Page 18 of Lights, Camera, Love

I stroll past the packed booths lining the wall of the Italian eatery, my eyes snagging on two boys fighting over a last slice of greasy pizza.

The younger kid smacks the older one on the back of the neck, and the woman sitting opposite snatches his wrist and hisses a reprimand in his wide-eyed face.

Rewind time by a couple of decades and take the drugs out of my mother’s hands, and me and Jace could’ve been those boys.

I watch the brothers elbow each other, the younger one breaking out into convulsive laughter, and I glance away, ignoring the blade jammed in my chest. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

I used to go whole months without thinking of Jace, and all of a sudden, I feel a sharp pang in my torso every time I see a pair of boys.

You could set your clock by the ever-reliable Mike, and there he is—in the last booth, hunched over his phone. His eyes spring from his screen to my face, and he lifts off the seat to wrap a solid arm around me, giving my shoulder a pat.

‘You planning to eat?’ I ask as I slide onto the sticky vinyl bench across from him.

‘Nah, just having a tea,’ he says, pulling off his glasses and tucking them inside the pocket of his faded flannel shirt. ‘I’m trying that intermittent fasting thing everyone keeps harping on about. I’m not more energetic or sleeping better yet, but I’m fucking hungry.’

I chuckle and fold open one of the plastic menus. ‘Precisely why it’s not for me.’

My eyes roam across the overwhelming selection of pizzas and pastas before I clap the menu shut. I can’t eat in front of this guy while he’s starving. He’s been too good to me.

We flag down a server and order—a flat white for me and an Earl Grey for Mike—and he sits forward, setting his crinkly, warm-brown eyes on me. ‘So, how are things?’

Such a casual question, yet I don’t know how to answer it.

‘Still really busy with the movie,’ is what I decide on. I bring Mike up to speed on the shoot, telling him how Buzz is trying to prove to the world, and undoubtedly himself, that he’s as creatively gifted as his legendary uncle. ‘Except he’s failing,’ I add. ‘Spectacularly.’

A smile tilts Mike’s lips. ‘I’m gonna need some examples of that.’

God, where do I even start? ‘He does a diabolical number of takes for every shot, even though each one is exactly the same. He’s got half-naked female extras lingering in the background when there’s zero need for them.

Yesterday, he shot a scene through the reflection of a windowpane, and after that, when he was filming the two leads having a deep conversation, he directed them to stare straight ahead instead of at each other. For what reason? Nobody knows.’

Mike snort-laughs as a server sets down our steaming cups. ‘It’s good to have you back, Kye.’

I just pass him a contained smile because the expected response would be, ‘It’s good to be back’, but I can’t seem to make those words leave my lips. I was feeling good about being back until I found out that Jace is now living twelve kilometres from my apartment.

Is living the right word to describe someone who’s locked up in prison? Being incarcerated? Institutionalised?

Mike wrenches me off this thought train by catching me up on how his lovely wife and teenage boys are doing. He then turns silent and draws in a breath. ‘I know we’re here for our usual catch-up, but there’s something I’ve been waiting to talk to you about.’

‘Yeah?’ I lift my drink to my lips.

He grips his mug with both hands. ‘A new position has opened up at Angel Care. Senior communications and publicity manager for the foster care division. The thing is, it’s based in Melbourne. Do you think you’d be interested in it?’

My spine straightens. Now and then, over the years, I have wondered what it might be like to leave the cutthroat entertainment industry for something more charitable, like helping kids in foster care. But I’ve never seriously considered it.

‘This sort of role doesn’t come up very often there,’ Mike goes on. ‘So, I think you should give it some real thought. It’s mostly publicity and marketing. Trying to get more people in the community to sign up as foster carers. Social media stuff, partnerships, fundraising—’

Reality snaps me out of the fantasy, and I shake my head before he can even finish. ‘Mike, you know I can’t. I appreciate you thinking of me, I really do, but I’m still tied up in this gig with Austin. At least until this film is done and we see how it goes.’

He plants his fingers on the table. ‘If the job with Austin is something you enjoy and want to do, no one will support that more than me. But Kye, I don’t think that’s why you’re doing it.

’ His knowing eyes drill into my own. ‘I think that Austin’s guilted you into this job because of what happened.

And I assume he’s still planning on heading back to the States after this movie is over.

