Page 40 of The Moon & His Tides
He examined me, not too close, and I knew it was so that if anyone were watching, we’d only look like two men engaged in an intense conversation and not two almost lovers taking another step down the path of intimacy.
“Why me?” I blurted, my heart beating too hard and too fast like it was going to escape the confines of my chest and knock straight into his hand. “Why are you doing all of this for me?”
Adam cocked his head slightly, and even though dark lenses obscured his gaze, I could feel the sharpness of that gaze on my skin like a razor’s edge.
“Why me?” he echoed. “I suppose it’s the same thing you experienced watching me on the screen. I liked the look of you the moment I saw you, costumed in a dirty soldier’s garb with muck on your face and a spotlight turning those yellow eyes to pure gold. And then, when I read your words, I had a sense of you that hooked me through the ribs and tugged me toward you. All the best actors have an aura, this magnetic quality that speaks to the audience like a promise. You had that up there on that stage, and having readBlood Oath, I knew that promise had real potential.”
He paused, dramatic as only an actor could be.
“Shall we see just how much?” he suggested, knocking his fist against my chest lightly as though testing it for durability.
I swallowed thickly, resisting the urge to grab that hand like an anchor, fighting the keen instinct welling up inside me topour my astounded gratitude for him into a passionate, public kiss.
“You look terrified,” Adam noted. “Don’t be, we’ll do it all together.”
“I hate to repeat myself, but why? I just can’t fathom why you’d spend time on me and this project like this.”
“I’ve been acting for nearly a decade now, Sebastian. I have an eye for talent and scripts that have the potential to win awards. Count the golden statues on my mantel and tell me you don’t believe that.”
“I believe in you, obviously,” I said with an eye roll. “It’s me that I’m unsure about.”
“Well, let me be sure enough for us both. And if that isn’t enough, remember that my wife was the one to spot the merit in you first. Savannah may be many things, butwrongis rarely one of them.” He shot me a wink and turned on his heel, overcoat flapping open behind him as he set off at a brisk pace into the maze of warehouse buildings.
“And in a moment, you’ll have the opinion of the great Andrea Felice to add to that arsenal against your silly self-doubts, hmm?”
I shook myself as I pushed off the car and strode after him. Andrea Felice was one of the best Hollywood directors of his generation, right up there with Nolan, Scorsese, and Spielberg. The idea of meeting him, let alone working with him on a script I’d first started as a sixteen-year-old, was too mind-boggling to process.
“Is it true he doesn’t let anyone use the bathroom while filming?” I asked because it was the easiest thing to focus on in this series of spectacular events.
Adam didn’t pause in his quick pace, but he looked at me for a second before grinning widely, all those lovely white teeth ondisplay. “It’s true. There are bathroom breaks at eleven and six o’clock. He expects his actors to drink accordingly.”
I laughed. “I can understand that a little. When I write, I do not like to be interrupted by anything, even my own bodily urges.”
“Hmm,” he practically purred as he shot me a sidelong look while leading us down a narrow corridor between buildings. “I’ll have to see if I can test that one day.”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” I muttered because I had no doubt he’d break my concentration in seconds.
But Adam didn’t hear me; he was too busy greeting a man wearing a headset and holding a tablet before ushering us both into the wide mouth of a warehouse entryway.
Inside, everything was dim but for a collection of gear and people milling around a single corner of the cavernous space. I’d never filmed a movie before, but I recognized the accoutrement of a working set: the lights and rails for the steady cameras and the chaos at the fringes where assistants and makeup artists waited for instructions and touch-ups. The set itself was constructed to look like a bedroom at night, only illuminated by the glow of a bedside table and the artificial beams of moonlight spilling through an opened window. Two actors stood beside the bed, marking out the scene and speaking quietly. I couldn’t recognize them from so far away, but if they were in an Andrea Felice film, I had no doubt they were A-list.
“This looks like a closed set, Adam,” I murmured to him, clutching his shoulder to stop him from barrelling right into the shot.
“Hush.” He brushed my hand off with a roll of his shoulder and stalked forward to a man sitting in a chair marked “Director” who was speaking tersely in Italian into a cell phone.
“Andrea,” he greeted.
Che cavolo.
I was about to meet Andrea fucking Felice, and Adam fucking Meyers was going to be the one introducing me.
How did I get here?
Oh right, I’d tried to seduce a married woman.
So much for karma being a bitch. It seemed to me she was Lady Luck herself.
Andrea let out a booming laugh that echoed through the warehouse as he stood and jerked Adam into a hug before gripping his shoulders and exuberantly kissing each cheek.
