Chapter 24
Violet
It had been four days since Finn had made his surprise request for a date, and Violet was still adjusting to this new reality.
On Saturday, when they left Hampshire, Violet hadn’t worried too much about their Friday night together.
Along with most of the crew, she had slept part of the way home on the coach and, when she was awake, she was more concerned with her splitting headache and stocking up on paracetamol and carbs at the service stations they stopped at.
She had no energy left to worry about what that night meant.
So, when she woke up on Sunday morning after nine hours’ sleep in her own bed, it hit her like a freight train of anxiety.
She hid under the duvet, but the thoughts followed her.
Dragging her weary body out of bed, she went for a walk, then to the supermarket, but they followed her there too.
Was Finn regretting it? Was he embarrassed?
Was he laughing about it? Was it going to be awkward at work? Does anyone else know?
Oh my god—does anyone else know?!
Were they seen? Would she be disciplined? Would she be fired? Does anyone else know? If he hasn’t messaged, is that because he’s wishing it never happened?
Does anyone else know?!
And then her mind would interrupt the onslaught of questions with a memory of that first kiss, of how she felt in his arms, of how it felt when he picked her up and pinned her against the side of the lift.
She stood in front of the frozen peas at the supermarket for two full minutes, remembering how he wrapped his body around hers before they fell asleep, one arm tightly around her, folding her smaller frame into his.
And she had loved it, the weight of his arm across her, the rhythm of his breathing against her back.
The tenderness he had shown her hadn’t felt like a one-night stand.
Then her brain would cheerily point out that she hadn’t heard anything from Finn since he had messaged her with the excruciatingly embarrassing picture of her pants on Saturday morning, and that was fine because it was probably professional suicide, anyway. She didn’t buy any peas.
Over a comfort-food lunch of sausage casserole, mashed potato and ice cream, she decided that she would act as if it had never happened.
Gloss over it, move on, squash down all the thoughts and feelings nice and deep, somewhere under the rib cage.
That sounded entirely achievable and very mentally healthy.
By the end of the day on Sunday, exhausted by the noise of her own brain, she crawled into bed at six pm and watched Parks and Recreation until she fell asleep.
So when she got Finn’s message on Monday morning, she had assumed he was making an excuse to see her so that they could agree that it was a silly drunken night, best left in the past, and they should never speak of it again.
Seeing him again, seeing the glimpse of his chest through that damned linen period shirt, and the way his breeches hung low on his waist made an immediate mockery of her plan to push it down and block it out.
When it transpired that, far from wanting to pretend it had never happened, he wanted them to go on a date, she had been caught between anxiety that this was somehow not allowed and an urge to take him up on the offer.
In the hours after she said yes, she opened her phone three times to message and say it was a mistake.
The third time, she had typed out half the message, then deleted it.
Finn was right—it was just food and drinks.
Everyone needed food and drink; they were just choosing to eat in the same place, at the same time.
They had settled into an uber-professional relationship at work over the past few days.
Although the undercurrents had changed, on the surface they were stiltedly polite and formal.
Finn was as good as his word; he was discreet, made no moves towards her, even when they were alone in the green room, or two days before, when she had walked him to set.
He was so cool that she almost gaslit herself into thinking she had imagined him asking her on a date. Then, just as she was wondering if he had changed his mind, she would look up and find him watching her from across the set.
It was late morning, and they had one more scene to finish before lunch.
Violet had been at the periphery of the stage most of the morning, doing red light and bell, but had been swapped out with Leanne and was now hovering near the edge of set.
It was the drawing room at Beatrice’s home.
Nathanial had heard that Beatrice’s father had a suitor for her and was insisting she marry on pain of disinheritance.
Nathanial stood paralysed, feeling their situation was beyond hope, as Beatrice wrung her hands.
Violet watched on from her spot in the shadows as Beatrice fainted and began to fall, and Finn—Nathanial—caught her in his arms. Effortlessly, Finn—Nathanial—swung Beatrice into his arms, as if she and her thirty-pound dress weighed nothing.
Violet remembered how easily he had picked her up in the lift.
Then he strode for the door before the 1st AD yelled, cut.
Finn carefully set Jennifer down on the floor.
She wobbled for a moment as she gained her balance and leaned a hand on Finn’s broad shoulder to steady herself. Violet’s lips pressed tightly together.
They did four takes of the scene, but Violet stepped away from the edge of the set so she couldn’t see the final one. Watching Finn sweep Jennifer into his arms three times was quite enough.
Violet was on the lunch run, so when Jake came on the radio to say they would do one more take, then break for lunch, Violet set off for the catering truck and radioed that she was en route. Cast meals were ordered in advance, so all she had to do was collect and deliver them.
Jennifer always ate in her trailer, so Violet went there first. Jennifer was on the phone when she opened the door, but waved Violet in to set the lunch down. Then it was back to set to find Finn, who generally preferred to stay in the green room on breaks.
Violet hovered outside the green room, balancing Finn’s lunch in one hand as she reached to pull the awning back.
‘Coming in,’ she called, before pulling back the fabric and stepping inside.
Finn was alone, and his face lit up at the sight of her, a broad smile breaking out the crinkles at the corner of his eyes, and her stomach fluttered.
‘Hello,’ he said quietly.
‘Lunch,’ Violet stated the obvious, holding out the takeaway container.
‘Thanks.’ He took the box from her. ‘Have a seat for a minute.’
Violet hesitated. ‘I shouldn’t. I need to get back.’
‘Please,’ Finn said. ‘I need some help.’
His expression was anxious. Violet saw the pen in his hand and a script beside him and realised he was trying to write something.
‘The studio has asked for a signed script with a dedication,’ he said.
