Fool Me Twice

“We’re going to be a pain in the ass, you know.”

“I do know.”

“May I apologize in advance?”

“No apology necessary. Actually, I’m looking forward to it.”

“Tell me that again in week three.”

Jesse smiled.

“Are you a native or an import,” she said.

“Import.”

“From?”

“L.A.”

“Really?”

“Angeleno born and bred.”

“Really?”

“LAPD veteran, too.”

“Really?”

“Are your conversational skills always this limited,” he said.

“No. Uh, no. Forgive me. You surprised me,” she said.

“Because I’m from L.A.?”

“I had no idea. Me, too.”

“From L.A.?”

“Burbank. My father was an accountant at Warner’s.”

“Family business,” Jesse said.

“Once bitten,” she said.

Jesse smiled.

“How did you wind up here,” she said.

“Long story.”

Frankie didn’t say anything.

“Would take an entire dinner to tell it properly,” Jesse said.

“Are you suggesting we have dinner?”

“I am.”

She looked at him.

“Okay,” she said.

He looked at her.

“Goody,” he said.

  4  

Ryan Rooney remembered the first time.

He had been cast in a hastily assembled potboiler called Tomorrow We Love, which was filming in Santa Fe, New Mexico, starring Marisol Hinton. Ryan was playing a small-town schoolteacher with whom she fell in love after he had improbably managed to save her life.

Truth was, he hated the script, and under different circumstances would have passed on it. But the chance to be seen opposite Marisol Hinton outweighed the movie’s many shortcomings.

Ryan was closing in on thirty. Although the Hollywood consensus was that he had promise, he had yet to score a breakthrough.

He had tirelessly worked the system and was usually considered for most of the big roles in his age range. But now he was starting to compete with the next generation of wannabes, and he was fearful of slipping farther down the ladder.

So he accepted the role. He had no idea how much he would come to regret it.

The shooting of Tomorrow We Love was hampered by bad weather, resulting in numerous delays. Spirits were damp. Tempers were short.

There was tension between Ryan and the director, an inexperienced wunderkind who had caught the brass ring with a short film he wrote and directed that had been nominated for an Oscar. Their volatile disagreements made the set toxic.

But the production delays had encouraged a kind of friendship between Ryan and his personal driver, Bruce Stewart. On one of Ryan’s Saturdays off, Stewart promised him a mind-blowing experience, and visited Ryan’s hotel room with a stash of Shabu, the latest incarnation of the designer drug crystal meth.

Ryan was generally wary of taking drugs. He was afraid they might negatively impact his work. But the tension on the set had made him depressed and cranky, so he paid close attention when Stewart showed him how to fire up the Shabu.

At first Ryan felt nothing. He took another toke, and when it finally hit his system, it rocked him. He had never before experienced anything like it.

After Stewart left the hotel room, Ryan was alone. He became aware that the drug was producing in him euphoria unlike any he had ever known.

He was mostly an unhappy person, and he had been since childhood. Generally, he was angry and insecure, guarded and secretive. He was normally on edge and anxious.

But the drug relaxed him. He began to feel loose and easy. And he felt omnipotent. For some odd reason, a goofy grin lit up his face.

His mind was racing. He believed that nothing was beyond his reach. He felt emboldened in a way he could never have imagined. And he was unbelievably horny. He had a desperate need to get laid.

Marisol Hinton flitted across his mind, but he quickly dismissed the idea as too far-fetched. She was the star, after all. He considered his makeup person, then the script supervisor. Finally, the second assistant director came to mind. He rejected them all. He felt it would be unseemly for him to be banging members of the crew.

He thought again of Marisol. She had been nice to him. Flirty, even. On top of everything else, she was drop- dead gorgeous. And he was feeling so, so good.

They were staying at the same hotel. On the same floor, to be exact. He knew she was there alone. When they first met, she mentioned that she had been single for a while.

Ryan made his decision.

What the hell.

He wandered down the hall and knocked on her door.

“Who is it,” Marisol said.

“It’s Ryan.”

“Ryan?”

“Ryan Rooney.”

She opened the door.

She stood there, wrapped in a loosely tied hotel bathrobe. Her rich auburn hair cascaded around her neck and shoulders in wispy curls. She smelled of musk. Her eyes were wide, her expression open yet knowing.

“This is a surprise,” she said.

“May I come in?”

“Sure,” she said, standing back to allow him to enter. “What brings you to my door on such a gloomy day?”

“I don’t know. You were on my mind.”

“I was?”

He couldn’t stop looking at her mouth.

“Yes.”

“In what way?”

He suddenly took her in his arms and kissed her.

Surprised, she pulled away from him.