A Better Man - Book 2
G. Younger
A Better Man: Book Two
A Stupid Boy Story
Advanced Reader Copy Edition: December 25, 2021
Copyright ©2021 G. Younger
ISBN-13: XXX-X-XXXXXXX-X-X
Author: Greg Younger
Developmental Editors: XofDallas and Bud Ugly
Line / Copy Editors: Bud Ugly, TheMikeBomb, Zom, and Old Rotorhead
Continuity Editor: Rusty
Last One Through: Bud Ugly
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
All characters depicted in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Dedication
To XofDallas, for his unwavering support, advice, and counsel. And whose attempts to muzzle
some of my crazier ideas and keep my feet somewhat grounded in reality sometimes worked.
Our Fondest Memories
And to Precious, who put the ’tude in attitude.
Frank Sinatra can eat his heart out; he’s got nothing on Precious.
Table of Contents:
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Notes from the Author
Prologue
David
David had arrived in London earlier in the day because tomorrow would be the World Premiere of his James Bond movie, Devil May Care. The event would kick off with a televised show to celebrate the twenty-fifth James Bond movie from EON films. They planned to have all the men who played James in the past in attendance, three of whom were in their nineties.
They would also have many of the cast members, including the Bond girls, on the show. David had been asked to do an interview on the BBC. They were doing a special on the franchise, and he’d been slotted into the coveted final twenty-minute segment. He had Frank Ingram with him in his hotel suite. They were supposed to be prepping for the interview. Instead, they were dealing with the fallout from their flight there.
“I want to expose him for the pig that he is! He asked me if I wanted to blow him in the lavatory, for heaven’s sake,” Kristen Todd loudly complained.
“And I said ‘No’ for you,” David retorted, peeved.
Lexi Andon, David’s usual personal assistant, or PA, had bailed on him to go work for Ben Cowley, who was filming in Paris this summer. Ben had worked with David on his three Star Academy movies and had also starred in Love Letters, a movie David both acted in and was part owner of.
So, when Lexi called and said Ben needed a PA, David gave his blessing. Besides, for all the work she’d done for him, she deserved a summer trip to Paris. Now, he was regretting that generosity.
At the moment, David also was planning the demise of Kent Crain, the man in charge of assigning PAs and personal managers in his wealth management company. Kent had a pool of people to select from that ranged from a former PA of David’s to others he considered friends. Instead, Kent sent him Kristen.
David suspected that Kent was sleeping with her because she had zero experience doing this type of work. Kristen was H O T hot, and she had previously been a wannabe actress. David had heard that Kent had met her at some bar and tried to launch her career. He called in several favors to get her auditions, but the girl was a bull in a china shop.
The trip had started off with her bitching about having to drive herself to the airport. Since she was Academy Award-winning actor David A. Dawson’s PA, she felt that she should also get a limo. Then she threw such a fit about not flying first class that David paid to make that happen; he was just lucky there was a seat available.
Before they’d even gotten off the ground, Kristen went total fangirl and started asking for autographs. The flight was full of people from the movie, so she felt she had a captive audience and planned to make the most of it.
David was seated across the aisle from Grant Quigley. He was older—probably mid-sixties—and had been in movies for the past forty years. The two of them had gotten to know each other during downtimes while filming. Grant had a wicked sense of humor that always seemed to draw a crowd.
The two men were getting settled when Kristen appeared.
“You’re Grant Quigley. You played M in the movie. Could I get your autograph?”
“Kristen, leave him alone and go sit down,” David ordered. “Once we land and have gotten settled in, I’m sure Grant will be more than happy to give you an autograph.
“That’s okay. Many of my fans want something to remember meeting me by,” Grant said to play it off.
David’s least favorite aspect of his fame was that people would just come up and impose themselves on him. If this had been a fellow flyer or a flight attendant, he would have just ignored it. But this was his PA pestering a fellow actor.
“Do you have something to write on?” Grant asked.
Kristen gave him a stupid look.
“No … I … uh,” she stammered.
“Do you have a pen?” he followed up with.
“I’ll be right back,” she said as she hurried back to her seat.
“I can tell her to forget it,” David offered.
“No, don’t. Like I said, I’m used to it.”
“I know, but she works for me,” David said to voice his inner thoughts.
“What happened to that cute one you were banging?” Grant asked.
While it hadn’t been a secret that Lexi had hooked up with David during filming, he wasn’t about to share details with this old horndog.
“Bite me. You’re on your own with Kristen,” David fired back with a grin.
David looked back to see what was taking her so long and about died when he saw his PA accosting Chubby Feldman.
“Kristen, get over here. I’ll find you a pen,” David hissed.
He stood up and opened the overhead where he’d put his carry-on. He pulled out a pen and handed it to her.
“I still don’t have anything for him to sign,” she whined.
She was on his last nerve as he rooted around until he found a notepad.
“Honey, do you want a memory that will help you remember today?” Grant asked.
Kristen nodded vigorously that she did.
“Why don’t we wait until the seatbelt sign goes off, and then we could find a quiet spot so you could blow me?”
Grant asked for oral sex like he was having a normal conversation, and his request was nothing out of the ordinary.
“Eff me, just sign the damned autograph,” David barked.
“You don’t have to get all territorial with your PAs,” the older man said as he held up his hands like he thought David would punch him.
He signed the autograph, and Kristen made a little happy bounce and then proceeded to harass everyone else.
“Dude, that was not cool,” David complained.
“Back in the day, that worked eight out of ten times,” Grant said to justify it.
“What about now?” David couldn’t resist asking.
“Two out of ten, but it’s still worth it to try,” he assured David.
Now, in the hotel room, Frank was carefully trying to talk David’s PA out of her attempt to start her own personal #MeToo moment. She quite obviously planned to use the press exposure that David and the James Bond movies were sure to generate to help her start it with a bang. Of course, the last thing that the film’s launch needed was that kind of press.
But David also wasn’t in the mood to help cover up Grant’s boorish behavior. Nor was he at all happy with Kent for foisting this particular female disaster on him in the first place. The one big difference, in this case, was that Grant had no influence over Kristen because she didn’t work for him.
