Chapter Twenty-Four #2
“I’ve never done any of this with a man,” he said.
“I’m not worried about it, but I don’t want to find anything out in the moment.
I want every beat of every intimate scene planned out before we roll, down to where your hands finish, and I want it run exactly as mapped, every take.
If something needs to change, we stop and change it out loud. ”
“Good,” Micaela said, writing.
“And I check in afterwards,” Tristan went on. “Once we wrap a heavy scene, I’ll want thirty seconds where we’re just two actors who did a day’s work. I de-role fast, but I de-role better if my co-star surfaces with me.”
“I can surface for thirty seconds,” Birrell said.
“That’s generous, for you,” Micaela said, without looking up.
“It is.” Birrell’s attention stayed on Tristan.
“One more thing, and then I’ll eat my sandwich.
I’m twice your age and twice your size, I’ve got the awards, and the part has me dominating you for twelve weeks in front of a crew.
You’ll be on your knees, on your back, taking orders, while everyone in the building defers to me between takes.
That’s a lot of real weight stacked on top of the pretend weight, and I’d be a fool to act like you won’t feel it and that it won’t take a toll.
” He set his forearms on his knees. “So understand this. On camera, Jay owns that house. Off camera, you own this set. You can stop my scene, my day, my best take of the year, with one word, and the only thing I’ll say to you afterwards is thank you.
I watched your rehearsal tape eleven times, Tristan.
I’m not going to be the reason you can’t do the work that I know you’re capable of. ”
“Okay,” Tristan said. “Thank you, Daniel.”
“No worries.” Birrell rose to retrieve his meal deal. He ate the sandwich in four minutes flat, binned the wrapper, and then they started to work.
Micaela talked them through the scene first. Episode two, the kitchen, the morning after Jay’s first proper outburst: Ben at the counter pretending to scroll through his mobile. Jay coming up behind him to make peace by way of sex.
Micaela laid out each beat. Jay’s left hand here, on the hip.
Right hand here, turning Ben by the jaw.
The kiss held for a four-count, deepening on Ben’s exhale, with Jay’s arm crossing his chest to pin him against his body.
She had Tristan walk it empty first, marking where his own hands would go, and it was all perfectly fine, no different from learning a dance.
Then they ran it with Birrell.
The hand on his hip was huge. Tristan turned on his mark and came up against the wall of the man’s chest. Birrell’s palm took his jaw, tipped his face up, and the kiss landed on the four-count exactly as choreographed.
Tristan had once kissed his co-star on Bayside Academy a dozen takes in a row while a director argued with the lighting department over the positioning of their heads. In that instance, kissing was just choreography.
This…hit different. Stubble dragged against his cheek where there had only ever been smoothness, and the pressure of the mouth on his was heavier than any he’d ever worked against. When Birrell’s arm came across his chest and drew him in, Tristan’s breath went shallow and every instinct he owned lit up to get free.
He kept to the count, let his hands find their marks and his head fall back on cue.
He even hit his mark with the small gasping sound Micaela had pencilled in for the exhale.
Underneath all of it some animal part of him was freaking out.
They’d talked the whole scene through a few minutes ago, but his body hadn’t received the message.
It would pass. He just had to rehearse this a few more times with his co-star.
Birrell put a good three feet of floor between them. “You okay?”
“Yes.” Tristan straightened his collar. “I’m good. Go again?”
Birrell turned to Micaela. “I think we’re done for today.”
“Daniel, I’m fine—”
“We have what we need. The mapping’s solid.” He was already collecting his fleece off the back of the chair. “First sessions are short sessions. That’s just how I run them.”
Micaela made a note in her binder and didn’t argue.
Birrell walked him down to the car park, which Tristan had not asked him to do, carrying the bag of crisps that he’d saved from his meal deal. He opened it on the stairs and held it out, and Tristan took a handful.
“We got a kitten,” Birrell said, on the first landing. “Three weeks ago. Mittens. My youngest named her, and I want it on record that I fought it.”
“Mittens the kitten.” Tristan swallowed his laughter.
“I lobbied hard for Clytemnestra. I was overruled by my six-year-old. Can’t ever say no to that one.
” He shook more crisps into his own palm.
“The trouble we’re having now is teaching the kids how to pet her.
They see something that small and that soft and every instinct they have says squeeze.
My wife’s got them doing one-finger strokes, supervised. ”
“How’s the kitten taking it?”
“Like she’s bloody royalty. She’s worked out that the big ones intervene on her behalf, so she just sits there looking tragic until somebody removes the children.
” They came out into the car park, and Birrell tipped the last of the crisps into his mouth and folded the bag into his pocket.
“I put her in my pocket sometimes and let her sleep there while I learn my lines. I’ve learned three episodes with her as my audience. ”
Tristan laughed. They’d reached his car at that point, and Birrell shook his hand, told him he’d see him at the next read-through, and walked off towards the far row without another glance.
Tristan squeezed into the car and sat with his hands on the wheel. Birrell was a good man, genuinely, and still the best part of his afternoon was watching him get smaller in the rear-view mirror.