Chapter 44
Chapter
Forty-Four
“Eva’s still really sick,” Hope said, glancing toward the video call as she washed dishes.
“She got hit hard then.” Angelica had her phone set up against something and all Hope could see was the flipping of papers on her desk. While she’d much rather have seen Angelica’s face, she didn’t think asking Angelica to change the angle of the camera was going to go over smoothly.
“She did.”
“The wrap party is next week. What do you want to do for the meal?”
Hope wrinkled her nose. While talking about the wrap party was fun, the last thing she wanted to do was talk about work.
They hadn’t had a moment to get together since they’d returned, and Hope was longing for that one-on-one time, which she’d thought they’d get back in California.
Apparently, they’d both been wrong about that.
“Angel?” Hope hung her hands over the edge of the sink and looked at her phone, just waiting for Angelica to look at her.
It took longer than Hope had wanted for the silence to catch Angelica’s attention, but she was distracted and working, so that didn’t surprise her.
“Hope?” Angelica paused, looking down her nose and over the rim of her reading glasses at Hope.
“It’s good to see you,” Hope answered, her cheeks flushing.
Angelica’s responding smile was exactly what Hope had wanted to see.
“When can I actually see you?” Hope bit the inside of her cheek and held her breath. She wanted it to be right now, even though she knew it couldn’t be.
“Probably at the party itself.”
Hope frowned. “I wish it were sooner.”
Angelica hummed, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she went back to whatever she was doing before. Hope dried her hands on a dishtowel and snagged her phone, walking toward her office so they could have more of a private conversation.
“Angel?”
“Hope?” Angelica responded again.
“Can you focus on me for a minute?” Hope waited for Angelica to come back into the frame of the camera.
“Is something wrong?”
“I want to go on a date, or you to come to dinner, or something.” Hope held her breath. She wasn’t even sure what she was asking, but she knew she had to figure it out. “I miss you.”
Angelica’s lips quirked. “We just spent nearly ten weeks together from preproduction to returning back to Los Angeles.”
“Not as coworkers.” Hope shook her head, realizing far too late what she should be saying. “As girlfriends. If we’re going to make this work, then we have to actually be in the same room as each other and not galivant around the world in opposite directions.”
“Fair.” Angelica sighed heavily. “But with the inquiry that Logan’s doing and no answer on that front, I’m not entirely sure how we should be going about that.”
“I still can’t believe you told them.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell Rex.” Angelica was back to bending her head and staring at something away from the camera.
“We said we weren’t going to tell anyone!” Hope raised her voice.
“Well, I was wrong.”
“Excuse me?” Hope laughed. “Can you say that again?”
“I’m not above admitting when I make mistakes.” Angelica flicked her a glance. “Just don’t get used to it because it rarely happens.”
Hope devolved into a fit of giggles. “God, I love you.”
Angelica hummed but didn’t respond beyond that. “The wrap party?”
“I have a full menu. I’ll email it over to you in the morning.”
“Good.” Angelica wrote something down. “And the gifts?”
“What if we picked something special from each location we went? It’ll work with the menu I chose for the evening.
A small lighthouse, a mini cream pie, cheese, and we’ll figure out something for the other cities we were in.
” Hope brushed her fingers through her hair.
“I think between the two of us and Lyric, we can probably get it all together before the party next week.”
“That sounds good.” Angelica was clearly distracted again.
“Angel,” Hope chimed, calling her back to the conversation. “Stay with me for another minute, please.”
“Yes?” Angelica’s face focused back in the camera’s view.
“Eva goes back to Rex’s on Thursday. Come over then.” Hope’s heart hammered. The thrust back into the reality of their lives being busy, without the cushion of having to see each other each day, had been a cold way to start up a relationship. Hope needed to rectify that.
“I have a late meeting tomorrow with Logan. I can try to come after, but it’ll be late, and I don’t know what kind of mood I’ll be in.” Angelica brushed her fingers over her lips.
“Are you really worried about losing your position on the show?”
“Yes.” Angelica said the word so simply that Hope’s own anxiety couldn’t help but rise up in the pit of her belly.
“I hope you’re wrong then.” She heard Eva call her from the other room and held the phone against her chest as she called, “In a minute, babe! I’m on the phone.” She almost said she was on the phone with Angelica, but Eva would have wanted to come in there and talk to her.
Her phone buzzed in her hand.
Curiously, Hope pulled it away to see Logan’s name pop up on the screen with an incoming call.
“Angel, I’ve got to take this call.”
“I’ll talk to you soon,” Angelica said as she hung up before Hope could even respond.
Holding her breath, Hope answered Logan’s call. She hadn’t been expecting this. She’d had her conversation with him, answered the questions as best as she could and withheld as much information as she could.
“Hello?” Hope said as she answered the call, putting the phone against her ear this time since it wasn’t a video call.
“I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”
“You didn’t.” Hope bit her lip. “Eva’s still sick with whatever bug she caught, but I think she’s on the mend.”
“That’s good to hear.”
Logan always was such a kind soul. Hope would have to remember that, because she’d need to make friends with him and keep that friendship if she was going to survive another season—assuming they had another season to film. There was still no word on whether or not that would happen.
“I’m calling about an upcoming season.”
“Have we been renewed?” Hope asked, desperate for information.
“There’s been no word on that yet.”
Hope’s stomach sank. She just wanted answers already.
