Page 4 of Script
He rolled his eyes. “I promised I’d never lie to you.”
“And?” I focused back on his face, shrugging off his hands.
“You know, and I know, that under the action hero is not another layer where an Oscar-worthy character actor lives, Finn. You’re at the level you should be at—you’re not the type to live and breathe your part and immerse yourself in understanding what makes a character real.”
I winced because this was some character assassination.
“It’s not a bad thing, okay? You’re great at what you do, flashing your abs, looking pretty, leaving the messy stuff to the stuntmen, and it’s made you more money than you could spend in a lifetime. But if Grierson thinks there is another layer, then you and me… we know he’s wrong.”
I listened to the words, but none of what he said meant I couldn’t do this movie—if Grierson was willing to take a chance on me in his gritty piece of art, then why shouldn’t I believe I could do it?
“I signed the contract; I’ll figure the rest out.”
“I want you to reconsiderRapid4.”
“No.”
“You can’t skate.”
I puffed out my chest. “I’m Canadian, I’ll figure it out.”
* * *
Okay,so figuring it out wasn’t going so well, and I’d already gone three days into my thirty-five until filming, paralyzed with indecision.
I wrote a list, checked it twice, laughed at my own stupid joke in my huge empty house, and then it hit me.
Like I did with Jeff the mountain climber, all I needed to do was find an expert in skating, in hockey, someone who would sign an NDA, someone who could make me the best goddamn hockey-playing actor in the entire world.
In the thirty-two days left to me.
We had a team near here, the LA something or other, Thunder? Or Lightning? I looked them up, feeling remiss that I didn’t even know the name of the local hockey team. The first entry in the search showed LA Storm, so I was close. I knew it was something to do with the weather.
I clicked into an article—the LA Storm were one game away from doing something amazing in the Stanley Cup, which was the cup of all cups in hockey. I may not love hockey as much as my bloodline insisted I should, but even I recall riots in Vancouver after the local team there lost in a cup final. The LA Storm—and what a cool name that was—were fighting the Boston Rebels.
Okay, so I needed to find someone with the Storm team willing to sign an NDA and teach me. Any one of them would do, and I clicked on the fourth thing on the list: Hockey’s sexiest players.
NowthisI could get into.
Number one was some pretty boy out in PA, all flicked hair and flirty eyes. Oh and married to a guy.
Gay.
How did he manage to be gay and play professional sports?
I crossed him off my mental list. That would be way too dangerous, because what if he was attracted to me, and me to him, and then we fucked, and he told my secret, and I lost all the parts, and maybe not even the team behind theRapidfranchise would want me.
No one wants a gay action hero. Right?
Second was some kid out of Florida, a rookie who looked as if he wasn’t old enough to shave.
Third was an actual LA Player. Interesting.
Cameron Chavkin, twenty-six, single, and whoa… he was all bad boy oozing with brooding sexiness.
“Jesus, look at that ass!” I said to no one. I clicked the link to a recommended video, one from a previous year’s run for the Stanley Cup, and fell down a rabbit hole of sexy, exciting men. LA had been knocked out in the second-round last year, and there was a video of the team reactions. I sought Cameron out.
There was one image of him staring up at the big scoreboard over the center of the ice and he was broken. I thought he seemed as if he was going to cry, but not in a weepy way, instead in a manly, stoic I’m-too-tough-to-cry-but-I’ll-let-my-eyes-water-up, kind of way.