Pulling a slightly crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, he handed it to her.
‘I’ve written this, but I need… would you check it, please?
It needs to be right before I copy it onto the script they’ve given me to dedicate. I don’t want to make a mistake.’
He gestured to the pristine, newly printed script on the table beside him.
Violet, touched to be asked, sat down and scanned the handwritten dedication message. There were a few misspellings, a ‘b’ that ought to be a ‘d’ and two words out of order.
‘I hate doing this sort of thing by hand,’ Finn was saying. ‘I normally plan it out and check it all on a computer, then do it, but they want this back after lunch.’
His right leg was jiggling, and he was spinning the pen around in his fingers.
‘Want me to correct this or write it out fresh for you to copy?’ she asked.
Finn puffed his cheeks and blew out a breath. ‘Would you mind writing it out, please?’ he asked softly.
Violet turned the paper over and carefully transcribed Finn’s dedication.
‘Are you looking forward to our date on Saturday?’ he asked in a low voice.
‘Yes,’ she said, as she wrote, not looking up at him.
‘I was worried you might change your mind.’
‘I nearly did,’ she replied as she wrote out the last word. ‘But I’m on a trainee wage, and you’re paying for dinner, so…’ She shrugged.
Finn burst out laughing. ‘Fair, fair.’
Violet handed him the paper.
‘Thank you,’ Finn said, examining the paper and pulling the script towards him. His leg stopped bouncing, and he gripped the pen. Violet felt every ounce of his trust in her to ask her to do that for him.
‘I’ll see you later,’ she said, as she turned to leave.
Finn’s head was already bent over the script.
***
Anna phoned her after work, just as she was poking through the fridge for something edible for dinner. She had only just returned from Hampshire after overseeing the first part of the strike at the locations.
‘I am shattered,’ Anna was saying as Violet emptied a couple of wrinkled carrots and some slimy-looking bagged lettuce from the salad drawer. ‘That was an epic week away.’
‘It certainly was,’ Violet agreed, peeling back the clingfilm on a bowl of pasta sauce.
‘Did you and Finn disappear somewhere together on that last night in the bar?’
Violet’s head snapped up, and she nearly dropped the bowl.
‘What are you talking about?’ she said feebly, but the hesitation before she answered told Anna all she needed.
‘I knew it!’ Anna shouted down the phone.
Violet turned down the volume to save her eardrums and sat down heavily on a breakfast bar stool.
‘Oh, my god. Is it awful, Anna? If you know, how many other people saw too?’ she howled.
‘Violet, are you kidding? Most people couldn’t find their own elbows that night. Trust me, no one else noticed. I was driving one of the vans back to the hire company the next morning, so I stopped after a couple of glasses, and we’re friends, so I was paying attention.’
Violet hung her head and poked at the wrinkled carrots.
‘So,’ Anna’s curiosity was crawling out of the phone. ‘What did you and the delicious Mr Ellington get up to?’
Violet sighed and wondered how much or little to say.
‘Violet!’ Anna gasped into the pause. ‘Did you do the deed?’
This was the problem with old friends. They knew you so well, you didn’t even need to say anything.
‘Um, yes, we did.’
Anna squawked down the phone in a mixture of shock and excitement.
‘And we’re going on a date at the weekend.’
‘What?! Violet, really? But you loathe him. You were in bits when you found out he was on this show.’ Anna barely drew breath before continuing.
‘I can’t believe you slept with Finn! I want details.
Was it some sort of hot, angry hate sex?
Was it so hot that even though you want to kill him half the time, it’s worth it?
I mean, I get it, he’s gorgeous, but you said you couldn’t stand him. He’s so lazy and entitled and—’
‘I did say those things,’ Violet said, abruptly interrupting Anna’s flow. She didn’t need to hear her commentary about Finn repeated back to her. ‘But now, things are…different.’
‘Right,’ Anna sounded disappointed. ‘Thanks for the details. I feel so well informed.’
Violet laughed. ‘I’ll fill you in properly when I have got my head round it myself. For now, I need to go and buy food because the only thing in my fridge is out-of-date salad that will almost certainly give me listeriosis.’
‘Fine,’ Anna sighed. ‘Don’t tell me anything exciting now. But I will need a full breakdown later!’
‘Okay, okay,’ Violet laughed.
By the time Violet had shopped, made a passable spaghetti bolognese and haphazardly loaded the dishwasher, it was late.
She double-checked her call time for the next day—a nice and breezy seven am—and was climbing into bed when her phone buzzed.
If Anna thought she was getting more details out of her tonight, she was very much mistaken.
But the name lit up on the screen wasn’t Anna. It was Finn.
What are you wearing?
Violet burst out laughing and answered honestly.
I’m wearing a giant tartan-patterned sleep hoodie that comes halfway down my thighs.
I need a picture.
Of the hoodie?
Of your thighs.
Excitement fluttered in Violet’s stomach, but she replied.
I asked them. They’re camera-shy. Why are you suddenly sending me pervy late-night messages?
Three little dots, then, You’ve been on my mind all day. All week, actually.
The rapid and straightforward reply threw Violet for a moment. She waited for the punchline. Watching the screen, she looked for the three little dots that would tell her there was more to come. But there was nothing. She re-read the sentence.
She was on Finn’s mind in a perfectly nice and pleasant way. No smart-arse follow-up.
And now she had no idea how to reply.
That’s nice, she typed eventually. It was lame, but this was uncharted territory.
There was a pause, then Finn’s reply popped up. That’s what you think…
She snorted laughing. Before she could tap out a reply, another message came through.
Sweet dreams, Violet x
She’d deny it if asked, but she was really looking forward to their date.