Didn’t you tell me not that long ago that you weren’t keen to move back to LA? ’

He’s spot-on about everything, of course, but the idea of actually going through with it—walking away from my life, my job with Austin, everything that has come to feel safe to me—is making me feel as if someone doused my skin in iced water.

‘I know you think I’m being a giant coward,’ I mumble.

‘Hey.’ Mike throws up a hand. ‘You must believe by now that I will never judge you. But I also know you—you are a beautiful person who has been through so much, and you deserve to be happy. Okay, Kye?’ His eyes seek mine, but I keep my gaze lowered.

‘You deserve to live the life you want, and you don’t have to sacrifice your own desires to please someone else.

Or to make up for one mistake you made.’

Something sharp and tight grips my lungs. The word mistake is a gross understatement of what I did.

I just can’t turn my back on Austin like I did with Jace. Not when he’s finally on the cusp of getting his life back on track. Once I know that his movie is going to be a hit and that he’ll be okay without me, then I’ll make my move.

‘I’m just not there yet,’ I say to Mike, and his shoulders droop a little. ‘But I really want to be.’

I pull up at the address from Evie’s text, my brows coming together.

After double-checking the details on my phone, I glance through the car window at the graffitied, decaying apartment block.

It looks like low-income housing at best—not at all like the place I imagined Gabriel Dean’s daughter to live in.

He really hasn’t given her a cent , I confirm with a flinch of irritation.

Although, it’s possible that the wealthiest actor in the world has offered money to Evie, and she’s told him to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.

Or maybe she’s frugal and has a trust fund she’s saving for a luxurious retirement—who the fuck knows.

I’ve spent far too much time in the past few weeks pondering the finer details of Evie Scott’s life, like they’re any of my business.

‘Nadia’s gonna go batshit when this story comes out,’ Austin warns from the seat beside me. ‘She watches everything I do with a fine-tooth comb.’

I shake my head at that tangled metaphor, deciding not to bother correcting him. ‘You let me worry about Nadia.’

He rocks back and forth in the seat, then hikes up his legs and parks his dirty sneakers on my dashboard.

I set my gaze on him, unblinking. He rolls his eyes and lowers his feet.

‘Here she comes,’ he says, sitting up and nodding at the window. ‘ Mrs Reynolds ,’ he adds with a wolf-whistle. I turn away from him.

Evie half-jogs down her building’s crumbling driveway, doling out a beaming smile as she hurries to the car in a pair of lavender pants and a crisp white shirt.

She radiates warmth and light—a firefly emerging from the darkness of its pupa.

I swallow against my taut throat as she climbs into the back seat.

I asked Austin to give her the front, of course, but it was no good: ‘I’ve got longer legs, man,’ he protested. ‘It’s like you don’t give a shit.’

‘Thanks for picking me up,’ Evie says, a little breathless, as she tucks a loose wave of chestnut hair behind one ear. Her eyes meet mine in the mirror.

‘My pleasure,’ I reply in a murmur, and her gaze flashes down.

The memory of what she said to me outside the dance school slams back into my head. I’ve barely stopped thinking about it.

You have the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. It’s actually ridiculous how stunning it is.

I have to bite down on my bottom lip to stop my face from flushing.

Evie shifts forward on the leather seat to curl her fingers around Austin’s shoulder. He covers her hand with his as they smile a ‘hello’ to each other.

I throw the car into gear and pull out onto the road. Jesus, Kye, she touched his shoulder, not crushed her mouth to his like she needs his breath to live. Get a grip.

I go over the fake-dating plan again while we make the short drive across town to a gourmet supermarket that’s a regular haunt of local celebrities.

‘The photographers have already been tipped off, so they should be there when we arrive,’ I say. ‘Because the shop is always busy inside and it’ll be hard to get clear shots, all the action should happen in the carpark.’

‘Act-shawwwn,’ Austin sings, before breaking into the disco song ‘I Love the Nightlife’, his shoulders doing a little shimmy. ‘What exactly do you mean by “action”, though, bro?’ he grins.

‘Just stroll into the supermarket looking like a couple,’ I explain.

‘You don’t need to be making out like rabid teenagers, but put an arm around Evie, hold her hand, maybe give her a kiss on the temple.

’ A mental image of me burying my own mouth in Evie’s hair makes a splash of warmth wash over my skin.

‘Aw, no making out?’ Austin whines. He twists around to wink at Evie, who bites into one of those nails she loves to chomp on.

You’re a bitey little thing. I wonder what those teeth would feel like digging into my bottom lip.