David could see that his PR guy was about to burst a blood vessel, so he knew that he’d better step in before Frank said or did something that would escalate things and turn this into a mess.
“What do you hope to gain from all this?” David asked the girl.
Without even batting an eye, she said, “I want a role in Chubby Feldman’s next movie.”
David had to kick Frank out of the room before he strangled her. In David’s mind, it only took one person like Kristen to totally derail the whole #MeToo movement. Brave women, like his friend Halle James, had stepped forward and faced down a sexual predator. She’d done so knowing that it might very well get her blacklisted, and she might never work in Hollywood again.
Kristen was only doing this to further her nonexistent career.
David went and got her a bottle of water and tissues because she had started to fake-cry.
He sat down across from her before he started to talk calmly.
“I just want to be clear. What exactly do you plan to tell the press?”
“That he asked me to blow him.”
“Did you feel threatened?”
“No. It was just creepy for an old guy to hit on me,” Kristen said.
“Had you ever met him before?”
“No, but it doesn’t matter. If I make the allegation, they’ll believe me. I bet he’s done it before, and others will come out in support of me.”
David considered what to say next, but he rejected the first three ideas that jumped into his mind. When he was in high school, his best friend, Tami Glade, had told him that his first thought was ALWAYS wrong. She said he had to stop and think it through before opening his big mouth. Luckily, David had taken that advice to heart.
“You would destroy a man to get a role in a movie?” he asked.
“What does it matter? He should just retire. This won’t hurt him in the least.”
David had heard enough.
“Remember when you had to sign that confidentiality agreement before you could become my PA?”
“Yeah, so what? This has nothing to do with you,” Kristen bristled.
‘Of course, this has nothing to do with the fact that you want to hijack the launch of a very major and expensive movie. And that you’re doing it solely for your own personal gain,’ he thought but did not say. Instead …
“There was another piece of paper you had to sign. The one that allowed you to be videoed while you were with me.”
David watched as the penny dropped. He was fascinated by the range of emotions that crossed her face. For his craft, he would have to remember and practice those faces. Finally, she smiled.
“Maybe I should just blow you.”
‘Eff to the Hell, NO!’ he thought.
He managed to bark out a fake laugh as he went to the door to get Frank.
“Go confirm that everything’s ready for tonight,” David told her as if nothing had happened.
His plan was to get her as far away from him as he could. Hence, the busywork.
“Sure thing,” she said as she left the suite.
“Is she going to hijack one of your press events?” Frank asked.
“No, but you need to reach out to Grant’s people. They have to get him in hand. Kristen had a point. If she came forward, others would surely follow.”
“What really happened?”
“What she said. Grant asked her for some oral. While I personally don’t think he harassed her, it was an unwelcome advance. In this day and age, he would be raked over the coals and never work again,” David shared.
“Maybe we should help her do it right,” Frank suggested.
“I would agree if she hadn’t made her little extortion offer. She said that if Chubby Feldman were to give her a role in his next feature, she would make it all go away.”
On reflection, David had another worry tickle the back of his brain.
“That also assumes I believe she would back off permanently instead of keeping the whole incident in reserve. She could just pull it out again the next time she wanted something from Chubby, me, or you.
“This also means she needs to be distanced from us and then reassigned as soon as possible,” David concluded.
“You should fire her,” Frank said with some heat.
“On what grounds? That I’m helping cover-up for a fellow actor?”
Frank was the professional who usually kept David out of trouble. Now, he chuckled when he saw his client was a step ahead of him. If she was willing to trash Grant, what mechanism was in place to prevent her from doing the same to David?
Before the day was out, David would have a word with Kent. He was tolerant of most of his staff’s antics and quirks. But having his PA crash and burn the release of a movie as big as Devil May Care was in the ‘fire them all’ category, Kent included.
This was the part of being in the public eye that drove David crazy. Because of his celebrity, he had to watch everything he said and pretty much everything he did. That was why Frank had insisted that he handle all of David’s social media. It only took one misstep for half the country to hate you.
If doing this media tour wasn’t part of his commitment to the movie, David would gladly have passed. He was currently enrolled at USC and was on both the football and baseball teams. Thankfully, his college life was somewhat insulated from all this.
David would do what was asked of him, but this was just the beginning of his events for this coming summer. After the Bond film, his rom-com Love Letters would hit theaters; its release had been delayed a year to take advantage of the PR around David’s roles in the James Bond and Star Academy movies. Then, over the Fourth of July weekend, the second Star Academy film would be released.
He predicted that his life was about to get crazy.
◊◊◊
Chapter 1
David
They pulled up to the BBC One studios for the James Bond special. Frank got out first and hurried inside ahead of David. The PR guy wanted to talk to the producers to get a rundown on the questions they planned to ask.
David took a moment to gather himself because he’d been a college student just a few days ago. It had been over five months since he’d been on a movie set, and he hadn’t really thought about this life since he walked onto campus.
“Nervous?” Kristen asked.
David glanced over and was surprised to see genuine concern.
“Not really. I’m one of those rare people who isn’t bothered by something like this.”
“I would be terrified. I mean, you are doing this live, and it will be rebroadcast worldwide. How do you do it?”
He thought about it for a moment.
“I think I misspoke. I am nervous, and I probably have all the fears of what might go wrong that you could guess. And it doesn’t help that this will be live because that means only one take. But I’ve learned that you can’t let self-doubt stop you from doing your best,” David explained.
“But how do you get past the self-doubt?” Kristen asked.
He gave her one of those smiles that earned him so much money.
“It’s not easy at first. Like anything, you have to work at it, or at least I did. My mind still goes in circles when I have to make a decision, and I can be a terrible procrastinator when I know that I don’t really have to decide yet. But when I do decide, I commit to it,” he said and thought of another way to put it.
“My uncle taught me a valuable lesson: how to be a man of my word. Doing that can seem like a double-edged sword. If something better comes along after you’ve given your word, it can suck. But you do what was asked because you said you would.”
