Silver Screens and Broken Dreams (Echoes of Us #2)

10. “Love is friendship on fire.” – Susan Sontag

Dylan

W ith filming of Season One having wrapped yesterday and off for post-production, there was nothing left for the cast to do but wait for the big premiere on the fall schedule. There was a bittersweet taste to the end of the season finally being finished. On one hand, I was beyond excited to see the finished product, months and months of blood, sweat and tears finally coming to fruition on the small screen. However, I was coming to terms with the fact that I wouldn’t see as much Spencer as I was used to.

I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I was becoming obsessed with the man, but maybe that feeling wasn’t so far off in the future. There was a kind of static that filled my head when I was around Spencer, or about to be around Spencer, or god, even thinking about Spencer. He sucked the air out of the room and scrambled my brain. Normally, I was focused, I was calm and collected. That was until he breezed into the room and then I was a swooning, babbling mess.

The harsh buzzing sound coming from the intercom near the front door of my apartment jolted my thoughts. I pulled myself off the large chocolate brown sectional sofa that took up most of my living space. Whilst the salary for a showrunner and lead writer in the industry was nothing to scoff at, the money that I’d received from the first season of Amore Blue allowed me to get an apartment that was maybe one up from a shoebox studio, in the sense that my apartment now had a bedroom separate from my living space.

I pressed the intercom and buzzed Natalie into the building. I saw her small face beaming at from the video monitor, holding what appeared to be a very large bottle in her hands up by her head. Chuckling, I opened the door ajar and returned to the sofa, curling my legs underneath me, as I waited on the crazy bundle of energy making her way up the elevator.

“Hope you have your glad rags on, because it’s party time,” she shouted from the hallway a minute later, slamming the door behind her.

“Natalie, the wrap party isn’t for an hour yet.” I yawned, stretching out on the sofa.

“I know,” she lifted the bottle again, “so we are going to pre-game a little before we head out.” She slumped down on my sofa, her black Valentino Garavani open-backed dress rucking up around her.

“That dress is beautiful Natalie,” I laughed. “Are you sure you aren’t going to crease it, slouching like Homer Simpson over there?”

“I feel like it's cutting me in half,” she tugged as the dress around her midriff, “I mean, why the hell does elegance mean you have to visually inspect my internal organs from the outside?”

“Pain is beauty and all that malarky,” I shrugged, pulling the bottle out of her hands and taking it to the kitchen to uncork. I poured us two glasses of the fizzing golden liquid and took it back to where she was still grumbling about the torturous nature of stiletto shoes and the patriarchy.

“I think it’s less about the patriarchy and more that you don’t want Maeve or Gretal to eviscerate you with their talons for wearing off-the-rack or, god forbid, jeans.”

She shuddered at the names of the demonic Guardians of the Gates, or assistants, if you wanted to use their titles accurately.

A short while later, the buzzer sounded again — the driver of one cars the studio had sent us informing us he would wait for us in the underground parking garage. One of the major perks of working for the studio was that I no longer had to shlep it on the subway, but had use of the studio’s Mercedes black town cars for legit studio business. Yes, maybe there had been once or twice I had rolled out of a restaurant late after one, too many glasses of wine with dinner and begged Luca, the driver I knew liked me the most, to give me a hush-hush ride back to my place. It also helped that I brought on his daughter, Nina, to cameo in a few episodes.

I smiled as I pulled open the rear passenger door to find Luca, craning his neck and smiling at me from the driver’s seat.

“ Mi caro bambini ,” Luca gushed from the front, his bushy beard glowing white against his olive Mediterranean skin amidst the interior lights. “How are my darlings this evening?”

“All the better for seeing you, Luca!” Natalie cooed, leaning across the front to kiss Luca on his cheek before settling back into her seat.

“Look at you both in your tuxedo and pretty dress, all ready for your party!” He smiled at us through the rear-view mirror as he pulled onto the busy New York streets. Natalie chuckled, thumping my leg with the back of her hand. It was nice in so many ways that Luca only saw us as young kids, writing and creating our silly show for our friends to watch, rather than the most highly anticipated crime drama in recent years. It gave us a sense of home and perspective that we tended not to find anywhere else. “You look so grown up and important.”

“Don’t let the clothes fool you, Luca,” Natalie leaned across the seat, resting her head on her crossed forearms. “This is just my costume. I’d rather be at home in my pyjamas watching Survivor .”

“You and me both, bambina .” Luca sighed.

A few minutes later, we waved goodbye to Luca and headed into the production offices. The double doors opened into the lobby. Where on a normal day, a pair of beefy security guards would stand post, checking IDs and appointments, today sat the more terrifying couple, Maeve and Gretal.

