Chapter 6
6
‘Paige!’
The irritation in Oliver’s voice carried all the way up the stairs to Paige who was sitting at the table, ostensibly working but actually messaging with Bella. ‘Oops,’ she murmured to Pavarotti who had instantly stopped running on his wheel at the sound of Oliver’s voice.
Pavarotti had a total dude crush on Oliver.
‘Someone’s wearing his cranky pants today.’
Paige
Gotta go, methinks Oliver is having trouble finding the remote control again.
Bella
Where’d you hide it this time?
Paige
I can neither confirm nor deny that it may have *slipped* down between the side and the cushion.
Bella
You are so evil for messing up his system like that.
Paige
Who? Moi?
She signed off then before another, ‘ Paige! ’ thundered up to greet her.
Smiling, she headed down the stairs. ‘You bellowed?’ she said as she stepped into the media room. Casper, thoroughly at home after only two days, lay stretched out on the couch, his tail thumping in greeting.
‘Where’s the damn remote control?’ he demanded, his cheek kissing the floor as he peered beneath the couch.
Paige clamped her lips together to stop from laughing. ‘Have you checked under the dog?’
Oliver climbed to his feet. ‘Yes.’
She pressed her lips even harder as she took in the lolling dog all freshly spruced, brown and white again, his fur snowy soft, looking like the sofa was not only his but that it had been made especially for him.
Paige folded her arms. ‘I thought he was only allowed on the floor in front of the fire?’
Shoving his hands on his hips, Oliver was distracted as he looked around for any obvious signs of the remote Paige had hidden last night after he went to bed. ‘Yeah, he’s not great at following commands.’
She narrowed her eyes at the dog. Paige was pretty sure Casper understood far more than he was letting on. In fact, she’d even hazard a guess after he’d dropped that damn ball in the hallway like it had been made of lava, that he was not only highly trained but highly intelligent.
He certainly had Oliver figured out anyway.
Sure, Oliver might outwardly protest their presence but Paige knew Pavarotti perked up whenever he heard Oliver’s voice and she’d bet her last penny Casper would be sleeping on the end of Oliver’s bed before too long.
‘The remote?’
Dragging her attention back to the problem at hand, Paige put on a good display searching for an item whose location she already knew. ‘I swear it was on the arm of the chair when I finished watching last night,’ she murmured, tapping her index finger against her mouth feigning concentration. ‘Maybe it… fell down the side of the cushion? Did you look there?’
He glared at her impatiently. ‘Yes.’
Well… she knew it was there so he couldn’t have looked too damn hard. Although she had crammed it down.
Quirking an eyebrow at him, Paige made a huge show of crossing to the couch and feeling down between the cushion and the arm. She rummaged around for a bit, digging her fingers in hard towards the back, her fingertips just scraping it on a second sweep.
Man, she really had crammed it in there.
Giving a triumphant little squeak, she yanked it out. ‘Well, whaddya know,’ she said, brandishing it.
He huffed out an annoyed breath, his eyebrows forming a deep V. ‘I did search there,’ he muttered, holding out his hand. ‘I must have unknowingly knocked it further back.’
Paige slapped it into his palm like he was a surgeon and she was passing him an instrument. ‘Or you just had a boy look.’
‘Or, you could leave the remote on the coffee table next to the other ones where it actually belongs and I wouldn’t have to spend the first hour of my day, looking for it.’
‘Considering that’s about the most energetic thing you do all day, you should be thanking me. Think of it as your cardio.’
She was aware of the dog’s head ping-ponging from one to the other. Christ, she’d been here for ten days and they were already sounding like an old bickering couple. If only there wasn’t that zip in her blood right now. Or that funny breathless feeling causing her chest to rise and fall a little faster. Something Oliver had clearly noted as his gaze dropped briefly before returning to meet hers.
From the outset, Paige had thought undertaking this exercise in karma would be fun. She’d definitely felt it was justified. Why should he be able to jilt Bella at the aisle and just carry on with zero consequences or disruption in his life? But she’d not realised it would be… stimulating on levels she didn’t even want to think about.
The last four years she’d been going through the motions. Getting by. Until this little challenge had come along and… excited her. And not just because Oliver Prendergast was a bastard getting his comeuppance.
Not if that hitch in her breath was anything to go by.
Casper gave a little whine then, like he couldn’t bear it when Mummy and Daddy fought, which was enough to break through the sudden weird tension. ‘It’s okay, lovely,’ Paige crooned, crouching beside the couch to run her hand up and down the dog’s side which he lapped up like it was his due.