“But …”
David held up his hand to slow Kristen down.
“The other side, besides the benefit of people knowing they can rely on you, is that it takes the pressure off. When I signed to do this movie, I was also obligated to do the press junket to help promote it. So, there’s no getting out of it.”
“You said you still get nervous.”
He nodded his agreement.
“I do. A good example is that I usually throw up before football games because of my nerves, but I simply move past it when I set foot on the field. I step into the role and play it. I refuse to let my doubts stop me. If I did, I would never have accomplished everything that I have,” he said.
“But I’m constantly scared of stuff,” she admitted.
David really looked at her and could see that she was serious.
“Admitting it to yourself is the first step in getting past your fear.”
He barked out a laugh when she rolled her eyes at him.
“Sorry. My uncle’s a farmer by day and a psychologist at heart. I must have been channeling him,” David admitted, which caused Kristen to give him a slight smile. “It takes a conscious effort to push past things that make us uncomfortable. To learn to do that, you have to recognize when it’s happening. When it does, stop and ask yourself: Will I let this stop me … or not?”
“And that works?”
“Maybe not at first, but it does get easier. Now, I don’t really have to think about it. I just go ahead and do it,” he explained.
“Then why are we sitting in the car?”
Another car pulled up behind them, and men got out.
“I was waiting for our security.”
“Oh,” Kristen said as she gave him one of those looks like she felt silly.
David sat patiently as he watched Fritz, his head of security, deploy his men. Then a flock of drones was released. When everything was in place, Fritz came to the door and opened it.
“Ready?” David asked Kristen.
“Absolutely.”
He got out of the car. His security had attracted the British stalkerazzi, a particularly nasty strain of paparazzi. He put a fake smile on his face and walked past as they took his picture and shouted out inappropriate questions.
‘You sleep with one princess … and you get this,’ David thought.
When they made it inside, they were escorted to Studio One. One of the production staff directed him to his dressing room so he could get ready.
◊◊◊
Frank found David in his dressing room, and his PR man didn’t look happy.
“They’re up to something.”
“Oh, my God! Did they find the porn stash on my tablet?” David asked, looking worried.
“Porn stash?” Kristen asked.
“Ignore him. David thinks he’s funny at inappropriate times,” Frank said to his PA and then turned back to his client. “They said they didn’t have any set questions; they would just see where the interview went.”
“If it gets too intense, I’ll show them my new eyebrow trick,” David said as he proceeded to make them dance back and forth.
Frank was having one of his migraines, while Kristen looked jealous of his talent.
“Chill out,” David said. “How long have I been doing this?”
“They also switched who is interviewing you. It’s Harriet Chanson,” Frank said.
“That’s not good,” Kristen worried.
David got a big grin. They’d planned to have Freddie Leister interview him. He was an entertainment reporter who was well past retirement age. Harriet, on the other hand, was relatively new. She’d gotten a name for herself by asking wildly inappropriate questions. The Brits loved people who made snarky, hurtful comments.
What made David smile was that she was currently on his top ten list of women he’d like to spend quality time with in the UK. He’d made the list after finals to kill some time. He had a hunch Harriet was a naughty girl in the sack.
Frank caught his grin, which was immediately replaced with David’s ‘I’m a little angel’ face that he’d been working on since he was five. The PR man had the same reaction his parents did when they saw it: he scowled.
“Relax. Everything will be fine,” David predicted.
◊◊◊
He made a point of not going to the set until the very last moment. He didn’t want to give Harriet a chance to ‘chat him up’ beforehand.
“We are back in four, three, two …” came from the control room.
David took his seat at ‘two’ and saw the relief on Harriet’s face. Then the cameras’ red lights came on, and she immediately assumed her professional reporter demeanor.
“With us is David A. Dawson …”
She droned on, giving his credits and the obligatory mention of his Academy Award win.
“David is in the latest release in the James Bond franchise, Devil May Care, where he plays Ian Bond. Welcome.”
“Thanks for having me,” he said, giving her his sexiest half-smile.
Adrienne, the supermodel, as well as David’s friend and modeling mentor, would be proud of that one. Most women found that smile arousing. His friends called it ‘the panty dropper.’ Harriet appeared to be immune.
“The franchise’s sales have been declining since its peak when Skyfall was released in 2012. That film grossed nearly a billion euros in worldwide sales. What do you attribute that to?”
David had been taught to go quiet and think through his answer when he was thrown a curveball. He knew they would cut out the dead air in a taped interview, but this was live. Harriet knew that he would have no answer for that because it wasn’t his job to market the film and get butts in the seats.
David sorted through his options and then picked one.
“I wondered why they worked so hard to get me to sign on.”
His answer threw her off her game. After a momentary pause, Harriet asked, “Why do you say that?”
There is a rule when interviewing. You tried to never ask a question you didn’t think you knew the answer to.
“I bring a demographic that’s been a bit on the decline: younger women and older teens,” David said.
“Oh, yes. The cheeky American bad boy, Ian Bond. That must have been an easy role for you to play.”
“I don’t know about the ‘bad boy’ part, but I do like to have fun,” he said and then hurried on. “But they have done their homework. Most women think that the James Bond character is sexy. They are willing to go to an action thriller if there’s some eye candy. The problem is, the actors playing Mr. Bond are getting older.”
“Are you saying older men aren’t sexy?”
“No, I’m not saying that at all. I mean, you were recently seen out on the town with Richard Pendergast. I’ve heard that women are looking for someone mature and stable,” David said.
Trying to make points for both the movie and his fellow actor and ‘Bond dad,’ he continued.
“In fact, there are a lot of women who are attracted to the mature, debonair types such as Stewart Thatcher, but not all women are,” he added.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, I guess. It’s just that women in the States are more independent. They aren’t necessarily looking for a father figure. They want someone who’s … well … fun and less inhibited.”
“Richard isn’t a daddy figure,” Harriet blurted out.
“If you say so.”
They decided to go to a commercial break when Harriet looked like she wanted to throttle David.
