And if you don’t want that …” He examined the floor. “Well, I’ll honor your decision.”
Jory stilled, waiting for an answer. Emotion rose up in Cali with such a force she worried she would spontaneously combust until she was nothing but a puddle of goo on the floor of this pretend supply closet. But maybe from that goo she could rise, formed into a new person. One who could trust, who could depend on someone who wouldn’t let her down or make her life an obstacle course. Become a new person with this person. This beautiful, caring man who had somehow become her person.
Jory searched her face with a ferocity that spoke of hope and conviction and vulnerability. Cali forced herself to speak. “You’ll be my muse?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll be still while I film you?”
“Absolutely.”
“You’ll lie across a chaise lounge with a rose between your teeth and a delicate flush to your cheeks?”
His beautiful mouth tweaked ever so slightly. “I’m exceptional at delicately flushing.”
Her mouth tweaked back. “And you’ll turn to absinthe when I throw you over for a younger, comelier DP?”
“After I break his, her, or their neck, yes,” he growled.
Cali had run out of jokes, out of parries. It was time to be brave, but she was still so very afraid. She swallowed hard. “And you’ll love me back?”
His mouth opened in surprise as he squeezed her elbows, disbelief softening his features. He brought her closer and barely made a sound as he asked, “You love me?”
Cali nodded and dug her nails into his forearms so she could be understood, in all her raw fear and fragility.
Jory’s eyes filled with a surety she would never tire of seeing. “Then I will love you back. I will really , really love you back.”
Jory pulled her to him, but something nagged at her mind, a loophole unclosed, and she pulled away. “Wait. Does that mean you don’t love me now, but you plan to?”
Jory blinked. “Uh … No, no. I love you now . I was just going along with the whole muse thing. I love you now. Right now.”
“Okay,” she breathed out. “I love you too.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Can I kiss you now?”
She didn’t wait to answer, claiming him for herself. Their lips met with urgency and tenderness, and all the hope and pain they could share as they went forward together. It was a kiss laced with a love fully acknowledged in the light of day in a dark supply closet. A kiss that tasted of new beginnings, of old ways dying, and the promise of something neither could anticipate. And they tasted it again and again.
In the periphery of Cali’s consciousness, she heard a throat clear, and then clear again. Then a third time, accompanied by a harrumph. Jory pulled back, and in a daze she turned toward the intruder.
Dan stood in the doorway, a smug look on his face. “Finally. Scene’s up.”