Chapter Eighteen #2
Oliver nods. “Sure was. And if you guys aren’t too rushed to take off, we have a first copy of the edits to check out.”
“Shit! Really?” Danger asks.
“Yes. Shall we go have a look?” Oliver questions.
I tense slightly, glancing over at Lunar, who has the same apprehensive look I do.
Seeing Danger and Ria’s time together live was hard enough.
Now, watching it enhanced by production effects will be difficult.
But this is what this whole thing was about, so I put on a brave face and pretend to be excited.
“Let’s see it,” I say with a little too much gusto and race toward the office doors.
Ria grabs my hand, and I turn to look at her. “Always you, remember that,” she whispers, and it’s enough to stop my heart from exploding with anguish.
I give her a warm smile.
We walk into the boardroom, and Matt turns on the projector.
Tillie hooks up her MacBook and sends the video to the projector while we wait for the countdown.
My knee bobs up and down in a bundle of nerves.
Ria gently places her hand on my knee, and I chew my bottom lip. She squeezes gently for comfort.
The song plays, and Danger walks into the hotel room.
It starts innocently enough, then it moves to him, encasing her against the window.
I breathe a little heavier as I watch, but the sinking feeling I was expecting doesn’t come.
The intensity I felt between them live doesn’t seem as obvious on screen, so I relax a little while I watch.
The film clip is actually good, great.
It keeps flicking between scenes of Danger and Ria and moments of us as a band, but it’s lacking…
to me, in a way. For all the hype and buzz surrounding this clip, the energy in Danger and Ria’s parts doesn’t seem ‘on.’ We all sit back in our chairs, and as the clip ends, silence filters through the room.
Danger looks at Ria and exhales. “Zaria, you’re the actress, you tell me. Was that…” he screws up his nose, “… bland to you?”
It’s funny. At the time of filming, it felt anything but bland, but seeing it on screen, it’s exactly how it felt. The chemistry’s off. There’s no buzz to it. At all.
She shifts uncomfortably and looks at me briefly, then goes back to Danger. “I think the problem is that we didn’t know each other at all, and not being an actor, you didn’t know how to get in the zone, so to speak.”
He nods and exhales. “We’ve done all this hype, and I’ve fucked it up,” he says, running his hands through his hair.
Oliver chews on his bottom lip. “Okay, if we can re-shoot some of the scenes and get them to do some edits, would you both be willing? I know this is asking a lot of you, Zaria, but if you don’t ask, right?”
I tense up, wondering what kind of scenes he has in mind.
“I think that’s a great idea. Danger and I are way more acquainted. We should be able to get that chemistry buzzing, at least more than what we’ve just seen on the screen.”
“Yeah, I’ll be far more comfortable this time around. Knowing Zaria is going to help big time, and she doesn’t scare me anymore.”
She bursts out laughing. “I scared you?”
He chuckles. “I was petrified of you at the start.”
“That explains a lot.”
“Yeah, but you’re a pussy cat now.”
“Oh, palease!” Lunar murmurs.
I glance at her, feeling the same way about the mutual exchange between Danger and Ria.
“Give me some time, and I’ll get onto the production company.
See if we can shoot some more scenes to spice it up, and how long it will take to splice them in.
Hopefully, we can push it through quickly.
I’ll be right back,” Oliver says, rushing out of the room with his cell firmly placed against his ear.
“Great, now we’re gonna have to watch more filming of you two together?” Lunar questions, and Danger flinches.
“It’s just this one last time, babe. Then never again, I promise.”
She nods and, without saying another word, stands and walks out of the room.
I look to Ria as Danger follows Lunar.
Ria sighs. “Maybe we should leave the video as it is?”
“As much as I’m gonna hate it, we’ve spent far too much time promoting and put too much hype into this video for it to be substandard.”
“I agree, it should be perfect. But, Nate, that means Danger and I will probably be more… intimate.”
“Yeah, I get it. At least this time, I’ll be better prepared, right?”
“Exactly! You’ll know what to expect because I will prepare you, and I won’t let you go in blind, okay?”
“Yeah,” I reply, but it comes out in a murmur over my lips.
Oliver comes back into the room with Danger and Lunar in tow and claps his hands together. “Right, we start re-filming tomorrow morning. Hopefully, we can get the new takes done and dusted in a day and back into production tomorrow evening.”
“So you don’t think we’ll have to do a heap of retakes?” Danger asks.
“Not a lot, mainly just the bed at the hotel scenes. The band’s shots were awesome. The clip lacks chemistry, and we need to find that to make this successful.”
Swallowing hard, I grit my teeth. That was the worst part for me—Ria, topless and grinding on Danger. Having to watch that again, but with it even more intense, will be like my own form of personal torture. I’m not sure I’ll be able to sit through it multiple times, but we’ll see.
I have to suck it up and support Ria.
I have to show her I can do this.
Hell, I need to prove it to myself.
“Okay, will the scripts be sent through tonight then?” Ria asks, and Oliver nods.
“Yes, we’ll go over the adjustments today and send them out to you asap to go over. We’ll see you all at the studio bright and early, first thing in the morning.”
I stand along with everyone else. “Right, well, our luggage should be off the bus by now. Guess we can all head home,” Tillie says.
Glancing over at Ria, she smiles, and I’m kind of unsure where to go from here.
“Wanna come back to mine?” she whispers.
“God, yes,” I reply, probably a little more enthusiastically than I should. She laughs, and we head out to grab our luggage. After saying our farewells to everyone, I put the luggage into my car, which is parked in my designated parking area, and we drive back to Ria’s Hollywood Hills mansion.
“I’m so glad to be home. Being on tour’s fun, but there’s nothing like being home,” she says, and I smile at her as we pull up to her guarded gates, and security lets us in.
“Do you wanna go see your parents?” I ask.
“I probably should, but maybe tomorrow after filming is done. I don’t want to be distracted from the job.”
I nod and pull up at her door. “Home sweet home.”
“Thank God! I need a real shower,” she says, stepping out of the car with a smirk.
I slide out, grab her luggage, and head for the door. But as we walk up the steps, the door swings open, shocking us both.
“Ria… darling!”
Ria stops.
Her mouth is wide open as she looks at the visitor she didn’t know was coming.