“You cunt. Are you taking the piss or what?”
An important-looking guy pulled her off the set to ‘have a word.’
David looked behind the cameras and saw Frank. If the UK didn’t have such strict gun laws, he might have been worried. Frank either planned to shoot him or eat a gun. Personally, he thought the interview was going well. He gave Frank a thumbs-up.
David got nervous when Harriet came back with a smile on her face.
“We are back in four, three, two …”
“Before the break, you mentioned that James Bond was a ladies’ man. Does that carry over into real life?”
The evil girl was setting him up. It didn’t matter if he said ‘yes’ or ‘no’ because either would give her an opening.
“I guess you would have to ask one of them. I play his son,” David said.
“But you said they hired you for your sex appeal. I mean, we see reports of you with different women, but it never looks serious. Have you ever fallen in love? Or do you just have serial conquests?”
He ignored the last part and got a serious look.
“I’ve thought I was in love several times, but I’m a hopeless romantic,” he admitted.
“So, you’ve never really been in love?” Harriet pressed.
“Twice, actually. The first was the proverbial ‘girl next door.’ We met in grade school, and we became best friends.”
“Why didn’t it work out?”
“She left for prep school, but she’s still one of my closest friends.”
“What about the other one?”
“She dumped me,” David said and let his head hang. “She said it was her, but we all know what that means.”
“Did you cheat on her?”
He got a surprised look and stared at Harriet for a heartbeat.
“Wow, you must have been in some bad relationships to go there,” he shot back.
Yep, back to a commercial break.
This time, Harriet stormed off without the suit having to have a talk with her. She barely made it back. When she returned, she apparently had decided to play nice.
“Tell us about Devil May Care.”
David was prepared for that type of question, so he did his best to promote the film. They showed some clips, and the segment was done. When they’d removed their microphones and began to get up, he gave Harriet a smile.
“I’m only in town for a little while. I would love to have a tour guide.”
“Before I agree to that, why did that girl dump you?”
“Her parents moved, taking her with them.”
She shook her head.
“I forgot how young you are. I better go home to my older man.”
“Call him so he’s taken his pill before you get there,” David teased.
“You are a wanker,” was her parting shot.
He was glad that she was smiling as she left.
◊◊◊
Frank gave him mixed reviews for his performance tonight on the ride back to the hotel. He told David he would see him first thing tomorrow morning, the day of the premiere. They had a full schedule of interviews planned throughout the day.
When David got to his room, he found Tami Glade, his childhood friend, sitting on his bed, watching a movie. She’d just had a birthday, and as her present, he’d had her come along on this junket to witness all the shenanigans. During high school, Tami had spent a semester in London. She wanted to catch up with the family she’d stayed with.
He plopped down on the bed next to her. Tami turned off the movie so they could talk.
“How was your day?” David asked.
“Before I forget, your mom told me to get your American Express card. She said we’re going shopping tomorrow.”
David’s mom was a big James Bond fan, and in a moment of weakness, he had brought her along on the trip as well. Thinking back, it was more like she’d invited herself.
Hearing that his mom wanted his American Express card gave him a moment of worry. It had no limit on it. Then he remembered that she was taking care of his kids so he could go to college. He pulled it out and gave it to Tami.
Tami gave him an unreadable look as she pocketed the card.
“I was your first true love,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.
Growing up, Tami had been in and out of his house to the point David’s mother considered her one of the family; basically, the daughter she’d never had. He was convinced that his mom loved Tami more than him most days.
“And I still love you. Spend the night,” he said to watch her squirm.
When she didn’t say anything, he asked, “What’s wrong?”
“What would you do if we were fifteen again?” Tami asked.
David let his mind wander for a moment. It was the classic ‘what if’ game. No good ever came from that. Not that there weren’t a million and one things he would change. It was just that the past was the past, and there was nothing you could do about it.
“I wouldn’t change anything,” he finally admitted.
“Really?”
“If I did, we wouldn’t be the same people we are now, and I sort of like you the way you are.”
She lifted up from the bed so she could look David in the eyes.
“You mean that, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“But when we were that age, you were convinced that we were soul mates. That we would be together forever,” Tami pressed.
“Then we grew up,” he replied.
She lay back down and looked at the ceiling.
“But we hardly talk anymore,” she said softly.
“I don’t think that matters. What matters is that we’re still friends.”
“What about the soul-mate thing?” Tami asked.
David rolled onto his side, ignoring her question.
“Stay the night.”
“But that might be dangerous.”
“With the time change and everything, I’m exhausted. There’ll be no danger involved,” he promised.
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“I’ll spend the night.”
◊◊◊
Chapter 2
Tami
Something woke her. As she became aware of her surroundings, Tami heard David laughing in the other room. She glanced at the clock and wondered what the boy was doing at three in the morning. Quietly, she got out of bed and cracked the door open to see who he was talking to.
“I’ll see you the Friday before classes start.”
“Thanks for inviting us. I’ll see you then,” a guy said, and then they dropped off video chat.
“What are you doing?” Tami asked.
David almost jumped out of his skin before he turned to her.
“Did I wake you?”
She gave him a slight nod.
“Sorry about that, but I’m contacting all the new football recruits and inviting them and their families to a welcome-to-campus party at my townhouse.”
“At three in the morning?”
“It’s seven p.m. in LA,” he reminded her.
She shrugged and yawned.
“I’m sleep-deprived, so cut me some slack.”
She looked at the table where his tablet was set up on a stand. Next to it was a pot of coffee and what looked like a chocolate croissant. Tami snatched it off David’s plate, shoving it in her mouth before he could object.
“I was saving that for you. You didn’t have to eat it like a starving dog,” he said with an amused look.
She grabbed his coffee to help wash it down.
“Anything else I can get you?” he asked.
“Keep it down. I need my beauty rest,” Tami said to give him a hard time.
“Tami, you know, you’re a unicorn. You actually look better close up,” David said and sounded sincere.
