Chapter Three #2
Clark looks over to him from deep thought, like he’s surprised Jeremy’s still there. His eyes anchor to the other’s as he tries on an ill-fitting smile, “Yeah. Hawaii.”
Raising a brow, Jeremy asks for clarification, “For work?”
“Yeah. Shooting this dramatic action-packed romance movie out there, called Crystal Island. I leave next week.”
“Wow.”
Clark laughs offhandedly, brow scrunched, “What?”
“Well,” Jeremy shrugs, “You just got here.”
“That’s showbiz, baby,” Clark jokes.
“I wouldn’t know,” he responds honestly.
“Yeah. About that,” Clark shifts his weight so his shoulders are squared up with Jeremy’s, sipping at his whiskey before continuing, “This movie. My character is an explorer that’s almost always on horseback.
Production wants to assign me a random horse wrangler to train and work with.
But I was thinking, why bring in some dude when I’ve got you! ”
“Me?” Jeremy scoffs.
“Yeah, you’d be perfect!”
“No,” he shakes his head, “Clay would be perfect. He’s literally your horse wrangler for the ranch.”
“Pfft, he’s here to train Laurelai and the kids the basics. No, I need some real rough and tough experience. I need my old bud, the cowboy, Jeremy Munday,” Clark smiles at him as if he’s just presented the cure for cancer.
“The cattle though,” Jeremy reaches for an excuse to get out of this hare brained scheme.
“I already have someone lined up to cover you while we’re gone,” Clark explains, “The cows won’t even know that you left.”
“Alright, but what about the rodeo?” Jeremy finds another excuse.
“What about it?” Clark doesn’t follow.
Jeremy sighs and explains, “Every year I enter the rodeo and represent Willmaker Ranch. I can’t miss it.”
“Well, when is it?” Clark’s brow furrows.
“April.”
“We’ll only be away for a month and some change. That’ll be plenty of time beforehand, right?” Clark dismisses that concern too.
Feeling pushed into a corner, Jeremy averts his eyes and says, “I don’t know.”
“Your day rate would be twenty five hundred for twelve hours,” Clark states. Jeremy looks back to that smug face, cocking a brow and asking, “Got your attention now?”
“Twenty five hundred? As in two thousand five hundred dollars? For a single day?”
“Yep,” he finishes his glass of whiskey, “Hm, remind me, your monthly salary on the ranch is five thousand, yeah?”
Jeremy grinds his teeth, hating that Clark knows that information.
“Right, so, it’s a pretty sweet deal for you,” Clark points out, “Plus production will put you up in a nice hotel, you’ll get a rental car, and there’s per diem too.”
Indeed the deal was getting much sweeter for Jeremy. He chews on the information, swallows down the rest of his whiskey, and holds up his empty glass as he says, “Cheers. To a movie in Hawaii.”
Clark laughs and clanks his glass against Jeremy’s, “Hell yeah, dude! Come on, let’s have another.”
“Thanks but I actually have to get some real food,” Jeremy says, following Clark over to the bar to set down his used glass.
“C’mon, man, just a small one! To celebrate,” Clark eggs him on, pouring another finger in the glass before Jeremy can stop him, “Then you can go back to your little ranch hand girlfriend.”
Jeremy’s throat gets tight, sipping the whiskey to keep his mouth busy. There’s no way Laurelai’s not going to tell him the full truth the next opportunity she gets. He hates to admit it, but it’s the responsible thing to get ahead of this and be upfront with Clark.
“Actually,” Jeremy sighs and steels himself before continuing, “It’s not Jackie that Laurelai caught me with.”
“Oh? I thought she said it was a ranch hand?”
“It was,” Jeremy swallows thickly.
Clark laughs, “But there’s not another girl ranch hand.”
“No, there’s not.”
Clark’s smile gets smaller as the realization washes over him. He opens his mouth but nothing comes out. He looks at each of Jeremy’s eyes, something computing behind his own. Jeremy raises a brow and pushes through the fear as he asks, “Does that change anything?”
“What?” Clark blinks and shakes his head, “No. Of course not.”
Jeremy nods, downs the last few drops of his whiskey and sets the glass down for the last time. He takes a step back and looks to Clark again, “Thanks for the drink. And the job.”
“Hm?” Clark’s eyes refocus to Jeremy, distracted, “Oh. Yeah. For sure.”
“Goodnight.”
Clark nods, not quite able to meet the other’s eye as he replies, “Night, Jeremy.”
Walking out, somehow Jeremy feels heavier after the cathartic experience of coming out to his old crush.
Of course there’s the instinctual fear of what Clark will think, if he’ll look at Jeremy differently now.
