Chapter 10 Elijah
ELIJAH
I’ve had this office for nearly two years.
The windows face a courtyard and we’re one floor down from the top floor, so I don’t get a ton of natural light in the morning, but it’s not exactly dark in here because I do have three windows.
I insisted on a room with a minimum of three windows in my contract.
But I swear, even though all the lamps were already on and my back is to the door, I know exactly when Cleo Jones walks in here because she fills it with light.
Not just light that I can see—it’s a light that I can feel.
Lightness. The good kind. Inside my chest. Toward one side, deep within my well-developed pectoral area.
It feels good.
And that makes me feel anxious.
And angry.
Because the last time I let her make me feel this good it led to me feeling very, very bad…and then confused…and then conflicted.
And then I forgot about her.
Sort of.
Most of her.
Those boots are unforgettable.
That’s not true. Everything about her is unforgettable; it’s just easier for me to think about the boots. And how they’re made for walking away from me.
Picking up my own copy of the script, I turn to find her admiring the built-in shelves I had custom made before moving into this office.
“And there it is…” she says, trying to mask her awe at seeing my Best Picture Oscar trophy.
I keep it in a glass case on the top shelf.
There’s a small spotlight on it. It looks like I care about that award a lot.
I don’t not care about it. Every film producer in Hollywood wants a Best Picture Academy Award, and I got one for the fourth film I produced.
At the age of thirty-one. How lucky am I?
Not lucky at all.
It had nothing to do with luck. It had everything to do with a solid work ethic, determination, shrewd business strategy, and hiring the right publicist. I just wish I felt more proud of it.
Why don’t I? Because the family I grew up in, on both sides, are prominent families in the steel industry.
Same with the family I had married into.
Heavy hitters in the heavy manufacturing sector, for generations.
My grandfather moved to LA from Chicago in the 1970s, to establish the family steel business on the West Coast during the construction and aerospace boom.
My ancestors helped build the nation’s skyscrapers and infrastructure.
They believed the entertainment industry lacked substance compared to an industry that built the backbone of civilization.
I realized the irony—that even though I was thought of as the rebel in my family for putting together movies, I was still chasing a metal object.
And so, while the people in my industry always marvel at how heavy the Oscar is, when my father picked up my award, he remarked upon how light it felt.
In a bad way. And I feel the weight of that comment every time I see it. Which is why it’s on the top shelf.
“Yep,” I say. “There it is.”
And then, she says, “Oh my gosh, look at this!” She spots the trophy that Alyssa had made for me.
We were already divorced by the time I won the Oscar, but she was there when my dad made the comment.
Her father is also in the steel industry, so she had a trophy forged from molten steel, polished to a mirror finish, placed on a stand with a small plaque that says Hollywood’s Grumpiest Single Dad.
It weighs more than twice as much as the Oscar, and it means a lot more to me.
I keep it on top of the credenza, where I can see it from any angle in this room. “Can I touch it?”
The reverence and enthusiasm with which she asks that question. I feel it in a part of me that desperately wants to be touched by her, held, stroked, massaged, licked, sucked…and so on. “You can.”
She picks it up and says the thing I needed to hear. “Wow, it’s so heavy!”
“It’s steel.”
“Really? Like, family steel?”
She remembers. She remembers things about my background. That’s…surprising.
“Is this a gift from Paxton?”
“Alyssa had it made for me, actually.”
“Ah.” She carefully places the trophy back where she found it. “She seems really nice.”
“She is nice.”
“And classy.”
“Sure.”
She strokes the edge of the credenza with the tips of her fingers, holding on to the script with her other hand. “I hope it was helpful, last night. Pretending to have a date to your ex-wife’s low-key holiday wedding reception.”
Was it helpful?
Did I find it helpful to be faced with the woman I’ve been trying to forget for eight years?
Is this making the holidays any easier for me to get through?
The holidays I disliked when I was growing up because there was always an underlying tension at home?
Not because both sides of the family celebrated different holidays—because neither side celebrated much of anything other than work.
The holidays I have disliked even more for the past eight years because they reminded me of her. The woman I’ve been trying to forget.
And yet.
