7. Maya
7
MAYA
As I laid out the products I was going to be using on Taylor the next morning, I tried not to think about what had happened right here on this desk just a matter of twenty-four hours ago.
I still couldn’t believe that Lee and I had done that. If it wasn’t for the intensity of that orgasm he’d given me while he was between my thighs, I could almost convince myself that it was nothing more than some crazy fantasy on my part. But there was no way in hell I could have invented something that intense, something that sexy, something that addictive—and knowing it was real was a million times more confusing than trying to convince myself it was fake.
I couldn’t really figure out how it had come to happen in the first place. How exactly did I end up going from accepting a coffee from Lee, to allowing him to go down on me in the makeup trailer I was supposed to be working in? It didn’t make any sense to me, but at the same time…at the same time, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and wondering if this was just a one-off thing or if he intended to follow up on what we had shared yesterday.
I had done my research on Lee, of course. I’d heard a few vague mentions of his reputation when I was flicking through gossip magazines at the dentist’s office when I took Matty in for a checkup, but it wasn’t until I was faced with the enormity of his sexual backstory that I realized just what kind of guy he was. I was pretty sure there wasn’t a woman in this whole damn business who was more than two degrees of sexual separation from him—he seemed to have this crazy effect on just about anyone he came into contact with.
And if I hadn’t met him, I would likely think that all the girls who had fallen for that were just making too big a deal of the effect he had on them. But having met him in person, I could see why so many of them had fallen for his charms—he had this way about him, this confidence, as though he knew he was the hottest thing on two legs and wasn’t afraid to use that to get what he wanted.
And God, could he back it up too. I hadn’t had a whole lot of sexual experience in the years since Matty was born, as busy as I’d been with looking after him and trying to keep the money coming in, but that…that had been beyond anything I could have expected. Lee’s tongue was so skilled, his touch so practiced, it was clear that he’d put every single one of those hookups to good use in honing his skills. He knew exactly what he was doing when it came to pleasuring a woman, and I couldn’t deny just how much I wanted to pick up right where we had left off as soon as I got the chance.
Which was dangerous, to say the least. And, as much as I could tell myself that it was just about blowing off some steam and having some fun now that I was finally back at work—I knew part of it was about Devon too. It was about putting as much distance between him and me as I was possibly able to. And I knew that was crazy, because what kind of woman did that make me, using someone else to try and get over my ex? And besides, weren’t you supposed to do all of that a few weeks after he dumped you, not a few years? My head was all kinds of a mess right now, and I needed to get all of that out of my mind, and take care of the task at hand.
Which was working on Taylor King—the one member of this little threesome that I hadn’t managed to have some kind of sexual interaction with already. Ugh, even thinking about it like that made me feel crazy. I needed to get myself under control—if I had been caught in this trailer yesterday, I would have been fired on the spot, I was sure of it. Probably blacklisted too. No way would they punish Lee for that, when they could make me pay for it instead.
Finally, the door opened, and I glanced around to see Taylor being hustled inside by Paula, who looked as though her head was about to explode with stress. She seemed to be doing everything she could to keep on top of the three main stars, along with the guest actors who were coming in and out day-to-day, and I had no idea how she was keeping tabs on where everyone was and the status of their makeup needs at any given time. I had a tough enough time just keeping an eye on my kid, let alone a set full of people.
“Hey,” I greeted Taylor, with as warm a smile as I could muster— oh, hold on, don’t get too friendly now. Remember what happened with Lee…
“ Hi,” Taylor replied, slightly gruff. Despite his coolness, I felt a swell of relief rise inside of me. Thank God. He wasn’t coming in here flirting, acting like he couldn’t wait to get me into bed—and he wasn’t coming in here carrying a history that I had to do my best to ignore. We were just good old strangers, and that was fine by me.
“You want to sit down?” I suggested, gesturing to the seat in front of the makeup table.
He took a seat without saying another word, and I took a step back so I could get a better look at his face—this would be the first time I’d be applying makeup to him, so I wanted to make sure I had the exact right match for his skin tone. There were already kits laid out for each of the main actors, but it was way too easy for someone to catch a little sun or spend too much time inside, rendering whatever shade had been picked out for them basically unusable.
