Page 16 of Best Supporting Actor
Beatrice beamed. “Thankyou, Tag. I’m excited to be working with you. Iamgoing to ask you to keep the details under your hat for now, though. Just until we’ve dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s. You know?”
“Of course,” Tag said, although it wouldn’t be easy to keep this news to himself. He reckoned he could at least tell his mum and dad, though. Not that he could hide anything from them, anyway; they’d know as soon as they saw his face. For now, he strove to look serious and professional. “I understand.”
“Good. There are a few more things I’d like to go through with you, if you have time?”
Tag laughed. “For you, I have all the time in the world.”
Half an hour later, Tag floated up the steps from the little basement with a huge, irrepressible grin on his face. Even the terrifying prospect of having to quit his job at the coffee shop and live on air for eight weeks in York couldn’t bring him down.
This was it. This was the opportunity that would change everything.
Heknewit.
CHAPTERFOUR
Jay
The TV Best Awards dinner was proving to be tortuous. Even more so than usual. Partly, it was because Mason, Jay’s convenient plus-one for the evening, was in one of his introspective ruminating moods, and partly because Jay was seated next to Misty Watson-King, a daytime TV producer at RPP, who’d been braying on about herself and her show all evening, but mostly, it was because, on the opposite side of the table, sat Tag O’Rourke.
When Tag wasn’t glowering in Jay’s direction, he was laughing and flirting, deliberately directing his ridiculously gorgeous smile at everyone but Jay. Fine, whatever.
And then things got worse.
“Hello, old thing!”
Jay froze at the familiar tone, an unpleasantly nasal whine he remembered all too well from his school days. Austin Coburn: writer, critic, and all-round shit. Stocky and rather nondescript with scruffy brown hair, a rumpled tux, and fashionably large glasses, Austin looked innocuous enough, but, as Jay well knew, he was the sort who took delight in other people’s failures. Jay’s in particular. Maybe because of Jay’s success at school.
Thankfully, Austin’s greeting had been directed at Misty, not Jay. Misty carolled a delighted reply. “Oh my God, Austin! Bloody hell, I might have known I’d seeyouhere!”
Jay tried to ignore them both, taking a sip of the warm and rather average white wine they’d been served a few minutes earlier. He felt eyes on him, though, and when he glanced across the table, it was to find Tag watching him curiously. Their gazes tangled for a moment, Tag’s eyebrows rose, and Jay looked away, feeling his cheeks heat. Why, he couldn’t really say.
“Imagine seeing Austin here!” Misty gushed a little later, after Austin had slithered back to his own table. “I can’t believe it!”
What she really meant, of course, was that she couldn’t believe Austin had deigned to single her out, and now she was hoping he’d spare a couple of inches for her show in his bloody awful column. Jay frowned at the table; one of the worst things about this business was the way everyone sucked up to talentless shits like Coburn who had the power to make or break a career with a single fucking tweet.
“Youwere very quiet,” Misty observed, interrupting his dark musings. “I thought you and Austin knew each other?”
Jay gave a slight shrug and said, in a tone that didn’t invite further questions, “We went to the same school.”
If he sounded curt, he didn’t care; he had reason to dislike Austin Coburn, and that was nobody’s business but his own. Luckily, Misty either took the hint or didn’t really care. She turned to her PA, who was sitting on her other side, and began badgering her about inviting Austin to lunch.
Tuning her out, Jay stared down at his half-eaten bread roll. It pissed him off that he reacted so strongly to Austin. He wanted to be indifferent to him, to forget every supercilious, spiteful word he’d ever written. To rise above it, the way his mother would. The fact that he still hated Austin with the heat of a thousand fiery suns was so… unprofessional. Sodemeaning.
From across the table, Tag said, his tone biting, “I suppose he’s beneath your notice now that you’re so famous?”
Jay stiffened, surprised by Tag’s sudden assault. Looking up, he met Tag’s glare. “We’re not friends,” he said defensively. “Do you keep up with everyoneyouwent to school with?”
“No,” Tag shot back. “But I’d say fucking hello to them if they were standing right next to me.”
Jay bristled, angry and stupidly… hurt by the unprovoked attack. “Well, you do havesucha sunny disposition,” he snapped. “I’m sure you make friends everywhere you go.”
“I do, yeah. But apparentlyyoudon’t need to bother.”
“I only bother with people worth knowing.” And that certainly wasn’t Austin fucking Coburn.
Tag snorted. “Yeah? And what makes people worth knowing? Right friends? Right accent? Right social club?”
Oh, for God’s sake. If they hadn’t been sitting at an awards dinner, with a dozen journalists within earshot, Jay might have challenged that ridiculous accusation. As it was, he bit his tongue, set his napkin on the table, and rose. “Excuse me,” he said. “I’m going to go and say hello to my agent.”