“Ah, Dylan and Natalie,” Maeve’s wide smile reminded me of a viper’s glistening fangs exposed right before it was about to strike, “how lovely to see you both this evening.”

“And might I say,” It would be useless to tell her she might not say, from learned experience, “you both look positively charming this evening. One might even say you are just this side of elegant.” She didn’t elaborate on which side she is referring to, but Natalie’s sharp glare told me which way she believed the so-called compliment fell.

“And look at you two.” Natalie held her arms outstretched towards them both. I nervously glanced at them. Tall glamazons, towering over us with expressions etched into their face akin to what one might have when observing a crapping baby. However mean they were, one could not deny that they were objectively gorgeous. Maeve, with a whole figure-hugging ankle-length black Balenciaga dress, hair up in what I believe was called a loose chignon, and Gretal, wearing a strapless red and black Alexander McQueen Orchid dress. “I imagine Fifth Avenue can afford its bills this evening with what’s currently plastered on your bodies.”

“Well, as the old saying goes, if you have it, flaunt it,” Gretal chuckled, running her talons across the delicate fabric around her waist.

“Well, if the Sexual Health clinic chatter is anything to go by, then you certainly have something,” Natalie grinned, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me towards the bank of elevators.

“What!” Gretal barked as the doors closed behind us.

“You’re going to need to sleep clutching a crucifix this evening,” I scolded as I pressed the button on the wall panel.

“It was worth it,” Natalie beamed, leaning against the wall, “I wish I had the balls… or is that vagina… or flaps? To stick around and watch her face.”

“Hmmm, I think she would have torn your face off.” I leaned across and pinched her cheek lightly. “Which is a shame cause look how pretty you are this evening.”

She batted my hand away, barking out a laugh. “Showtime,” she winked as the elevator dinged and the doors opened.

The wrap party was in full swing by the time Natalie and I arrived. Showing up fashionably late to a party that you were partly responsible for turned out to be a social no-no, considering the glares we'd been receiving from the senior execs at the party. We had thought they might make an appearance, but from the way we had observed them knocking back the champagne and cocktails, they were perhaps bedding in for the night. The party was being held on the eleventh floor. The partition walls had been taken down and stored elsewhere in the building. Instead of the normal admin offices that were here every other day, there was now a wide open space covering the entire floor. Streamers and balloons decorated the panelled ceilings, whilst dotted around the room were advertisement boards and cardboard cut-outs depicting promotional images for the show and life-size versions of Nico Amore that I definitely wasn’t thinking about stealing for my own personal use back at my apartment.

“If you turn your bugged-out eyes and drooling mouth away from the cardboard cut-out for just a second, you will see the real-life version is eye fucking you from across the room,” Natalie coughed, pushing me sharply to the side.

I snapped my gaze up and sure enough, there across the room in a gaggle of actors was Nico Amore himself. I felt Spencer drag his gaze from my feet, slowly up the entire length of my body before settling on my face. The heat was unmistakable in his gaze, pinning me in place. Unable to look away, the only thing I could do was to return his smile.

“God, I think one of you just made me pregnant,” Hillary Turner whispered just off to my left.

“What? I mean, I don’t think… What?” I yelped as the Head of Operations grinned slyly at me from across the flute of champagne in her delicate hands.

“Oh come on Dylan,” she laughed, “everyone knows you two are somewhat of an item.”

My world ground to a stop. “What? What do you mean?”

“You and Jax.” She gestured across the room to where said man was regarding us cautiously. “Everyone knows that you two are together. You don’t have to hide it.”

“But we aren’t!” I yelped, suddenly parched. I snatched the glass from her fingers and down it in one. “We aren’t an item!” I repeated.

“But it seems so obvious.” she frowned. “I mean. everyone talks about it. You two are always finding a reason to be in the same place other than on set. You both stare at each other when you think the other isn’t looking. Jax literally sighs whenever you walk into a room. You two just seem so obvious,” she said once more.

“Well, I wish someone would have gosh darn it spoke to me about it.” I spied another server and called them over to refill my glass. “I’ve been nothing but professional and kept things above board.”

“Why?” She cocked her head to one side curiously.

“What do you mean, why?” I rested my hand across my forehead. “I’m the showrunner and the head writer. It’s my show he is working on. Wouldn’t it be an abuse of power for me to have a relationship with an actor on the show?”

She smiled sadly, resting her hand on my forearm and pulling it away from my head. “I want to say this in the nicest way possible. Jax isn’t just an actor on the show, Dylan. He is the star. He makes more than twice what you do. He has been an established actor in this industry for god knows how long, and he could basically buy and sell you a thousand times over. We need him in this show a lot more than he needs to be in it. There is no big power dynamic from your side.” She shrugged. “And who am I to judge? My husband was the sound guy from the very first show I worked on.”

