I want the audience to feel like they’re walking with Jaden to this gorgeous new woman. They need to experience the excitement he feels, see her eyes beckoning to him even as she pretends she’s not interested.
My goal is to make whoever watches this on their phones, computers, tablets, holograms, TV screens, wherever, fall in love with her and understand why he almost loses everything to save her.
They need to want to save her, too.
And as Colleen smiles at Dan, I hold my fingers together in the shape of a rectangular box to picture how this moment will look.
“Alright, cut!” I smile. “Back to one. Let’s do it again. That was great, everyone. If you can do that again you’ll make me a very happy man.”
“A happy Max,” Mike corrects me, inspires laughter.
Grinning I wave them to silence. “Come on, time is money.”
A few roll their eyes, “Don’t we know it!”
“That’s right, you’ve all been here. Let’s do this!”
The hours fly by. We grab all the best moments from every angle. His hand close up as he touches Marnie’s face. Her eyes as she reacts. A couple guests glancing over with curiosity. Even his legs walking to her, and her heels tilting as she strikes a pretty pose in anticipation.
Samantha taps my shoulder when it’s lunchtime and everyone files out to the elevator to go downstairs to the food trucks Natalie scheduled to arrive at the right time, before she fucking vanished on me. Crew eats first, usually, so they can set up the next shots while the actors eat.
Samantha waits with me as our cousin’s apartment clears out. “Wow, Max, you really set this up right.”
My mind is on Natalie as I repeat something I told her when we first started pre-production planning. “Everything is organized. Efficiency is key.”
“Yeah, but you really did it.” Smiling from the corner of her warm brown eyes she adds, “Like a pro.”
“I had help. You go on and eat. I’m not hungry.”
“No, you need fuel.”
Walking to clean up after people I lie, “Okay, I’ll be right down. Just going to get this area ready.”
Samantha, sweetheart that she is, believes me and goes to join the others.
I’m alone now.
The quiet is almost too much.
My anger is back.
Nothing to distract me.
Turning on my phone I wait for it to fire up, swearing under my breath, “Fuck, don’t call her. Don’t do it.” But my fingers won’t listen to me. “Dammit,” I mutter as her voicemail comes on. “Hey, it’s me. Again. Just wanted to tell you the food trucks arrived on time. Good job. Things are going well. First day shooting, don’t know if you remember or not.” Rubbing my eyes I sigh, “Okay, call me and let me know you’re alright. Bye.”
Biting my lip I stare at the phone and fling it with all of my strength against a wall. It smashes, falls, skitters across the tile in a million pieces. But I don’t even care. I’m already at the floor to ceiling windows, staring out at Atlanta and wondering where in the fuck is the one person who really believed I could do this?
My Producer.
My business partner.
My friend.
CHAPTER 30
N ATALIE
“Why does your phone keep blowing up and you’re ignoring it?” Mary asks over dinner, curly hair wilder than normal.
“It’s on silent.” I turn it over despite the fact that I want to know when he calls. Hearing from Max is almost as good as talking to him.
“Why not just turn it off?”
Twirling spaghetti on my fork I shrug, “My boss might call.”
“But now you’ve turned it over,” she points out, tearing a piece of garlic bread from the loaf.
“What are you, the police? Stop with the interrogation.” Eyeing me she chews, until I realize how that sounded. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t snap at you like that.”
“No, you shouldn’t. But I forgive you.” She tosses a chunk of gooey bread at me.
With tense laughter I shake my head, picking it up and offering it to her. “Did you drop this?”
“I threw it at your head, actually.” Taking a sip of wine, Mary glances to my phone. In the dim restaurant lighting the glow is visible from my screen even turned upside down.
I stare at it as I chew on my noodles, then give in to curiosity. Max’s name shines from the screen again. It hurts my heart not to answer, and I close my eyes a second as I set it back down.
“Okay, that’s it,” Mary snatches it from me.
“NO!” I reach over the table and spill my wine glass. Cabernet Franc slides everywhere and she and I jump out of the booth to avoid getting splashed.
She holds the phone to her breast, dryly asking, “You want to tell me what the fuck is going on now?”
“Waiter!” Several employees come running as I meet the unavoidable gaze of my closest friend. To the staff I say, “I’m sorry. Guess I’m clumsier than I thought.”
They hurry to clean up, reassuring me it’s fine.
But I’m not fine.
Not at all.
As they disappear, promising to bring back another glass and more food, I cover my face with my hands and start to cry. Mary takes me by the shoulders and guides me to the restroom. “Okay, come on, this way. Let’s talk.”
She checks under the stalls and nods that we’re alone, snatching a tissue from its canister by the sink.
“Thank you,” I sniff, trying to catch my breath so I don’t go full on ugly-cry.
“Who is Max?”
“The director.”
She tilts her head. “The movie director who’s shooting in my apartment tomorrow?”
“Uh huh. And I was working with him on this. It’s his first Feature film.”
“I thought he was just a friend of yours. I didn’t know you were working on his project. What were you doing for him?”
Wiping my eyes I croak, “I was producing it!”
Mary’s eyebrows