It was so fucking good to feel that thing. That thing I have only ever felt with her. Even if she was only there because my son asked her to be. Even if she’s only here now because she’s extorting large sums of money from me.
“It was helpful. And fun.”
The hesitant smile that spreads across her pretty face is a balm for my soul, the foundation upon which dreams are built and the reason she will break my heart again if I let her.
I won’t let her.
And she can see that on my face. That hesitant smile becomes a knowing grin. “So what’s the deal with this project and the deadline, boss?”
I pick up a different stress ball—the one Paxton gave me for my birthday this year.
I have a basket full of them on my desk.
He has given me a different stress ball for my birthday and every major national holiday every year since he was five.
Purchased with his allowance. Ever since he found out about stress balls. I choose one of the squishy ones.
“Have a seat,” I say, gesturing toward the sofa and the armchairs.
I myself will be pacing back and forth. She chooses an armchair and waits for me to speak.
“The president of production at Streamflix is retiring next year. I’m in the running to replace him.
” I pause, expecting an eye roll or snort, but I am met with only a curious gaze.
“The senior VP here at this studio, Josh Steinberg, is also up for that job. My production deal with this studio is up in February. As per my contract, if I don’t get a movie greenlit before then, my option for another year on the deal won’t kick in.
So my agent won’t have leverage to get me a new deal at another studio if he can’t get Streamflix excited enough about me to make an offer. ”
She rubs her lips together, and I know, I know. She’s playing the world’s smallest violin. This is a high-class problem. But that doesn’t make it any less of a problem.
I continue on about my plight. “So Steinberg assigned me a project that no one else on the lot wants: The Untitled Christmas Project by the Shark Brothers. The Shark Brothers is an alias used by the two youngest sons of the head of this studio, so it wouldn’t look like nepotism when the studio bought it for three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
But everyone knows who wrote it, and no one can bad-mouth the script to anyone at the studio because it will get back to their dad.
No screenwriter with a track record even wants to read the script because Steinberg has told everyone in town that it’s garbage and that any changes will be viewed as hostile by the head of the studio and also no star will attach themselves to this project the way it is. ”
She’s fuming now.
“Fucking Steinberg!”
She gets it.
I like that.
“Yes. Fucking Steinberg. But it’s not true.
Changes will not be viewed as hostile by the studio.
It’s just that the studio wants a Christmas movie for next year and this script was not originally written as a Christmas movie.
They just slapped some Christmas stuff on it and called it a day.
So I need to come up with a great take and some very specific notes so I can hire a good writer to rewrite this in a month.
That’ll give me enough time to attach a big star and get a green light.
” I sigh. “If I don’t, I will be a complete and utter failure. ”
Now she snort-laughs. “Okay. I was with you there for a minute, but that is insane.”
“Not as insane as that screenplay.” I point to the script in her lap. That script does not deserve to touch her thighs and be that close to a part of her that I very much deserve to get close to.
But I can’t think about that right now.
I hold my hands up like I’m framing a shot.
“Fade in. Helicopter shot. It’s snowing in the mountains.
One crappy old car is driving along the winding road.
This very pretty businesswoman from New York rolls into a small town, gets a flat tire on Main Street.
A ripped Ryan Reynolds–type guy in a Santa suit strolls out of the hardware store and says, ‘Welcome to the middle of nowhere, bitch! You must be lost.’ And then he pulls out the laser gun he was hiding in his pants and blows her away.
Then he peels off his rubber face, revealing that he’s an alien.
“Cut to a Ryan Reynolds–Type Guy waking up in bed by himself in a nondescript apartment for recently divorced guys and there’s a plastic Christmas tree on the floor next to him that’s totally bare.
It’s Die Hard meets Independence Day meets a Hallmark Christmas movie written by a couple of guys who have never seen a Hallmark Christmas movie meets Groundhog Day meets my actual fucking nightmare. ”
I don’t stop pacing, but I finally look over to see her reaction.
She looks like she’s about to take flight.
“Okay, here are my notes,” she says, holding the script to her chest. That script does not deserve to be anywhere near her perky, amazing tits. “I have no notes!” she exclaims. “That is brilliant, and I would pay one hundo dollars to see that in a theater.”