I knew Hillary was married to someone who used to work in the industry a long time ago, but I wasn’t aware that it was a show she had worked on personally.

“All I’m saying is,” she squeezed my arm, “don’t get in the way of your own happiness with some bullshit moral code and rules that don’t exist in this circumstance.” With that, she wandered away, merging with the crowd of executives holding court in the middle of the room.

Was that really what I was doing? Was I standing in the way of my own happiness? And if so, then why? A sinking feeling in my gut told me I already knew the answer. It was Austin. Part of me still clung to some distant hope that I could work through our breakup and maybe work on getting us back on track. But my head told me that wasn’t what was best for me at this point in time. Austin was my past, and I needed to make my own future. I looked through the crowd, trying to catch sight of Spencer again, but he wasn’t where I’d seen him last time. I made a move to work my way through the crowd when the sound of clinking glasses and the music that had been playing over the speakers was suddenly brought to a halt.

“Ladies and gentlemen, can I just have a few minutes of your time?” The crowd parted to reveal Howard Hughes in a pristinely tailored Marc Jacobs suit, with a glass and dinner knife in his hand, clinking as the sounds of the room dulled to silence.

“Thank you all for coming out tonight. I know it is such a hardship to come here and drink all this free booze and eat all of this Michelin-starred food on offer around the room, so let me thank you first for coming.” A smattering of laughter sounded around the room. “I just wanted to say a few words to thank you all for your hard work and dedication these past months. It’s not lost on me just how much effort, work, blood, sweat and tears go into making a production of this scale. I know some of you have left family and young children at home with your wives, husbands or partners to allow you to come to be a part of our team here and for that, I can’t thank you enough. The buzz surrounding this show has made things especially hard and the public chomping at the bit to get their first taste of Amore Blue . This is all thanks to the tireless work and dedication of our head writers and showrunner, Dylan our mouths were impossibly close. My eyes tracked down to his full mouth as it tilted up into a salacious smile. "…much," he winked.

I looked briefly around the room, the other guests smiling and laughing at Howard's speech in just the right places. They wore masks of eager expectation, just hoping he would look at them and remember their smiling faces. I didn't belong here. I belonged in a writer's room or on set, not here in this sea of excess and fa?ades.

"Let's go." I nodded.

Realising that my absence might not go unnoticed, I caught Natalie's eye across the room. I nodded my head towards Spencer and mouthed that I'd be back. A wide grin spread over her face and she threw me an exaggerated wink. I narrowed my eyes at her and attempted to turn away from the scene she was in the midst of causing. I started to turn away from her to follow Spencer whom I saw had begun to make his way through the crowds towards a stairwell near the back of the room when her hand came up to her mouth in a closed fist. Her tongue sneaked out of her mouth and lapped at the hole at the top of her fist. With her eyes closed in bootleg ecstasy, she began to pump the fist up and down an imaginary cock in front of her open mouth, her tongue swirling around and around.

So lost was she in satisfying her imaginary lover, I watched in amusement as the gazes of the guests in the room slowly turned towards the frankly adept demonstration of how to suck a cock.

"Um, Natalie?" Howard murmured.

Like a house spider that had caught the notice of the occupants, Natalie froze on the spot, her fist held in front of her gooning mouth as her attention was drawn slowly towards a confused-looking Howard at the center of the room.

"I was just saying to everyone how much of a stabilizing force you have brought to the team," Howard murmured, a deep crease forming on his brow as he glanced quickly around the room.

Always one to think quickly on her feet, she twisted her hand, pointing her fingers towards her mouth and gesturing to a bemused waiter passing around canapés. "Sorry, I'm so hungry," she chuckled, "I've spent so long trying to get into this dress that I can't wait to get out of it."

"Oh of course," Howard let out a shaky laugh. "That's our Natalie, ladies and gentlemen. Always surprising us."

I shook my head, half in disbelief, half in amusement but a hundred percent thankful for the distraction. I turned my attention back to Spencer, who was smirking from his position near the entry to the stairwell. Even in a room full of Hollywood stars and executives, his presence was an irresistible tangible force, pulling me along with the promise of solitude away from the clamour.

"Glad you could join me," he smiled as I reached him, and he pushed open the stairwell door and gestured for me to go through first.

"Such a gentleman."

He eyed me carefully as I moved within a couple of inches of him, our chests almost touching as I went. "Not all the time," he whispered as I passed. "One minute." He darted back into the room, appearing again a few moments later with a bottle of what looked to be a very expensive champagne and a small plate piled with canapés.

"You're not just a pretty face, are you?" I laughed.

"Baby, just you wait and see," he leaned down and said silkily into my ear.