Chapter 5
I wait for Hayden outside the Skroll offices on Monday morning. We’re deep in one of LA’s surprisingly hot winter weeks. The apartment I share with Nora is a sweltering sauna and my lone cactus shriveled up overnight. So much for easy plants.
My nerves don’t help my sweatiness, either. I fan myself with my oversized flannel and sweep my short blue waves into a ponytail. Even my well-loved Docs feel prone to causing blisters today. When Hayden rounds the corner, I realize he must feel the same. He clutches our final scripts like they’re the only buoy left in the ocean, and there’s none of the loose, easy composure I saw all Saturday. He could recite the smallest details about the Roswell crash at the drop of a hat and his confidence never wavered; even when I had a fact to shoot holes in, he was a bulletproof vest of evidence and arguments.
“Morning,” I say.
Hayden’s shoulders relax like he’s shrugging off a heavy backpack. Some part of him settles when he sees me, and I wonder why that is. Could he really trust me already?
“Hey.”
There’s still strain in his voice that confirms my suspicions. I am so drawn to those bold and bright moments he has, like a conspiratorial teakettle, spewing odd facts in that confident, deep lull. He’s open and authentic in ways few people are, but today, it feels like he’s been taken off the burner.
I tap my badge and let him inside, offering a reassuring smile. As his producer, he should know I am excited about what we’re going to create together, even if I’m a little terrified too. He follows, eyeing the open-concept floorplan from the foosball tables to the cupcake vending machines.
“It looks like a see-through iPhone case in here.”
I smirk. “All this money and they can’t afford opaque walls.”
“If only Area 51 had the same mindset,” he mutters, thinking I can’t hear it. I can’t help but smile, but I hope he doesn’t notice. Upstairs in studio three, Nora, Jamie, and I have spent the morning building our set. Thanks to next-day delivery and a few art prints Hayden sent me (sketches of something called a Wendigo, newspaper clippings about flying saucers, an annotated map of the US with different “critters” marked on it), we’ve created the perfect monster-hunting lair.
As we enter, Jamie scowls, ever the film kid, adjusting the lights on our camera. “It’s dimly lit, which is honestly a bit of a pain in the ass. It looks like we’ve relegated the conspiracy theorist to the broom closet.”
“It’s a creative choice. I personally like the broom closet aesthetic,” Nora remarks as we enter.
Hayden surveys the set, from the pictures hanging on the wall to the large wooden desk he’ll sit behind with a stack of books on one side and a fake cast of a Bigfoot print we’d found online.
“This looks good.” There’s a small smile tugging at his lips.
Nora whips around, nearly colliding with Hayden, and grins.
“Hi, I’m Nora,” she says. His height feels particularly staggering beside her. They exchange brief pleasantries and compliment each other’s tattoos, but when Jamie guides Hayden behind the desk to test our sound and lighting, Nora turns to me. “I should start watching late-night conspiracy theory shows.”
“Now,” Jamie orders, keeping one eye fixed on his computer and the other on the camera screen in front of him, “say a few words from the script.”
“Wait,” Nora interrupts, “he’s looking kind of dewy.”
“Dewy?” Hayden asks. “What does ‘dewy’ mean?”
“It’s a makeup thing,” I assure him. “Don’t worry about it.”
Nora hops onto the desk and fishes some setting powder from her bag, dabbing Hayden’s cheekbones and forehead. I catch myself wondering how soft his skin is or how good he smells up close, but I know a touch that simple and intimate would set my skin on fire.
“I bet they don’t do your makeup in podcasting,” she teases.
“No,” Hayden agrees, “they do not.”
“Now we’re good.”
We test our sound levels, and when Jamie shouts “Action!” Hayden clears his throat, and his eyes crash down to his script like a UFO in Roswell.
“In the summer of 1947, something crashed in the New Mexico desert that’s been baffling the world ever since.”
He sounds good, like a modern-day Orson Welles…but Orson Welles also knew when to look at the camera. Hayden narrates the intro we’d written together with ease on the oral front, but he’s getting an F in the “presentation” column of the public speaking rubric.
“Whether it was a weather balloon, or something out of this world, the answers are still Out There somewhere. On the premiere episode of The Out There , we investigate the crash at Roswell and how the US learned that you can’t pull a no-take-backsies, especially when it comes to aliens.”
“He didn’t look up at the camera at all,” Jamie whispers as Hayden continues into the body of the script. Nora elbows him in the side. “He didn’t .”
“He’s nervous,” I snap. “This is new for him.”
But Jamie’s right. It’s possible that Hayden can’t carry a web series the way he carries his podcast. I’d been so confident based off what I saw on TV, I knew he’d deliver here, too. He’s charismatic and relatable and has a way of telling stories. I try to remind myself, before I panic, that this is his first take. It’s my job to believe in him.
“Cut!” I call.
By the look on Hayden’s face, he already knows. Shame weighs in each of his movements and he sinks into hiding behind his hair and glasses.