All her old feelings for her ‘stupid boy’ came flooding back. Why did he have to be so sweet to her? She gave him a mock roll of the eyes as if to say, You’re full of it, and beat a hasty retreat to his bed. There was no denying that she still had feelings for him. But too much had happened for her to drag him back to bed with her.
He went back to making his phone calls. Tami could hear how excited each guy and his family were to get a personal invitation to welcome them to campus. He made it clear that he expected their family to come to the party.
She thought back to when she first arrived at Stanford and what it would have meant to have her mom invited to something like this. She had to remember that he wasn’t a total jocktard like some people assumed. They saw a pretty-boy jock who was also an actor, and they presumed he got by on his looks alone. If they only knew how clever and crafty—and genuinely caring—her boy could be.
Tami had a feeling that David had some kind of agenda for making these calls when he should be sleeping. Not some nefarious plan for world domination; it had to have something to do with turning USC into a winning football program. And not just a winning program, but one that would challenge for national championships.
He’d done something similar in high school when he took his high school team to three straight state championships. David had taken a core group of boys and built them into something undeniably special.
Tami had no doubt that if he decided to do it again, he would succeed. He had no quit in him once he set a goal. She’d seen him do it time after time, whether it involved sports, schoolwork, modeling, or acting. He made it look easy. But the brutal truth was that he worked harder than anyone she knew.
When he finished his last call, David came back and joined her in bed. Tami waited until he got settled before she rolled over and put her head in the crook of his arm.
“I was halfway through my calls when I realized that I messed up,” he said.
“Why’s that?”
“I forgot that Lexi is in Paris this summer, so I don’t have a PA to organize everything.”
Sometimes he didn’t realize what a privileged douche he sounded like.
“What about that new girl?”
“Don’t get me started on what a nightmare she is. Maybe I can get Cassidy to help me,” he ventured.
“Isn’t she the one who likes spaghetti with hot dogs?”
David chuckled at that.
“Yeah, you’re probably right. I’m just spoiled because Lexi would have already known how to make everything come off without a hitch.”
“It’s a family thing, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Let the moms organize it.”
“You’re a genius. If my mom hears that, she’ll wade in and take over. Problem solved.”
“You know that there’s a special place in hell for boys like you,” Tami chided.
“Whatev,” David said in a perfect Valley Girl impersonation. “Now, let me get some sleep.”
She slugged him in the chest, and they both got the giggles. This was why he was her best friend.
◊◊◊
David was out the door before sunup. He had all kinds of press activities to do today for the movie.
Tami spent the day with David’s mom. She warned Carol of her son’s plans to enlist her in planning a ‘welcome to campus’ party for his new teammates and their families. Tami wasn’t surprised when his mom just shrugged it off. Tami knew that Carol was secretly delighted that her son was letting her take charge. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t make him squirm as only a mother could.
The plan for the evening was that they would go to dinner and then travel to the Royal Albert Hall for the world premiere of Devil May Care. They’d picked the Royal Albert Hall because it was where the most successful James Bond movie, Skyfall, premiered. Afterward, the promoters had planned a party.
Tami and Carol got a text to come to David’s suite, where he’d returned to change for tonight’s festivities. Tami used her key to let them into his rooms.
“David?” she called out.
“I’ll be out in a moment,” he called from the bedroom.
“Look what I found,” Carol said to Tami.
Sitting on the side table was a bottle of champagne and a cheese-and-fruit tray. There was a card from the studio wishing David the best. Tami wasn’t surprised when Carol opened the bottle and poured them each a drink. Tami made herself a plate and found a comfy chair. Carol joined her.
“Did I tell you about David’s dog?” Carol asked.
“What did he do this time?”
Duke was David’s big Lab, who loved everybody.
“He started to disappear for a couple of hours each day, which was strange because he was always in the middle of David’s kids, watching them.
“He came home last week with a note attached to his collar. It said he’d been going to the neighbor’s house each day for a nap. The neighbor lady said that he would come to her door, and she would let him in. Duke would find a quiet spot, take his nap, and then find her so she could let him out,” Carol shared.
“Poor thing.”
“I’m sending him to David’s for the summer. Being surrounded by five two-year-olds has worn the hound out,” Carol shared.
David came out of the bedroom, blinked, and then gave Tami a smile that she swore would knock her off her feet if she were standing.
“This is why the British press is calling you the American Gigolo,” she said to cover her feelings.
“Did you just call me a man-whore?” he asked, feigning shock.
“I didn’t call you a man,” Tami shot back.
Carol toasted her for her witty comeback. The corner of his lip twitched with amusement.
“You’re un-hideous,” David said by way of a compliment.
“When are you two going to act your age and just admit that you belong together?” Carol asked to put a stop to their banter.
Carol was all smiles when they both blushed, which secretly pleased Tami. Maybe there was a chance for their ‘someday’ after all.
◊◊◊
Chubby Feldman hosted the dinner party and had invited all the cast, plus the former Bonds and Bond Girls. David almost sent his PA home when she wanted to take selfies with everyone. Tami later saw his look of amusement as he watched Kristen. His PA apparently became enamored with one of the geriatric former Bonds, and the two of them left the private room where the dinner was to be served.
David grabbed Tami’s arm, saying, “Come on, let me introduce you to everyone.”
David had never met a stranger, and his dad had encouraged him to work a room whenever they went out, so this was nothing new for her. She wasn’t surprised when everyone was happy to see David or excited to meet the new Bond. Everyone said that he might eventually become the next leading Bond in the franchise.
That is to say, everyone was glad to see him until they were approached by Isabel Alexandra, who played Miss Moneypenny in the movie.
“How could you do this to me?”
From there, the conversation went downhill. Isabel went apeshit. Ape. Shit.
Her beef with David was that he’d allowed his PA, Lexi, to go to Paris with Isabel’s boyfriend, Ben, where he was to film a movie. Isabel assumed that Lexi was sleeping with Ben because ‘everyone’ knew that she’d slept with David. Tami was in utter shock when David just stood there and took it.
Isabel was just warming to her task when Rita James, who’d been the Bond Girl in Tomorrow Never Dies and played David’s mother in the current film, pulled her away. Everyone in the room slowly went back to their conversations.