By the time I turned back to him, I noticed that he had moved the chair away from the mirror—like he didn’t want to see his reflection. I frowned as I stood with a brush in my hand, wondering what was going on.
“I don’t like to watch myself when I’m getting worked on,” he explained, clocking my confusion at once.
“Oh, sure,” I replied as I moved toward him. “Whatever works. Here, could you close your eyes?”
He did as he was told, and I slipped into my usual routine—starting with the parts of his face that needed color correction, and then working to conceal and set everything from there. The goal was to make him look as natural as possible on camera, but without showing much of the actual human flaws of his face.
Well, what they thought of as flaws, anyway. As I worked on Taylor, I couldn’t help but admire the details that I knew would soon be covered—the wrinkles around his eyes, his smile lines, the texture to his skin. I actually thought he was really handsome as he was, but I supposed that wasn’t what the superhero genre called for—they wanted perfection, in any way they could get it, and it was my job to deliver it on a platter.
I stepped back to grab another product from my kit, and he opened his eyes for a moment, stretching his jaw and cracking his neck.
“Long night?” I asked. I knew they had been shooting last night, doing some action scene that started off with a chase under cover of night—they had to cordon off a couple streets to make it happen, and it was cheaper to do that in the evening when fewer people would be driving around anyway.
“Longer than I’d like,” he replied, before falling silent again. He wasn’t rude, exactly, just—to the point. It was a stark change from how flirty Lee had been yesterday, and how much Devon had to say when we first ran into each other, but I was grateful for a break—if Taylor had turned out to be some charming sweet-talker too, I didn’t know what I would do.
“How did it go?” I asked him, carefully blending the powder down to his jawline. I couldn’t help but notice how defined it was, how sharp—the way that a few veins stood out on his neck just below the spot I was working on.
“Well, I hope,” he replied.
I grinned. “You don’t like the late shoots?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Better things to do with your evenings, huh?”
“Something like that.”
He managed a small smile in my direction. I could tell this small-talk thing didn’t come easy to him, which was fine by me—it was probably safer for me to keep my distance, given the mess I had managed to get myself into with Devon and Lee as it was already. I wondered if they talked amongst themselves, if Taylor had any idea what had been happening, or if he was oblivious to the fact that I had already messed around with two of his castmates.
I got the feeling he would judge the hell out of me if he knew. When I had been looking for stuff about Lee online, a few articles had popped up about Taylor too—or, what little there was about him out there. It seemed as though he kept his personal life as private as he could, maybe protecting someone he was in a relationship with. He’d started out as a stuntman, and he was likely used to the anonymity that came with all of that, not wanting to expose his partner to anything that they wouldn’t have had to deal with before he became one of the biggest deals in Hollywood.
I pinched my tongue between my teeth, narrowing my eyes as I came in a little closer to finish up work on a slight bruise on the corner of his jaw. He winced as I touched it with my brush, and I pulled back at once.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “Is that too painful? I can leave it and come back to it later, if you want…”
He shook his head.
“It’s fine,” he assured me. “I’ve dealt with far worse over the years, trust me.”
“That’s not exactly what I was hoping to hear,” I replied, managing a smile, but I went back in to finish what I had started. This time, he sat there stoic, not letting a single flinch show as I worked on the rest of his face.
“You must be used to getting bruises from when you were a stuntman, huh?” I remarked, and he glanced up at me, clearly a little surprised that I knew so much about him.
“How do you know about that?”
“I try to keep up with what’s going on around here,” I explained with a shrug. “Especially when it comes to who I’m going to be working on.”
His lips curled up into a smile for a moment, and he nodded.
“Yeah. I used to be a stuntman. I would do my own stunts now, but the studio gets worried about me getting hurt and having to slow down production to let me heal.”
“Hey, you can’t blame them,” I remarked. “It’s all about sticking to the schedule, right?”
“So I hear.”
He fell silent again as I finished blending his makeup, taking a step back and looking him over.
“There. I think that’s?—”
But before I could finish what I was saying, my phone buzzed where I had left it on the counter. I glanced around, not wanting to be unprofessional and answer it when I was supposed to be working, but when I turned back to Taylor, he nodded toward it.
“Answer it. I’m fine.”