I scoff. “Right.”
“I’m serious.”
“Okay. But they won’t give it a green light unless it’s a four-quadrant family Christmas comedy. With heart.”
She shrugs. “It will bring in every single family of fifteen-to-fifty-eight-year-old men worldwide, and I happen to know that’s every movie studio’s favorite demographic.”
“I can’t for the life of me tell if you’re fucking with me or not.”
She giggles. “I mean. I still need to read the script. But it sounds like maybe it’s a parody.”
“It is not a parody. It’s a travesty.”
“Okay, boomer, calm down.”
I spot a red-and-white elf toy sitting next to my Grumpiest Dad trophy.
“How did that get there?”
Cleo smacks her lips together. “How did what get where?”
I go over to the credenza. “When did you put that elf there?”
She gets up to join me. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. What a charming little elf. What a delightful, joyful surprise!”
“You sneaky little minx.” God dammit. It is a delightful, joyful surprise. I am genuinely delighted right now.
She laughs.
I laugh.
“You are so weird,” I whisper, truly in awe, and then I take her face in my hands.
I don’t mean to. I don’t mean to stare at her lips.
She isn’t wearing lipstick today, but they’re glossy and they smell like strawberries.
I also don’t mean to comb my fingers through her crazy, thick, curly hair.
I definitely don’t want to lean down when I see her lips part, when I hear her gasp as she tilts her chin up toward me, but I do.
I’m not drunk. There’s no mistletoe. There’s just a beautiful, strange girl who drives me crazy and more feelings than I know what to do with.
I kiss her forehead. I kiss her right cheek.
I kiss her left cheek. I feel her grip the lapels of my suit jacket again. I brush my lips against hers.
And then I hear a man’s voice call out from the outer office, “Hello?! Cleo!”
No.
I pull back and study Cleo’s face. Her expression is just as surprised and confused as I feel.
I step away from her, and we both wipe our lips with the backs of our hands.
“Mr. Abrams?” the man says.
And that’s when I realize it’s Simon, the security guard.
He pokes his head in through the open door to my office.
That balding middle-aged head that sits atop a tall, lanky frame.
He is perfectly nice, and I’ve had plenty of semi-decent conversations with him.
But he’s holding two paper cups of coffee from Starbucks and smirking at my temp, and I might have to kill him.
“Hey there,” he says to Cleo. “Went on a coffee break and thought you might like a peppermint mocha . You said it’s your favorite.”
Seriously? She’s driven onto the lot one time, less than an hour ago, and the security guard is already in love with her.
“Oh, Simon, that is so sweet of you,” she coos as she walks over to the doorway to take the coffee from him.
I can tell by the way she’s shuffling, with her thighs close together, that things are getting tight and wet between her legs, and I am not crazy.
That is a fact, and it makes me really happy.
“No problem, Cleo.” Simon winks at her. “I’ll swing by again tomorrow if you’re here.”
Oh hell no.
Nice guy, but hell no.
If anyone on this lot is going to be creepy with Cleo Jones and buy her disgusting dessert-flavored seasonal coffee drinks, it’s me.
“That is so nice of you, Simon,” I say, bearing my teeth as if he’s a tourist who is blocking traffic to take pictures of a palm tree. “Really, so thoughtful.”
I’m about to give him a hundo dollars to go back to Starbucks and buy coffee for whoever is sitting in for him at the drive-on gate, but my phone buzzes in my pocket.
It’s the nanny calling. I completely forgot she’s dropping Paxton off because she has to go to her grandson’s birthday party and Alyssa is out shopping. “Valentina, are you here?” I ask when I pick up. She tells me she’s on the lot, pulled up in front of the building.
Time to mentally reframe.
I’m going to enjoy my last day with Paxton before he leaves for vacation with Alyssa and Barry tomorrow morning.
Dad dick has been deprioritized.
Cleo is not getting kissed on the lips today.
Simon gets to live.
“Miss Jones, please read the script you have been assigned to read. I have to go downstairs to fetch my son.” I wrap my arm around Simon’s shoulder, leading him out the door. “Walk with me, Simon…”