Page 69 of Jace 4Ever
Jace
The goddamned red carpet at the Oscars.
And my boyfriend had just flipped someone on their ass for threatening me—us.
The red carpet seemed to take forever, even after the flip. But it couldn’t have been another half an hour. Mostly Nelson talked to reporters, introducing me over and over. I was getting tired of hearing my name. The flashes from cameras were mostly down by the limos, and the closer we got to the doors, the more they turned into video and voice interviews and sound clips.
I could see the doors to the theater, and Nelson finally took pity on me. His hand slipped under my jacket, resting on the small of my back, and guided me up the last few steps into the lobby.
“You were wonderful, Jace.” He pulled me in closer and pressed a soft, sweet kiss to my lips. “Thank you.”
“That was the experience of a lifetime.” I took a deep breath. “Shouldn’t I be thanking you?”
“Not many people are brave enough to come down the carpet with me. My mother was and every other person who’s joined me has been from Hollywood. Even seasoned actor’s spouses will sometimes skip this and opt to just meet them inside. You handled this like a champ.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Maybe we’ll call this practice for when you win with me for the best original script.”
I choked. “There’s no way we’re winning for Xavier Renegade. It’s a pop-y flash in the pan story. No one is going to give that a second glance.”
“No, but do you really think that’s the only thing we’re going to write together?”
The surprise shot across my face. “What?”
“You think that the only thing I ever want to write with you is a campy action film?” He smiled down at me. “Hell no, Jace. Hell no. I want to keep writing with you for a very long time and for a ridiculous amount of scripts. It’s fun. You’re fun. And you said you wanted to be a writer, so why not?”
“Because that’s not what my degree is in!”
Chuckling, he let me go and grabbed two glasses of champagne. Nelson offered one to me and clinked his against it. “Neither is mine. I didn’t even go to college until after I had made my first film. My degree is in clinical psychology. At least yours is in the realm of cinematography.”
I sipped the champagne and realized it was the most ridiculously delicious bubbly I’d ever had. It had to be Cristal or a Dom reserve—neither of which I had ever tasted. “You’re serious. You want to write movies with me.”
“Yes.” His grin was blinding. “You kept me going on that script long after I would have abandoned it. And it came out better than I’d hoped. I’d love to try and get some other ideas down on paper with you. Maybe wake up naked next to you a few more times. That seems to inspire me.”
“I’m always inspired by your nudity.” I clinked the glass against his again and took a sip.
My phone rang in my jacket pocket and I scrambled to silence it. The number on the front flashed a New York number, but one I didn’t know. I swiped to answer it. “Hello, this is Jace.”
“Where the fuck are you?” Denis’s voice was strained and had an edge of hysteria in it.
“I’m in Los Angeles, Den. What the hell?”
He ignored my reproach. “Have you talked to Marilyn lately?”
“No. Why would I? I left the company, Denis. I’m—”
“I haven’t seen her in two weeks. I can’t find her. Anywhere.”
There was silence on the phone. I knew that, while Denis was generally a grifter who worked dirty and did a lot of payday style loans, he was also not acompletepiece of shit. He was one of the most human assholes I’d ever met. If he hadn’t spoken to Marilyn in two weeks, and I knew she was still on the books for more loans from Denis, then there was cause to worry.
“Did you call her parents?” I asked. “They live in Missouri.”
“First place I called,” he said. The strain in his voice was real. “I made up an excuse that she had said she was going on vacation and had taken her apartment key with her, and I thought that she was going to visit them. I’ve tried everywhere, and everyone I can think of. I finally put in a missing person report yesterday. I just realized that I needed to make sure you were still alive...”
The words were an instant freeze to my heart. “Alive?”
“Two of the camera men are dead.”
He didn’t even need to elaborate on that. I knew he meant the two camera men from the pseudo snuff film that had almost been real. “How long ago?”
“Ivan was two months ago. They found him dead in his bed. Heart attack, at twenty-six.” Denis snorted. “Highly likely. And Bruno was last month. He showed up at low tide in Jersey, no signs of a struggle, no obvious signs of trauma. Their theory is he drank too much and fell in. But Bruno was recovering, and that was part of the deal with his wife. He had to stay sober to stay married. Now Marilyn is missing and...”