“It was bad, wasn’t it?”
“No,” I lie.
“You don’t have to lie. It was bad.”
“You need to rely on your script less. You know what you’re talking about. I know you do.” He sighs, crossing his arms in front of his chest. Again, the confidence is gone.
“Hallie, I don’t think I am cut out to be on camera. I told you. That’s not my area of expertise.” Hayden’s voice picks up like he’s being played on one point five speed.
“You did it just fine on Cosmic Conspiracies. ”
“Yeah,” he agrees, “but there was a guy there asking me questions! I just had to answer. I hardly knew they were filming me. Besides, I was not the headliner of that episode.”
I sit on the side of the table in front of him. With his height, we’re nearly eye level, and I hold his gaze. He swallows, looking at my leg just inches away from his fingertips, the slivers of brown in his bright green eyes clearer than ever in the studio lights. I smell his sharp cologne and, this close, I can see a tiny scar above his right eyebrow, usually hidden by his hair. I’m fighting every urge to nudge my knee closer to his hand just to know what his touch feels like.
Reality snaps me back when I remember we’re working together. Feelings between coworkers and colleagues are bound to end in mess somehow. I learned the hard way with Cade. I nudge my leg away, creating space between us that I know needs to exist.
“You were to me,” I say. The tightness in his throat loosens and his shoulders relax. “You spent an afternoon lecturing me about all the different cryptids and conspiracy theories out there. You made me—someone who does not believe in any of this—still want to work with you. You convinced me .”
His head shoots up with a look in his eyes that screams “gotcha!” “That it’s all real?”
My first thought—horrifyingly enough—is that none of this is real. I read a few articles about Simulation Theory the other night after he pitched it as a potential episode, and it almost slips out of my mouth.
“ No , that you have this in you. I don’t believe in any of this stuff. But I believe in you .”
He chews on the words for a moment before clearing his throat. “I feel really sweaty.”
Hayden clutches the collar of his shirt and fans himself. I catch peeks of tattoos on his chest, and I suddenly feel sweaty, too. Something about Hayden lights parts of me on fire I didn’t think I could ever ignite again.
“That’s okay. It happens in front of the cameras. These lights are hot.”
“Right.”
The world is full of mediocre men who never doubt themselves or their talent. Hell, Skroll employs a bunch of them. But Hayden has talent, and as his producer, it’s my job to clear the clouds of doubt he’s feeling.
“Remember, I’m just behind the camera. You can focus on me.” His gaze shifts up as I continue. His Adam’s apple bobs, and he studies me, eyes tracking from the desk over my hips and the rest of my body. Usually, an exploratory gaze would piss me off, but I like it when it’s Hayden doing it, even if I shouldn’t. “Tell it to me. Pretend it’s just us talking in your living room.”
“Okay, I can do that,” Hayden says.
I step away, taking my place beside Jamie. Hayden takes a few deep breaths and finally looks up at the camera.
“In the summer of 1947, something crashed in the New Mexico desert that’s been baffling the world ever since.”
Several hours later, we’ve recorded half the episode, and I’m not sure any of it is usable.
Hayden is better when he recites the script to me, but he’s still nothing like the charismatic host he is behind the mic. With each disappointing take, his energy level wanes, and he knows as well as we do how this is going.
“We’ll break for lunch,” I say. “All of you come back in an hour.”
Nora and Jamie shut off the equipment and head for the kitchen and the weekly catered meals. Hayden lingers behind, flipping through his script in defeat. His shoulders sink, and he tears little fringes into his pages.
“You okay?”
“This is a disaster. I’m…I’m sorry. I really thought I could do this, but it’s not that easy. I’m better when I can hide behind something. I just…You took a chance on me, and I’m blowing it. I was your shot at a show.” His words hang heavy in his eyes. “God, and Nora and Jamie must think I’m an idiot. Like, where’d you find this guy?”
“Late-night TV. And not the fun talk-show kind,” I tease.
He glances up with a weak smile.
“Lunch break goes for you, too. We’ll come back in a bit and keep at it. You just have to get used to it.”
“I don’t have the time to get used to it. You’ve got a deadline to hit,” he reminds me, as if I don’t already know. I started sweating at the second take and haven’t stopped. My bra is tragically sticky, and my Apple Watch has sent me two high heart rate notifications in the past hour.
“Trust me, I know. But we can spare an hour for you to relax before we get back to work, huh?”
His fingers rake through his dark hair, he rubs the bridge of his nose, and he finally stands. “Okay. I’m going to go take a walk or something. Clear my head.”
Hayden slides out from behind the table and fumbles for his backpack, leaving me with just silence, doubt, and his marked-up scripts still resting on the table. My job at Skroll depends on how good he is, but I know what it’s like to have someone holding something over my head. I can’t do that to him. I plan to do my job well for both of us, not just myself.
This show is going to be a fucking hit, even if it kills me.