Oliver sat his ass down in his usual spot beside Casper, flicking on the television before making a production of placing the remote back in its place. If it was meant to irritate her, it did but then he slipped his hand onto Casper’s head and absently toyed with his ear and it was hard to stay irritated with a guy who petted a dog he hadn’t even wanted two days ago.
Raising his foot, Oliver placed it against the edge of the coffee table. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him barefoot; in fact, that was pretty much his state of being, but it was, owing to her crouched position, the first time she’d been this close to one of his bare feet and lordy they were big . She supposed it stood to reason given the general symmetry of the human body. He was a tall guy after all but, yeah… wow.
Preferring not to think about the size of his feet, Paige also sat her ass on the couch, the other side of the dog. ‘What are we watching?’
He frowned. ‘Aren’t you working?’
‘I can take a break for a while.’ Especially if her mere presence was going to annoy the crap out of him. Bonus points for that!
‘It’s a TV show based in the US. Inside the Actors Studio . They interview a lot of actors but also directors and writers.’
Paige shrugged. ‘Okay.’ She settled back into the couch. ‘Cool.’
But before the opening music had even finished she noticed a little pile of ripped-up paper on the coffee table that looked like the remnants of an envelope that had clearly been torn up with the letter still inside it. She assumed it was the letter she’d put there earlier after she’d picked up the post off the doormat this morning.
Most of the delivered mail since she’d been living here had been the usual array of junk mail – shopping catalogues, sales promotions and flyers with discount coupons. An actual letter with a stamp had been a real curiosity.
Who even wrote letters these days? Didn’t everyone just email?
‘Is that the letter from earlier?’ she asked.
He didn’t take his eyes off the screen. ‘Yep.’
‘You didn’t open it?’
‘Nope.’
‘But you ripped it up anyway?’
‘Yep.’
‘So, you know what was in it?’ she pressed, casting him a sideways glance. ‘Or, you didn’t care what was in it?’
He grimaced but still didn’t look away from the screen. ‘Both.’
‘Okay…’ Applause was happening on the TV as Paige sat forward a little, casting her eyes over the torn paper, wishing she’d scrutinised it closer when she’d picked it up. But, other than the first-class stamp, there’d been no indication of who it was from. No return name or address on the back – that had been the first thing she’d checked.
‘Is it some kind of final notice? Not paying your bills, Oliver?’
‘Nope.’
‘Some kind of survey maybe?’
‘Nope.’
‘Ooh.’ She clicked her fingers as a thought suddenly occurred to her. ‘Is it a secret admirer?’ He was a rich good-looking guy with huge feet after all.
Oliver hit pause on the remote and looked at her like he was gathering patience from God himself. ‘If you must know, it’s from a publisher. They want to give me a bunch of money to write my father’s biography.’
‘Oh.’ Now that she hadn’t expected. ‘How much is a bunch?’
‘A hundred grand.’
She blinked as she sat back in her seat. Holy fuck-a-doodle-do. ‘That’s… a lot of money.’
‘I don’t need the money.’
Of course, a hundred thousand pounds to him was just a drop in the ocean she supposed but hell, if someone offered her the kind of money that would pay off her student debt in one hit, to do something – not of a sexual nature – she sure as shit wouldn’t be tearing up their letters.
She’d be framing them.
‘So,’ she dismissed, ‘give it to charity.’
He nodded after a beat as if it was a possibility and Paige half turned to face him, assessing his closed profile. ‘If it’s not about the money, it’s about what? You just… don’t want to?’
‘I do not.’
‘Because it’s too close? Too soon? Too personal?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not a biographer. I’m a script writer.’
Paige glanced at the laptop, the lid down, no little white glowing light on the side to indicate it was even on. Same as it had been earlier. She was pretty sure it hadn’t moved from that exact spot these past couple of days. All she’d seen him do with that thing was alternate between staring aimlessly at the screen and avoiding it altogether by watching other people’s scripts in action on the television.
The rest of the time had been taken up by becoming a hamster’s personal trainer.
She’d understand if it was just too damn raw still to be trawling through the emotional ashes of one of the most foundational relationships in a person’s life. But quibbling about the kind of writer he was, was something else entirely.
‘But are you?’ She cocked an eyebrow. ‘Really? I don’t see a whole lot of writing going on at the moment.’
Paige hadn’t thought she’d be using something like this to push Oliver Prendergast out of his comfort zone but she was nothing if not adaptable and she would use whatever was at her disposal, including some home truths.
‘I told you, I’m just… stuck at the moment.’
‘Have you ever thought you’re stuck because script writing isn’t your calling?’