“That girl is nastier than my neighbor’s pet poodle,” Tami observed.
“She’s actually very nice,” David said to defend Isabel.
Tami connected the dots.
“You slept with her again! Did you do it while on set?”
“I’m not saying anything. If you want to know, you’ll have to ask her,” he shot back.
“She’ll think I’m nosy.”
Tami caught his ‘and your point is?’ look and poked his arm.
“Admit it, David, you let Mr. Happy do most of your thinking,” she said.
He gave her a pained look.
“You know me so well. My normal MO is to hook up with a girl because I rarely ever hang out with them in a platonic way, and there has to be a time limit. When I’m filming a movie, I want to get her in my bed, satisfy my manly needs, and get her out of my room. I can’t be distracted with a relationship,” he said sarcastically.
“I see we are experiencing ‘classy David’ tonight.”
“Just completing my daily asshole-actor quota for today. Wouldn’t want me to give you any less ammo for your assault on my personality, would you?”
It was all softened by his devilish smile. David knew he could get away with murder when he looked at a girl like that, and Tami was no exception. But she had known him since the first grade, so his sex appeal only went so far.
“This sounds like a story you’ve told a million times. Why don’t you give me the real one?”
When he finally spoke, he couldn’t even form a complete sentence.
“You … I … Ahhh!” he said in frustration.
Tami chuckled and mentally patted herself on the back for rendering David speechless. Carol, his mother, would be pleased when she heard about this.
“You’re thinking you shouldn’t have invited me because I see through your BS. That you should cancel my hotel room and ticket back, stranding me here,” Tami said with a straight face.
David rubbed his palm on his forehead. She was impressed that he thought about his answer before blurting something that he would regret later.
“Contrary to what you’re thinking right now, I’m not going to dump you on the side of the road like some kitten in a sack.”
Tami finally smiled at him.
“I know,” she said as she got on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “But that doesn’t explain why she’s so upset.”
Unlike David’s mom, who could start an argument in an empty house, Tami had a reason for provoking her friend. His habit was to ignore things he didn’t want to see. When David hadn’t fought for Lexi’s honor, Tami knew that he suspected that what Isabel was worried about was true. The kicker was, he didn’t want to admit that to himself.
Tami might have left it alone and played the supportive friend. But something told her that Lexi ultimately wasn’t good for him, and in fact, might be horrible for him. In all honesty, Tami probably should have let it go because David wouldn’t listen to her if she broached the subject. But she plowed ahead because he needed to open his eyes to the possibility that his former PA was just using him. Forcing him to face this just might do that.
“Isabel is just being insecure. Ben can be the typical Hollywood bad boy, and she must know that he hasn’t always been faithful,” David said.
“You’re talking about his pursuit of Halle James?” Tami asked.
“Yeah,” he admitted.
“And you don’t think that Lexi will fall for his charms?” Tami prodded.
David got a pinched look and shook his head ‘no.’
She knew of his possessive streak when it came to women. If he ever thought that Lexi had cheated on him, he would be done with her. But David wasn’t in a committed relationship with Lexi, so Tami also knew that he couldn’t tell Lexi she couldn’t sleep around.
What was it that he’d said to justify his and Lexi hooking up? That they were young, healthy adults who were just helping each other out? Tami knew him better than that. He’d also admitted that sex changed everything for him. David had feelings beyond friendship for Lexi.
“Then everything should be okay,” Tami said with a weak smile. “Let’s go enjoy your big night.”
It took him a few minutes to get out of his head, but he was soon acting like the guy everyone loved.
◊◊◊
Before dinner started, Rita came in and found David. He excused himself and was gone with her for about thirty minutes. When he came back, Isabel was holding onto his arm and smiling. Tami would bet that Isabel was still mad about Ben and Lexi but had figured out that David wasn’t the one to blame.
He took Isabel to her seat and pulled out her chair. She quietly thanked him before he stepped over to join his mom and Tami. Chubby Feldman nodded to David as if to say, ‘job well done,’ before getting up to speak. Chubby made a short speech to thank everyone before the servers came in with the food.
Over dinner, Carol told David that she would organize his party.
He looked at Tami, and she just shrugged at his unspoken question about whether she’d shared the event with his mom.
Tami noted that David acted a little nervous when his mom had just agreed to help. Tami was sure that he would have to pay his mom back for this favor at some point. It was always the ones that weren’t defined that worried her boy. The thing was, he was no longer the pushover he was growing up. David could actually say ‘no’ if he wanted to. The problem was, he rarely said ‘no’ to his mom.
After dinner, it was time for the red carpet. Tami bailed on that and let Carol face the British press as David’s plus-one. When the stalkerazzi began to shout their wildly inappropriate questions, his mom didn’t disappoint. She’d asked Frank to give her dirt on some of the worst offenders.
“Which cast members are you shagging?”
“Shouldn’t you be more worried about your wife finding out about that little tart you have on the side in Chelsea?” Carol shot back.
“Is it true that …”
“And you! Did anyone find out that you were the one that sold those pictures of Prince Narsan in Morocco?”
The paparazzi had no idea how to handle David’s mom. He bent over laughing when they all went quiet. No one wanted to play ‘next one up.’
David finally pulled his mom into the theater so they could find their seats.
It wasn’t too long before the lights dimmed and the movie started.
◊◊◊
Chapter 3
David
Among the many things that make a James Bond film so memorable are the over-the-top chase scenes. More importantly, whether he was escaping from henchmen or doing the chasing himself, Bond always managed to look both cool and exciting while doing it.
David had learned that many of those exciting scenes, in fact, happened mostly via movie magic. They used rear-window projection to show a scene in the background of a stationary car in a studio. It made it look like the car was in the middle of a high-speed car chase. They did it that way because it was impractical to take an entire film crew to a busy urban area. Either it would be too dangerous, too costly, or simply wasn’t allowed.
