Page 9 of Script
“That I believe,” I said, then chuckled, yet again. “Okay, so how much are we talking about here? Since my season is over, loser and all that, I was planning on going home to Arizona to sulk and make my siblings’ lives miserable. How will you make it worth my while even though I’m the third choice on your list?”
“Ten thousand dollars a day.” Now it was time for my eyes to flare. “No? Not enough?”
“No, it’s more than enough I just…” And here I faltered a bit because while I had nothing to do now until training camp opened—I’d not be posing with the Cup as I’d planned—did I want to spend day after day with Finn Kerrigan? “Tell you what,” I said as three dancers in red tights and wild purple wigs slithered onto the stage like snakes. Finn was glued to the sight. I tapped his arm. He glanced my way, smiling so widely it stole my breath. Jesus, he was sexy. “I’ll do it for ten per day if you agree to donate what you’d pay me to my charity, CC’s Club. We supply inner-city LA kids with hockey equipment free of charge. It would mean a lot to the kids.”
“Oh okay, sure, we can totally give your pay to that charity. Are you going to get into making movies now that you lost the hockey cup award?”
“Maybe,” I answered. “Maybe I just think spending a few weeks with you is much more appealing than chasing my sister around with a gecko.”
“Cool. I love those commercials with the gecko! Did you know that geckos aren’t really British?”
That one busted me up. Yeah, okay, this was going to be fun. Something that I sorely needed right now. And maybe, if I played my cards right, Finn Kerrigan would end up in my bed before the hockey lessons were over. God knows I needed an ego boost.
Chapter3
Finn
“You did what?”
Atlas had moved straight from listening to me explain that I had someone to teach me hockey, to yelling, which was never a good sign. He’d yelled at me just the same when I had insisted in taking the part of an elf called Hobart inWhere the Ladybugs Live, but when the kids’ movie made a shit ton of money in box office receipts he agreed that maybe ithadbeen a good idea after all.
Of course, it was. I loved the illustrated book, and I wanted to play the part of Hobart-the-magical-Elf ever since my mom had read me it as a bedtime story. My four-year-old self adored it, and in my more fanciful moments as a kid, and I had many, I imagined one day a ladybug would find me and tell me I had magic. Also, that I was destined to save the ladybug children before their house burned down.
It never happened—I wasn’tmagicHobart—but I still played a fabulous Hobart-the-Elf if I say so myself. Critics called it refreshing.
Well, one of them did.
The one in my home town newspaper.
Circulation—five hundred and seven.
It was filmed during the break between the first and secondRapidfranchise movies. It paid me, it paid Atlas, and once my agent stopped yelling, it was all good. It was a film my niece and nephew could watch. Even if Henry said he was too old at eight to watch baby films, Lilly was all over it like a rash. My sister told me Lilly wore her ladybug costume everywhere, even to bed, and that must have been insane given the wings and the pokey antennae, not to mention the obligatory face paint.
I’m not sure my sister has forgiven me yet.
“Seriously, Finn, what did you just say?”
“I hired Cameron Chavkin to coach me in hockey.”
“Cameron Chavkin.”
“Yep, Cameron Chavkin. Tall, sexy as a fiddle, with stormy gray eyes. Plays hockey.”
“TheCameron Chavkin?” Atlas wheezed, then went so quiet that I held the phone so I could check we still had a connection. His name was still there, so I decided to press ahead.
“Is there more than one Cameron Chavkin? Oh, stupid question because I guess there probably is given statistically that—”
“You hiredthehockey star Cameron Chavkin to teach you hockey. The same Cameron Chavkin who is all over the media, not only for his team’s abysmal loss in the Stanley Cup but also because he sleeps with anything that moves.”
Oh. Well, I didn’t know the second part, but whatever, love is love and everyone deserves to be happy. If Cameron chose to show that by jumping beds, so be it, as long as everyone was safe and informed. He might be the opposite of my cold and dark love life, but that didn’t matter to anyone but Cameron Chavkin himself.
“Jesus H Christ,” Atlas added, as if that helped the situation.
“I now have only a few weeks to brush up on my non-existent hockey skills, plus learning the script, which is more dialogue than in all threeRapidmovies put together, and it was destiny or something that I found out where he was.”
“How did you even do that?”
“I followed him from the stadium.”