He snorted. ‘No.’
‘Really? What if you’re actually meant to write books? Or this one book, anyway.’
‘They have people they can pay, a lot l ess, to do a biography on my father.’
‘Yeah. But not one who could write it like you could, right? The way only a son could. The true, inside story. That kind of thing.’
He hesitated for a moment and Paige wondered if she’d struck a chord before his jaw tightened. ‘Yeah, well too bad. It’s not happening and I wished they’d just bloody lay off with the whole, the world needs to hear your homage thing like it’s the expected thing to do for the kid of a famous dead actor, because it’s making it really fucking hard to concentrate on the thing I’m actually supposed to be writing.’
Paige blinked. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This guy of enormous privilege whining about doing something pretty damn amazing. Something he was uniquely qualified to do. She knew a lot of writers who’d trade their souls – and their fancy Macs – for a ￡100k commission.
‘Poor you, huh?’ she said, their eyes meeting. ‘Publishers throwing money at you like that when you’re all stuck .’ She clutched her chest dramatically. ‘People expecting too much of you.’ Dropping her hand, she shook her head. ‘Welcome to the real world, Oliver. Where people expect too much of you all the damn time.’
Did he realise what it was like in the real world? Locked away in his posh house by the beach with little golden statues to keep him company, where he didn’t have to worry about a job and mundane things like how he was going to eat or pay the bills.
She hadn’t had that privilege when pictures and videos of her had landed in every student and faculty inbox at Oxford. As well as several porn sites. She hadn’t been able to just sit and wallow in her misfortune which was, unlike Oliver , not self-inflicted.
Sure, holing up in her old bedroom in her parents’ house and not ever coming out had been attractive and she had indulged for a couple of weeks. But, as a poor ex-law student, it hadn’t been a plan for the rest of her life. And although she might not be living large or earning a fortune, she had carved out a niche for herself.
Even if she was hiding behind a peach emoji.
And having Richie Rich here sitting around on this couch all day bemoaning his lot was officially getting on her last nerve.
Oliver looked discomforted as he said, ‘I’m prioritising the script.’
Once again, she glanced at the disused laptop. Yeah, she could see that…
Paige changed tack. ‘You know sometimes when you’re having issues with something you’re writing, actually working on something else, something different, can help clarify things for the first project.’
He quirked an eyebrow. ‘And you know this how?’
‘I do VA stuff for quite a few authors.’ And before she put her brain full into gear she was offering her services. ‘If you like, I can help you.’
Oliver contemplated her offer for a beat. ‘How?’
‘Lots of ways. I can be a beta reader for a start.’
‘Have you done that before?’
‘No, but I am a voracious reader. One who knows nothing about your father or your relationship with him so I’m coming at it with no preconceived ideas or expectations. And as a neutral third party, you could bounce ideas off me. I can also proofread it as you go or do line editing. I can work on an outline with you. I can do up a schedule for you to keep you on track and then nag you about it every day I’m here.’
He gave a half laugh. ‘Yeah, I reckon you’d excel at that.’
Paige looked at him, deadpan. ‘I excel at everything .’ It was true, from her law degree to her business, Paige had always kicked ass.
‘Yeah.’ He nodded slowly, his eyes locking on hers. ‘I bet you do.’
It was possibly the nicest thing a man had ever said to her. For a bastard, he was a pretty nice guy. Which was not what she should be thinking or feeling about Redondo’s runaway groom. Clearing her throat, she got back on track. ‘So? What d’you think?’
Oliver blew out a noisy breath. ‘I… wouldn’t know where to start.’
‘From the beginning?’
‘I don’t know how much I remember of that.’
‘Okay, so…’ Paige shrugged. ‘Don’t tell it chronologically.’ She moved around more so she was sitting sideways on the couch completely facing him now, one leg tucked under her, the other foot on the floor. ‘Go back and forth. Jump around. I can help you collate it into something more cohesive at the end. What’s the first memory that pops to mind when you think of your father?’
He glanced up at the trophy stash. ‘Him winning those I suppose.’
Paige shook her head. ‘No. I don’t mean things. Or clips of his acceptance speeches I can go and look up on YouTube. I mean something private. Something about him being your dad . Not a famous actor.’
‘Our relationship was…’ He hesitated. ‘Complicated.’
‘You’re not on your lonesome there, Oliver. Lots of people have complicated relationships with their parents. It’s probably what will appeal to readers the most and exactly what the publisher wants.’
‘If they’re after some scandalous tell-all, they’ll be disappointed.’