Since those days, technology had made what seemed impossible back then doable now. Chubby Feldman, the director of Devil May Care, had envisioned what he called the ‘Million Dollar Scene.’ His goal was to film this chase scene from beginning to end in one take.
This was the last one David filmed. Chubby claimed it was because it was so complicated that he wanted to do it right. David suspected that because he was doing his own stunts, Chubby was worried he would either die or get hurt and not be able to finish the movie.
The ultimate goal was to create the most exciting opening scene since Spectre. That was where they dropped a building on James and then ended the opening with a fight scene in a helicopter.
The tradition of showing a pre-title action scene began with From Russia with Love, the franchise’s second installment. It was short, only three minutes. In many ways, David felt it was probably the best of all of them.
It didn’t have any over-the-top action, and no one went faster than a walk. Red Grant was an assassin stalking James through the grounds of a huge villa. The tension quickly built as James heard Red when he stepped on a branch.
A game of cat and mouse ensued until Red suddenly appeared behind James and used a garrote to kill him. It was then revealed that the man everyone thought was James was actually someone else, wearing a mask, and this was a test run for killing the real James Bond. Thus, they avoided ending the series.
Chubby had worked with the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force to accomplish his goal. He’d worked with them to borrow drones, planes, and helicopters to film the whole sequence.
David had yet to see the scene because after filming it, he’d had to hurry to the airport to jump on a plane to New Zealand to film his Star Academy movies. So, when the lights dimmed in the theater, he leaned forward in his seat because he wanted to see how he almost died.
He was a little worried because he was bracketed by his mother and Tami. Either one might kill him after they saw what was to come. The film started, and the James Bond theme music began. David turned to his mom.
“I love you,” he said as a preemptive attempt at preventing her from throttling him.
The scene began with a wide shot of London, with Westminster Abbey and the London Eye observation wheel in the distance. The drone turned and climbed, focusing on a large plane that grew in the picture as the drone angled closer. In a few seconds, it showed David standing on the open back ramp of a C-17 Globemaster cargo plane, flying at 10,000 feet.
All of a sudden, the image split, showing two points of view. The first remained the drone’s view, while the second was from David’s point of view. A ‘chest camera’ mounted just below his throat showed what he saw as he turned to briefly scan the plane’s interior.
This was an ‘establishment shot,’ designed to immerse the audience in the scene in question. Then both cameras showed him turning quickly to leap from the plane.
“Is that you?” Tami asked.
He and his mom locked eyes for a moment before they turned back to the movie screen.
David was wearing a wingsuit with a twist. It was an e-wingsuit built upon BMW’s iEV technology and powered by a chest-mounted rig. He glided for a moment and then fired off the engines. It was like he’d been shot out of a cannon. Chubby later sent David an email letting him know they’d clocked him shooting through the sky at 185 mph.
The military drones had no trouble keeping up with him as he flew over London. Up ahead, there was a helicopter that was his destination.
Chubby had several cameras to capture the action, ranging from the drone to the helicopters to Ian Bond’s ‘throat camera.’ Rita James had given David the movie Le Mans as part of his filmmaking education. He’d suggested that Chubby split the screens to show the action from the different cameras.
Chubby wasn’t totally sold, so David pushed the idea that it would confirm that this was one continuous shot. That would be better than having viewers wonder when they cut the film to show different camera angles. So, when David saw the split screens appear, he felt vindicated. It gave the whole sequence that wow factor that Chubby had been shooting for. Now, if only the camera angles and the editing would do the extended scene justice without making it into a hodgepodge of sensory overload.
The stunt coordinator had been a real wuss because he reminded David for almost three months that bad stuff would ensue if he got near the helicopter blades. He even showed him footage of an old Saturday Night Live skit where they threw a fish into a Super Bass-O-Matic. David made the appropriate head bobs to make the man go away and then pursued the scene anyway.
As David watched the film, he remembered looking down just before the drone came into range and almost chickening out. Now he watched as his character dipped below the helicopter and then popped up right at the door. How he’d managed to actually land on the footrail, he had no idea.
His character opened the door, reached in and jerked a stuntman out, and grabbed a briefcase. With the different angles, you could see the man fall a long way before the screen switched to another camera.
While on the footrail, David stuffed the briefcase into a backpack. Another helicopter appeared, and a door opened. A man with a gun brought it up to fire as David let go and began to fall. David fired up the e-wingsuit and raced down towards the ground with the second helicopter pacing him.
David marveled at what a good pilot the man flying the helicopter was as he watched them fly between London skyscrapers. The chopper kept right on David’s tail as he made multiple turns and twists to try to get away. He then shot to the warehouse district, where a new apartment complex was being built.
David also admired Chubby’s genius as the split camera views shifted several times to highlight different aspects of the chase while maintaining the continuous throat-camera view. Chubby had pulled it off, to David’s eye. The numerous gasps and exclamations that David kept hearing from the sophisticated audience around him seemed to confirm his judgment. This scene would be talked about for a long, long time.
His character swooped down to land on the upper level of the half-completed apartment building, where there were only exposed I-beams. As he quickly shed his suit and helmet, the helicopter hovered, and four lines were dropped. That was followed by the four villains dressed all in black rappelling down the ropes.
The next phase had David parkouring down the exposed structure as he fought the four men. Both his mother and Tami had dug their fingernails into his thighs as they cringed when he almost fell to his death a number of times. While some of that was acting, there were a couple of times when he almost took a tumble—which he did not point out to his mom.
Even David cringed when he saw himself sliding down beams and then twisting and turning to launch himself to another floor. During the action, one of the stuntmen had lost his balance and plunged five stories. David was glad their stunt coordinator had prepared for that sort of mistake, and the man had only minor bruising after the scene.
The final jump was spectacular as David dropped two stories to the roof of a construction trailer. It had been designed to cushion his fall, but he flinched, remembering how it had all but knocked him silly. The three remaining men chasing him were right behind, so his character made a running leap toward the neighboring building. David snagged a railing on a fire escape and began to climb to the roof.