And then there’s Barry. Poor guy will have to take the brunt of the impending rumors while Jeremy flies to Hawaii.
And of course that’s another beast entirely; Jeremy has absolutely no way to know what to expect as the personal horse wrangler for a movie star on a film production.
The stars spinning overhead make Jeremy dizzy with the swirling thoughts and possible scenarios. There is nothing to do now but let it all wash over him.
The moon bathes the island in a pale white glow, Jeremy gazing at the grandeur from above.
His nose is all but pressed against the plane’s window as they circle toward Oahu.
The mountains stand in a tall wall in the center like an articulated spine, sparkly tall resorts lighting up the congested coastline.
The plane’s cabin is dimmed, the moonlight strong through the oval window.
“Enjoying the view?”
Startled, Jeremy jumps back from the window to see Clark. He raises a brow to save face, saying, “I thought you were sleeping.”
The private jet is empty except for Clark’s personal assistant, his glam stylist, and the two of them.
The girls are at the front of the plane at a desk, doing work on their laptops in silence.
Jeremy thought Clark was sleeping in the bedroom in the back - not having known before this flight that planes were able to hold such luxurious rooms like that inside - but now he’s sitting down next to Jeremy on the couch below the line of windows with a stemless glass of red wine.
“That’s my line,” Clark grins, glancing out the window from a distance.
The ethereal light silhouettes Clark’s sharp jawline and cheekbones, gorgeous and seductive. Jeremy clears his throat and looks away, replying simply, “I don’t think I could sleep if I tried.”
“Nervous flier?”
“I wouldn’t know. This is my first flight.”
“Get out,” Clark rests his arm on the seat between them, “Really?”
Jeremy shrugs, “Never had anywhere to go before, I guess.”
“Well? How’s the experience?”
Trying not to search the opulent jet with its mahogany wood accents and white leather upholstery with plush carpeting, Jeremy replies with, “Different than what I expected.”
“Always fly private,” Clark suggests.
Jeremy could roll his eyes, replying sarcastically, “I’ll keep that in mind.”
An overhead ding rings out, a light illuminating an icon of a seatbelt buckling over a lap. Clark drinks more wine before fastening his seatbelt, saying, “Ah, we must be landing soon.”
Following suit, Jeremy’s gaze wanders back out the window as he says, “It’s a big island.”
“It feels smaller once you’re on it. Trust me,” Clark promises.
“Hm,” Jeremy hums softly in thought, curious as to how much free time he’ll actually get to explore.
“By the way, did you get the script and call sheet for tomorrow?” Clark asks, “It should be in your email.”
Jeremy shakes his head, “I haven’t checked. What’s a ‘call sheet?’”
“It has all the information you’ll need about the day. Like locations, pages of the script we’re filming, actors needed, crew call times, blah blah blah.”
“Okay. What’s a call time?”
“Your start time. Dude, why didn’t you look stuff up? This is the basics.”
“I don’t know what I don’t know,” Jeremy points out.
“Alright, well now you know you don’t know shit so go on Wiki tonight and just get some lingo down,” Clark advises sharply.
Jeremy nods. He feels a little like he’s floating down a river without a paddle, drifting with the current.
The week prior had flown by with his regular ranch duties along with packing and prepping for the job - all that start work the production made him do!
And with this extravagant plane ride to such an exotic destination, Jeremy is beginning to understand how in over his head he is.
Nodding along works, Clark deflating in his seat a bit and sipping at his wine again. Jeremy attempts to do some damage control by asking, “So the script, what’s your character?”
Clark perks up at that, “Ferdinand Pryer. The captain of a ship that beaches on a deserted island. He explores the mysterious land and finds a woman that’s been raised there by animals in the wild!
They fall in love while he introduces her to the wiles of civil society and she shows him the wonders of nature.
Then they have to choose between the world they know or a world together. ”
“So,” Jeremy thinks aloud, “Reverse Tarzan?”
Clark frowns and looks up in thought, nodding in agreement, “Yeah. Reverse fuckin’ Tarzan.”
“And you’re on horseback most of the time?”
Shrugging, Clark says, “Pretty much. I mean, not all the time obviously. But there’s a lot of mountain climbing with the horse, there’s a chase at one point when some of the ship crew stage a mutiny, oh!
And there’s a very important romantic scene where Ferdinand and girl Tarzan ride horses down the beach.
The script says that the water splashes up a lot, so they’ll probably want us actually running in the ocean. That won’t be a problem, will it?”
Jeremy blinks, taking in all the information, and nods, “No problem.”
Clark cracks a wide grin and claps Jeremy on the shoulder, “That’s what I like to hear.”