Page 31 of Hollywood Crush

Mam turned to head up the stairs and gestured for me to follow. We had to get the cast’s rooms cleaned before the morning shoot was finished.

“So you’re telling me,” she said as she turned the staff key in Marjorie’s room’s door, “that you have no Hollywood ambitions?”

She gave me a look that saw right through the embarrassed blush I could feel creeping up my face. “Well…no. But I don’t really know what you’re saying. One minute you said I shouldn’t be going after Daniel because of what happened between you and Dad, and now you’re telling me I should be going after him?”

“Don’t listen to me either way,” Mam said. “It’s your heart. I just don’t want what I’ve experienced and what I’ve told you over so many years to make you turn bitter. There are better men than your father out there. It wasn’t my place to judge.”

I wanted to believe Mam. But it was one thing to hook a Hollywood star, quite another to convincehim that he could find happiness in a rainy little town on the Welsh coast.

“Come on,” she said, gesturing up the stairs. “We have bedding to change and units to dust. And ledgers to fulfil. It’s amazing how many marshmallows Marjorie can get through, she has such a petite figure for her age…”

???

It was in Roland’s room on the top floor that we encountered what could only be described as aproblem. The ceiling in one corner had turned brown and was leaking a steady supply of water from the attic above. It hadn’t been raining overnight and the man who complained about literally everything hadn’t yet complained to us about it, so it could only be ascertained that it was a new leak and that it was coming from the water pipes that ran through the building.

“At least we aren’t so worried about money any more,” Mam had sighed when she had seen the damage. “We can probably afford an emergency plumber.”

Affording an emergency plumber was one issue. Finding one available to come out and fix the issue before a notoriously picky director came back for the evening was another. So with some reluctance I’d called Llywelyn, my best friend and local handyman to see if he could help me DIY a solutionthat would hold off the issue until we could get someone more qualified out to fix it.

“Right,” Llywelyn said, pausing for what seemed like dramatic effect. We had located the stopcock to shut off all water throughout the hotel and we were now stood in a dark and dusty attic which felt a bit like an oven in the summer.

The pipe in question shone under the light of both our phones. It had come loose from a corner join and had gushed water all over the attic, dripping through a weak point into Roland’s room. Luckily for us it didn’t seem to be coming through any electronics.

“Luckily for us, I can’t see anything snapped, cracked or bent out of shape,” he said. “So it should be simple enough. Spanner?”

“Yes, doctor,” I replied. I passed him a spanner from his bag and watched him get to work.

“I could probably have fixed this myself looking at it now,” I said.

“But you didn’t,” Llywelyn chuckled. “Sounds like something I hear from James all the time. ‘I could have fixed the coffee machine, but you just looked so good bent over the counter’”.

“Sorry Llyw, I didn’t call you here for your good looks.” I grinned at him in the weak light. “I just needed a quick fix.”

“Funnily enough James says that too,” he said.

“God, we were better friends when you weren’t shagging and making innuendos. Bring back chasteLlywelyn,” I said with a smile.

“Those were the days, weren’t they?” Llywelyn said. He stopped talking for a second as he heaved on the spanner tighten up and join the two sections of pipe. “I thought I was happy. Thought I was OK with being alone in my little cottage, poor handyman to the whole village. I never thought…”

“That someone could drop out of the sky and change how you felt forever?” I asked.

“Familiar, are we?” Llywelyn asked. I realised how little I had spoken to him over the last few weeks and felt strangely guilty.

“Well, something like that.”

“I know, I know. You don’t have to tell me everything, Tud. I saw the way you and Daniel Ellison looked at each other when you went down to see him on the beach.”

“On-on the beach?” I spluttered. “We weren’t even…sleeping together then, let alone…”

“Really?” Llywelyn looked surprised. “Well, it was pretty obvious to me and James that there was some fire between you. And probably anyone else with eyes too. James was very upset when he started seeing all the news coverage of him with that ginger co-star. Started talking about heading over to the hotel to give him a piece of his mind.”

“That was all staged,” I admitted. “All to sell their next movie.”

“I know, and that’s what I told James. Whilst the press and paparazzi were getting all their picturesof your boy with someone else, I could tell that fire wasn’t in their eyes.”

“Oh.” I said. I was all I could think to say. Because when Daniel had told me he was going to break things off with Patrick, a little bit of me was worried that there was real chemistry there. That a young, attractive and famous actor could offer him more. “And you could tell all that just from pictures of the two of them together?”

“Well, that and I hear rumours of that Patrick messing round with…it doesn’t matter. Not my business to spread the tale.”

---