“Thanks,” I blurted out, a little annoyed that I’d been interrupted in the middle of this session. I wanted to make a good impression on at least one of these guys—in a way that had nothing to do with me taking my clothes off—and here I was, having to take a damn call. It better be important…
“Hello?”
“Hi, Maya?”
I recognized the voice at once. It was Ms. Hayworth, my son’s teacher.
“Hey, what’s up?” I asked, worry gripping my chest. I never heard from the school unless it was something serious.
“Are you free right now?” she demanded, her voice edged with concern. “Matty’s not doing great. He’s come down with a nasty cold and I want to get him out of the school before he exhausts himself, or passes it on to anyone else.”
“I—I’m not free right now,” I blurted out, my heart pattering in my chest. “I’m sorry, I’m at work. How bad is it? Do you need me to come down right away?”
She sighed, a rush of static down the phone.
“We can keep him in the nurse’s office for now, but there are a few other children with this bug,” she warned me. “So the sooner we can get him out of here, the better, and the less chance he catches anything more serious off someone else.”
“Oh, crap,” I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose between my fingers. I couldn’t just ditch work—I would look totally unprofessional. But at the same time, the thought of my little boy being in so much pain and discomfort and having nobody there to look after him didn’t sit right with me either. Why did this have to happen now, of all times? How many days had I been sitting around at home, doing nothing, and this was the time he fell sick…?
“I have to call you back,” Ms. Hayworth told me. “But can you get someone down here as soon as you’re able? He really should be at home.”
“I—I’ll do what I can,” I promised, but before I could even finish what I was saying, the phone had gone dead. I stared down at it for a moment, no idea what to make of what had just happened—but certain that my day was about to get a whole lot worse.
“Everything okay?”
I jumped at the sound of Taylor’s voice. I had almost forgotten he was in the room with me. Spinning around to face him, I parted my lips, trying to think of some way I could make sense of all of this.
“Uh—uh, it will be,” I replied, plastering a smile on my face. “I just—I need to go to?—”
“Was that a call from your kid’s school?” he asked, frowning. I stood there for a moment, staring at him.
“How did you know that?”
“I’ve got a daughter,” he replied, waving his hand. “I know that look, when you get a call in the middle of a workday.”
“Oh, I had no idea,” I replied, raising my eyebrows.
“Yeah, I try to keep it that way,” he remarked. I let out a long breath. At least I was dealing with another parent here—that had to count for something. None of this was ideal, but he would, at the very least, understand where I was coming from.
“It was my son’s school,” I admitted. “He’s not well. Seems like there’s some kind of bug going round, and they want me to come pick him up as soon as possible.”
“What school does he go to?”
“Sunnyvale Elementary.”
“Same as my daughter,” he muttered, shaking his head and rising to his feet. “I can’t let her get sick either. Come on—I’ll drive you there now.”
I froze on the spot. This was not how I’d expected any of this to go down, that was for sure.
“You don’t have to do that,” I tried to assure him, but he shook his head.
“I know I don’t,” he replied. “I’m offering. You want a lift? I can run you and your kid back to your place afterwards, if you want.”
“I—I…”
I was trying to find a way to make it so he didn’t have to do all that for me, but I was coming up with a stone-cold blank. If I didn’t take him up on this, then there would be no way for me to get Matty out of school. And it wasn’t as though anyone on set was going to fight with me if one of the stars had been the one to suggest it. This was about the only way I was going to get away with sneaking out of here without landing myself in more trouble than I could handle.
“Yes,” I replied, dropping my chin to my chest. I wished I didn’t have to rely on anyone else for this, but I didn’t see what damn choice I had in the matter, not when I knew my son needed me. “Yes, that would be great.”
He rose to his feet. “Come on, I have my car waiting outside.” He pushed open the door to the trailer for me. “I’ll le them know that I’m going to be away for a hot minute.”
“They’re not going to get mad at you? At us…?”
“They might,” he replied, but he flashed me a grin. “But it’s not like they can kick me off, is it?”
I managed a small, shaky laugh, despite the situation.
“I guess so,” I agreed. And with that, I followed Taylor out of the trailer, thanking my lucky stars that I’d landed work with someone who totally understood where I was coming from.