Paige suppressed a smile at how painfully English he sounded when affronted. But she hadn’t missed the fact that he was already talking about it like it was going to happen. ‘It doesn’t have to be that but no one wants to read about a perfectly happy family blessed with unicorns and rainbows. They want to know that famous people grapple with the same issues as they do. And who knows, maybe it’ll be cathartic for you if it’s not something you’ve properly processed yet.’
She didn’t have to be a shrink to know he clearly hadn’t processed things yet. Maybe him doing something so heinous as jilting Bella at the aisle had something to do with his unresolved issues. He had after all, according to Bella, proposed to her not long after his father had died.
‘Maybe look at it as an opportunity to work through some things. Don’t take their money right now. Don’t write the book for them. Write it for you. And then decide what you want to do with it.’
He regarded her for long moments. ‘You’re good at this.’
She smiled. ‘You’re catching on.’
A grudging answering smile touched his lips as he flopped his head back against the couch and stared at the ceiling as if he might find the answer there.
‘He had this scarf.’ Oliver murmured eventually. ‘A red scarf. It was cashmere. And really soft with fringes on either end that I remember used to tickle my face. My earliest memory of him is standing at an airport gate watching him walk down the gangway to the plane he was taking to America for some role or other and everyone else was wearing black and brown and grey and there was my father, this pop of colour bobbing up ahead, getting further and further away from me.’
His clear affection for his father warmed his voice and pulled at her heart strings. ‘Okay then,’ she said quietly. ‘Start there.’
* * *
A few days later, Oliver was once again staring at a blinking cursor but this time it was a Word document and this time it was blank. He’d been writing and deleting the same thousand or so words since Paige had come up with this harebrained scheme.
So, maybe it wasn’t just that he was stuck on the script . Maybe his writing was generally stuck. Maybe he was experiencing writer’s block.
Considering he’d written comparatively little in his life, that was slightly worrying.
Or maybe every time he thought back to that moment in the airport he remembered the gut clash of emotion. Pride and love butting up against a staggering sense of abandonment.
After all, he didn’t need ￡100k. He didn’t need to pull in any income for the rest of his life. His father’s estate was significant and the royalties off his work alone would keep Oliver more than comfortable for the rest of his life.
Did he really want to pick that scab?
Or maybe it was just the godawful screech of ‘Frère Jacques’ upstairs that was putting him off his game. Maybe he needed to invest in a proper soundproof door? He was pretty sure even the seagulls that sat incessantly on the balcony railing upstairs buggered off the second Paige picked up her bow.
Triple glazing or not.
‘What do you reckon, Pavarotti?’ He glanced over at the rodent running on his wheel like he was training for a marathon. ‘Is Mumsy getting any better do you think?’
Taking the animal’s silence as a judgement on her lack of ability, Oliver nodded. He cast his eye over Casper who had decided his rightful place in this world was on the couch next to Oliver. And now he no longer looked like the creature from the swamp, Oliver had to admit, the company was nice.
And, unlike Paige, the dog didn’t judge him when he turned the TV on instead of reaching for the laptop.
Oliver couldn’t quite believe how quickly his life had turned around. Two weeks ago he was living a perfectly happy existence with just himself for company. Today he was living with a distractingly curvy woman with red hair, freckles and a great rack, a very large (actually less large now) hamster with a wild Trump-esque quiff and a stray dog who filled up his life in ways that were exceptionally inconvenient.
Had he wanted any of them? No. Would he be sad if they all left tomorrow? No – probably. But, here he was and it… wasn’t awful.
The screeching suddenly stopped from upstairs and he, the rodent and the dog, all held their breath and listened. Was there to be any more massacring of music or would today’s session be mercifully over?
When it didn’t resume, Oliver’s head fell back against the cushion. ‘Halle-fucking-lujah,’ he muttered.
Casper’s tail thumped against the couch as if in agreement and Pavarotti slowed his roll until the flashing lights stopped and the wheel came to a standstill. Had he been using the sound of the wheel in motion to block out the sound of Paige on the violin?
Huh… Maybe the rodent wasn’t as dumb as he looked.
A minute later, footsteps alerted Oliver to Paige descending and he knew she’d be coming down for an update and then looking at him all disappointed if he’d yet again failed to produce some kind of output for the morning.
She would have made a great teacher, he thought. Or maybe a sperm bank nurse, urging masturbators into greater deposits and subtly sperm shaming them for poor yields.
He rewrote the same paragraph he’d deleted an hour ago. He knew it word for word because he’d written and deleted it multiple times over the last few days.
‘I think I’m improving,’ she announced as she entered the room. ‘The bow feels like it’s gliding more naturally.’
