Chapter Eighteen
Chet
“The fuck?”
I’m in the kitchen when the phone buzzes, skittering across the coffee table and only a few feet away from where Grady lies, naked, sticky, curled up, and passed right the fuck out.
Lucky for me, I think, sprinting across the room, fresh bottle of ice cold water from the fridge in my hand as I yank the phone up and see a familiar number from Wild West Studios on the screen.
“Shit,” I hiss quietly, looking behind me as I open the sliding glass door to find Grady still zonked out, dead to the world from our toe-sucking foot fest an hour or so earlier. I smirk to think of it, slipping onto the deck before sliding the door shut behind me.
Only too late do I realize I’m buck ass naked!
I answer the phone before it’s too late. “Zelda?” I ask.
“Why are you whispering?” she blurts in her thick accent.
“Because it’s midnight here, that’s why!”
A slight pause. Some paper rustling. A curt voice in the background is asking for a confirmation number. And above all that, I hear the stilted elevator music that plays nonstop in the studio office. Meaning: she’s still at work. At nine PM. “Shit, I’m sorry.”
“No worries.” I sigh, leaning against the railing and hoping one of its slats will hide my withered, emptied, dried out dick should a random hiker come strolling along the path two stories below and happen to glance up at precisely that very moment. “I’m up now.”
“I wouldn’t call except, well ... it’s bad.”
I sigh. Grit my teeth. Prepare for the worst. “How bad?”
“As bad as we hoped it wouldn’t be before I sent you down there on this little fool’s errand of ours.”
“Fuck.”
“Fuck is right,” she confirms.
“They didn’t pick us back up?” I’m trying not to whine, but Jesus.
“Not even a nibble,” Zelda Santiago, Head of Studio Publicity, confirms with a wry, humorless chuckle before shouting at someone nearby, “Hey, careful with that!”
“But why?” I press, struggling to concentrate over the myriad of background noises back home at the studio.
“Said ratings had been down all season, and even that stunt we did with the two-part season finale couldn’t drag them back up enough to justify.
..” She rustles some papers, muttering to herself on the other end of the line.
“What did they say again? Oh yeah, to ‘justify putting good money after bad.’”
“They said that?”
“And more, but Foster would only tell me so much.”
Foster Jenkins. Head of Wild West Studios. Producer of Smoking Guns and, before that, the studio’s only other hit, Saddle Soap. “Jesus, how’s he holding up?”
“He’s not,” Zelda grunts over the background noise. “His chauffeur just had to pick his drunk ass up from Harry’s Hideout around the corner.”
I picture the scene and cringe from half the country away. “Ouch.”
Zelda sighs heavily into the phone before continuing. “Yeah, well, listen, I know it’s late, and I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but since I’ve already popped that particular cherry, I ... have some additional updates?”
“Additional?” I gasp. “What more could there be?”
“I mean, obviously, the grand opening is canceled.”
Despite the late hour and my lack of clothing, I suddenly stand at attention, wide awake and ready to fight or flight. “What? Why?”
“You have to ask?”
“Yeah, Zelda, I do. I mean, I’m already down here. I’m on the ground, raring to go. Front lines. The people here are ready for this. Newspapers, radio, TV, it’s ... it’s...”
“It’s over, Kid.” Zelda’s voice is far from comforting, though it’s hardly her fault. I get that, but still. Then I hear her tough facade crumple slightly. “And since when did you start caring anyway, Kid? Last I checked, I had to force you on that plane to get you down there?”
“Yeah, well ... that was before I met someone ... I mean ... these people!”
“Jesus, Kid. You’re something else.”
“Maybe, but I’m actually serious, I mean, you’re telling me Nash is going to renege on his previous engagement?”
“Nash? Nash?!” Zelda insists, with a wry little laugh that can only be described as humorless. “Nash is already on a plane to Mexico, my young, na?ve little friend!”
“He’s fleeing the country?”
Her braying laughter nearly splits the sliding glass doors wide open.
I wince and glance back to find Grady still in the same position I’d left him in, none the wiser as my own little personal tragedy plays out a few feet away.
“No, Silly, he’s filming some deodorant commercial down there while the studio tries to put together something else for him to star in. ”
I sag with the realization that our VIP guest—and only VIP guest—couldn’t be back in the country and down to Kentucky in time for the grand opening even if he wanted to. Which he clearly doesn’t. “So that’s it? Just like that?”
“Just like that, Kid,” Zelda mutters as something in the background crashes and breaks. “Dios Mio,” she grumbles like some ancient Abuela, despite being all of twenty-nine and as hip and with-it as a music video director. “I warned you this was Hollywood, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did, but ... what choice did I have when I signed on, you know?”
“Same as me, Kid.” She sighs heavily. “Same as me—none.”
“And now? You? Me? Us?”
“I am getting demoted back to HR,” she grumbles. “Hence, the movers breaking all my damn shit at nine in the PM. And you? Well...”
I frown, already sensing the answer. “Well, what, Zelda?”
“Well, I mean, your promotion was tied to Smoking Guns and now that the show is over, so is .... well...”
“So is my contract?”
“Thanks for saying it for me.” Zelda sighs. “On the bright side? Your contract calls for a ‘final season bonus’ and since Season three was it, well ... you’re entitled to a generous severance package.”
“Really?”
“I told you to read the fine print!” she teases motherly.
“Jesus, yes, I just ... do I have to be there to collect?”
A slight pause and then, “I mean, it’s not COD, so no, but ... what are you thinking?”
My mind is reeling: the Galleria. Cardboard scissors. Plastic ribbon. Flashing lights. TV cameras. My last chance to do right by the studio and, if I’m being honest, by Grady himself. “Can you do me a favor?”
“Jesus, I’m head of HR, Kid. I’m all out of favors.”
“Still, remember the promo stuff we had made of Nash when he visited the sick kids at Burbank General last season?”
“What, the cardboard cutouts and whatnot?”
“Yeah, do we still have those?”
“I’ll check with this moving company, but if they haven’t sent them to the furnace already, I suppose so. Why?”
“Can you ship them to me?” I ask, wincing in advance at the big ask. “I mean, down here?”
“What for?”
“For ... old time’s sake,” I bluff.
But Zelda’s too smart for that. “Wait, you’re still going through with the ruse?”
“I have to,” I croak, thinking of the sleeping boy on his sticky couch. Of Parker in his grumbling old truck and greasy cowboy hat. And of making sure Ira Sullivan knows exactly who he’s dealing with. “I can’t let Pistol Creek down. Not after how much they’ve given me while I’ve been here.”
“Careful, Kid.” Zelda chuckles before signing off. “Keep talking like that, and you’ll wind up working for the Hallmark Channel!”
The call ends. The crickets chirp. The night surrounds me and, from behind, I hear a wooden plank creak.
I don’t have to turn to know who made it do that.
Instead, I wait until his bare feet whisper closer, a big throw in his hand as he tosses it over my shoulders as gently as he crept up on me.
I shiver beneath it, suddenly warmed by its shelter.
“What ruse?” he asks, inching beside me under his own throw.
I turn to him, forgetting how tall he is as I crane my neck to peer into his big, curious eyes. “I’ll explain later,” I croak, struggling not to cry again. “And I’ll need your help.”
“With some ruse?”
I nod. “A big one.”
“But for now?” he presses.
I smile up at him weakly. “Can you ... just hold me?”
He winks and drags me into his arms. Hard. Naked. Warm. Sticky. “City Boy.” He sighs, breath warm on top of my head. “I thought you’d never ask.”