She’d been paying attention to social media, to the press that was building up as they finished snippets and trailers for the upcoming season and all of the hype.
Everything pointed to the fact that they might be renewed for at least one season if not more.
“If we were to renew, I wanted to get the contract in order.”
“Contract?” Hope furrowed her brow in confusion. Mary usually handled those things as her go-between, and production staff didn’t come directly to her.
“Because of the delicate situation, I wanted to come to you first.”
That meant he hadn’t even spoken to Angelica about it yet. Hope held her breath, standing up and walking through to the living room to check on Eva and make sure she had everything she needed, and to keep her hands busy.
“What did you want to talk about?”
“If Angelica weren’t offered a contract, we have two options—you either take over the show yourself or we find someone else to work with.” Logan sounded nervous even saying those words out loud.
“Leanne?” Hope’s stomach tightened at just the thought, but Josef had thrown that in her face so many times before that she couldn’t help but think this was where he was going.
“No, not Leanne.” Logan chuckled. “Never Leanne.”
“Well, that’s good to know.” Hope handed Eva a new glass of water and then stepped back into her office. “In all fairness, Logan, before we get into that, there’s only one way I’ll sign another contract and that’s if Josef isn’t involved.”
She was greeted with silence, and Hope took that as a bad sign. He was probably trying to find a way to tell her that they didn’t have enough evidence, that Josef was the show runner and creator that he—
“Josef isn’t going to be further involved with Hotel Bombshell. He was released from his position and contract earlier this week.”
Hope plopped down onto the couch in her office, her hand over her mouth as she drew in a shuddering breath. Tears prickled her eyes as relief rushed through her.
“Are you still there?” Logan asked.
“Uhh… yeah. Yes.” Hope cleared her throat to get her words out better. “Yeah, I’m still here. I didn’t realize just how that would feel, hearing that.”
“Relief?” Logan asked.
“Yes, way more than I anticipated.” Hope let out a little laugh. “I don’t imagine that was an easy conversation to have with him.”
“It wasn’t.” Logan sighed. “But it was necessary.”
“Thank you for choosing everyone else over him.”
Logan hummed, but he didn’t acknowledge what she said beyond that.
Hope sat with the knowledge a bit longer, letting it truly sink in that the entire tone of the show would be different going forward, not just because Josef would be gone but because she and Angelica had found a balance.
One she longed to explore even more than she had already.
“I won’t do this without Angelica.” The words left her lips before she could stop them. But she repeated them just to make sure that Logan understood her. “We do this together—it’s her and me or no one.”
“And if she agrees to do the show without you?” Logan asked.
“You’d have to ask her that. I haven’t talked to her about it. I honestly didn’t think about it being a possibility.” Hope scratched the back of her neck. This could be the biggest risk she took in her career.
“She has.”
“I know. But where Ange is a fatalist, I’m an optimist. And I don’t think you’re going to do her dirty over this, and I’m going to make sure of it.” Hope planted her feet on the floor. “It’s her and me, or you can find someone else. Because I’m not going to do this show without her.”
“Noted.”
Hope bit her lip, thoughts flying through her brain faster than a speeding bullet. “One more thing before I’d agree to any contract.”
If she was going to make demands, now was the time.
She had no idea if any of her demands would be taken into consideration, but if there was one thing she’d learned in the last ten years in the show business, it was that opportunities typically came.
All she had to do was figure out which ones she wanted to participate in and which ones she didn’t.
“What else can I do for you?”
“I know that I make more money than Ange. I know that my name was used to carry the show forward, and she does way more work for Hotel Bombshell than I do. Without her, the show wouldn’t exist or be what it is today.
You can’t deny that.” Hope bounced her feet on her toes up and down as she let the nervous energy flow through her as freely as possible.
“I don’t deny it.” Logan sighed heavily. “There was a lot of discussion about that in the past few weeks, and just what she brings to the table.”
“Good. Then you’ve already got a list, and I don’t need to repeat one.” Hope smiled. This was going better than she planned, far easier than she anticipated. “She needs to earn as much as me, if not more.”
“Hope…” Logan trailed off on her name, and she knew exactly what kind of response she was about to get.
There’s no wiggle room in the budget.
It’s impossible.
Angelica can’t because of X, Y, and Z.
Hope could easily come up with those reasons, though Angelica would be better at it than she was. That fatalistic personality coming to haunt her again.
“I’m not going to argue about it, Logan.
It either happens, or I don’t sign another contract.
If you really want me back that badly, then you’ll find a way.
” Hope settled. She’d said her piece, and that was enough.
“Let me know when you hear anything about renewal. I’ll be interested to see what the network has to say about it. ”
“You drive a hard bargain, Hope.”
“Well, I did learn from the best.” She laughed lightly, knowing that he’d understand what she was saying. It felt good to finally have that out in the open now, to be able to share freely with others what she felt, what she thought, and what she experienced.
“That you did. We’ll talk soon, Hope.”
“Yes, we will.”
Hope hung up, sauntered out into the living room, and sat on the couch with Eva, who snuggled up right next to her.
She carded her fingers though Eva’s hair and stared at the television screen and whatever YouTube cartoon Eva had put on to entertain herself.
It might not have been a day where she got answers, but it had been a good day. Hope had stood her ground.
And she’d made a decision.
She wanted Angelica in her life, and she was willing to go to the ends of the earth to make that happen.
They both deserved it.