‘Uh huh,’ Oliver murmured noncommittally as both animals side-eyed him in a way that left him in little doubt they felt he should be the one to tell her she was not – in any way, shape or form – improving.
Yeah… that wasn’t happening.
‘What about you?’ she asked, sitting on the single chair. ‘Is it coming any easier?’
Oliver shook his head. ‘Not really.’
‘Okay.’ She nodded like she understood but clearly, she didn’t. ‘Do you know why that might be? Maybe it’s not the right scene to be working on right now? What if you worked on a different scene? You know you can bounce ideas off me if you want?’
Oliver would rather eat Pavarotti’s hamster pellets than do that with someone who had no experience with this kind of work. ‘Thank you for the offer but creatives’ brains work differently to other people’s.’
Oh bloody hell, he sounded like a self-important wanker. He winced internally.
She quirked an eyebrow. ‘How many words have you written so far?’
‘In total?’
‘Uh huh.’
Oliver’s gaze dropped to the word count in the lower left corner. Oh Jesus. He cleared his throat. ‘Fifty-nine.’
She smiled but he could see it was strained. ‘And how many words have you deleted these past three days?’
‘Probably about fifty-nine hundred.’
She nodded. ‘Right.’
‘It’s a process…’
‘It’s a shockingly inefficient process.’ Looking at him like he was a mildly annoying student and she was the teacher – a curvy, freckly fiend of a teacher – she pursed her lips. ‘Have you ever thought of ditching the laptop and using pen and paper? One of the authors I VA for, she always hand writes her first draft. Says it helps her tap into her creativity better than using a screen.’
Oliver blinked. How very primitive… And she called him inefficient . She’d be suggesting he use a typewriter next! ‘Yeah, I don’t think that would work for me.’
She quirked an imperious eyebrow like he’d got the answer wrong and was moments away from a rap over the knuckles. ‘Why not?’
‘If the universe had wanted us to hand write, it wouldn’t have given us Steve Jobs.’
Rolling her eyes at him, she regarded him again for long moments as she absently chewed her bottom lip, looking at him like he was a problem to be solved. Like he was Maria von Trapp and she was the Mother Superior.
‘Okay.’ She nodded then as if she knew the answer. Standing, she announced, ‘What you need is a change of scenery.’
Oliver frowned. ‘A change of scenery?’
‘Yes.’ Striding over to the door that opened out directly onto the beach, she threw back the curtain. It had been shut since winter had thrown its stormy tantrum at the beginning of the month. ‘You need to get out there, walk a little. Blow some cobwebs out. Use your phone to record if anything comes to mind.’
Casper, who had been about as inert as neon since he’d entered the house last week, suddenly sat up, leaped to the floor and rushed to the doors, his nose pressing to the glass as he gave an excited bark, his tail wagging like a freaking fan.
Oliver cast an eye at the grey weather. ‘I don’t think that would help.’
‘Well, you won’t know until you try, right?’ She slid a hand to her hip and stared him down like he was being truly recalcitrant now and she was on her last nerve. ‘Don’t look at it as trying to write your book. Just, take the dog for a walk.’ Casper barked again. ‘Throw a ball for a while. You never know what might shake loose.’
And therein lay the problem. Oliver wasn’t sure he was ready for what might shake loose. He had no doubt that writing his father’s biography was something he was capable of doing. He just wasn’t convinced he should do it.
It had been eighteen months and he didn’t think that was enough distance to go poking at all the old bruises.
‘I might be recognised.’
She eyed him like he was being a total twat which, of course, he was, but him going out there to confront stuff felt a little too emotionally perilous.
Swivelling her head, Paige peered out of the smoky glass of the sliding door. ‘There’s three people out there. Wear a beanie. You’ll be fine.’
Oliver glanced at Casper, who wagged his tail furiously. He was clearly going to be no back-up. Flicking his gaze to Pavarotti for some solidarity, Oliver was confronted with a shit ton of hamster judgement. He quirked an eyebrow at the rodent. Really , dude? Criticism from someone addicted to Dib Dabs?
‘You should get out anyway,’ Paige mused, breaking into the mental telepathy between him and the hamster. ‘Stay indoors much longer you’ll be paler than Casper.’
Looking at the frigid jade of the ocean, Oliver figured the only thing he was at real risk of was freezing his bollocks off but at least outside he’d be free from the judgement of an obese hamster and a woman who was looking at him like he was a complete wastrel.
‘Fine,’ he huffed. ‘But only for some damn peace and quiet.’
She smiled triumphantly, completely unconcerned by his annoyance. ‘Whatever works.’