The following sequence consisted of running and leaping from rooftop to rooftop. David used his full range of parkour tricks as he bounced, swung, jumped, and launched himself through, over, and around different obstacles. He loved it because it was like a giant game of super-tag.
The final jump was really long, so his character sprinted full out. As his character flew through the air between buildings, David rocked back into his theater seat with a satisfied grin. The stunt had called for him to come up short and grab the edge of the building. He was to dangle there for a moment to let the bad guys catch up, but by some miracle, he stuck the landing.
Not knowing what to do, David turned and tipped his imaginary cap at the hooligans chasing him and grinned as he aped a line from M.C. Hammer, rapping U Can’t Touch This.
He then ran to the far side of the roof, where he jumped down to different roof levels until he reached the ground. David’s character looked back and ran down the street. As he reached the intersection, an Aston Martin raced up, and the door flew open.
The split screen at the end showed David’s view of Stewart Thatcher smiling sardonically from the driver’s seat while at the same time showing Stewart’s view of a slightly winded Ian Bond.
“Get in!”
“Who are you?” Ian asked, as he had never met his father before.
“Bond, James Bond.”
David was both relieved and in awe when he saw how well the opening sequence had gone. Chubby Feldman had indeed succeeded in creating the wow factor that had been missing in recent James Bond movies. As the car raced off, the music cued up, and the title sequence began.
Both Tami and his mom turned and glared at him. David bit his bottom lip and pointed at the screen.
“Enjoy the movie. We can talk later.”
◊◊◊
David wasn’t a big fan of watching himself on screen. But halfway through the movie, he let that go and just thought of his character as Ian Bond and not as himself. When the final credits began to run and the lights came up, everyone in the theater stood and applauded.
While the standing ovation was expected at an opening night, he could tell that people enjoyed the movie. David predicted that they had a hit on their hands.
“Let’s wait until the rush is over,” he suggested.
Tami and his mom retook their seats. David turned to face them as he rested against the headrest of the seat in front of his.
“Did you like it?” he asked, showing a touch of eagerness.
His mom and Tami looked at each other as they decided whether they would give him a hard time or not.
“You’re a real movie star,” Tami finally said.
“I was never a big James Bond fan,” Mom shared. She really didn’t like action films. “But I am a fan of Ian Bond, and it has nothing to do with you playing the part. His personality came across as fun and made me want to watch him.”
“I especially liked the goofy walk. To think how far it came from that horrible strut you did in high school,” Tami said.
David had practiced his Ian Bond walk, and people had captured it and shared his efforts on social media. When he arrived on set, they’d taken the bare bones, and a choreographer had worked with him to perfect his moves.
“David!” Chubby Feldman called.
He was with several studio suits, grinning like he’d won the lottery—which he just may have done. David immediately complimented him on the opening scene and the movie as a whole and then introduced Chubby and the others to his mom and Tami.
“We had a sample audience view the movie, and it confirmed what our testing has been telling us. The Ian character stole the show. We want to refocus our marketing to feature you,” Chubby said.
“What exactly does that mean?” David asked.
“We’re reworking the trailers and commercials to show more of you,” one of the suits shared.
“You should show the towel scene. I would come to see the movie if I thought there was a chance of seeing more of that,” Tami said.
David was certain that Tami felt the daggers his mom was drilling into the back of her head.
“It could be done tastefully,” Tami added.
There was an awkward pause in the conversation.
“Are you all going to the party?” David finally asked.
The suits took that as their sign to beat a hasty retreat. Once they were gone, Chubby chuckled.
“Don’t be surprised when David is running around in just a towel on television come tomorrow. It’s a good thing I cut the one where Mia pulled his towel off, or that would be the one they’d air.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time he’s run around naked. It all started when he was in diapers,” Mom shared.
“What did they think?” David asked Chubby, ignoring his mom’s comment.
“Of course, we will have to wait on the numbers after this weekend, but they’re holding out hope that we have a huge hit on our hands.”
“We’re ready for you,” one of the studio assistants came in and told them.
“Let’s go do our obligatory talk to the press, and then there’s a party to get to,” Chubby said.
“I’m going back to the hotel. I promised your dad I’d give him a full report,” Mom told David.
“I’m supposed to meet my sponsor family for breakfast. I should probably get a good night’s sleep,” Tami said as both she and his mom bailed on him.
◊◊◊
“Harriet, so good to see you again,” David said when he walked into his interview room.
The reporter who had interviewed him for the BBC One special was waiting for him. Frank, his PR man, gave David a helpless look. He looked as shocked as David felt to find her there. All he could think was that BBC One was eager to have them go another round.
They turned on the lights, and the interview began.
“I’m with the star of Devil May Care, David A. Dawson, and we’ve just left the movie’s premiere. Tell me about the opening scene. I was on the edge of my seat. I think it was far better than the one for Quantum Solace. Did you really do that in only one shot?”
David was beginning to recognize that everyone had their favorite action scene in James Bond movies. It wasn’t like there weren’t many to pick from. The franchise had an average of over three car-chase scenes per movie. David gave Chubby props for outdoing all the ones that came before.
“Yes …” David began as the interview continued.
The interview went much longer than the one had for the BBC One special. Harriet played it straight until the end.
“Your mother caused quite the stir on the red carpet. Many think she’s a rock star for standing up to our paparazzi. What was it like growing up with such a gutsy woman?”
David slouched in his chair and looked toward the sky as if to say, ‘God help me!’
“She and I are a little too much alike, which means we sometimes clash.”
“I have a similar relationship with my dad. My mum was happy when I left for college,” Harriet shared.
“My dad sometimes tries to play mediator, but as I got older, he started taking my mom’s side in everything.”
“The only time my dad was ever speechless was when he caught me with a guy. He didn’t say a word as he packed me up to send me to boarding school. Luckily, my mom came home and calmed him down. She said no ten-year-old should be up to what he thought we were up to.”
“Ten?! I have a daughter, and I thought I had a lot more time than that,” David said and then paused. “Ten!”
“It was no big deal. I won’t divulge the little perv’s name … Tommy Baker. He had older brothers and decided he was missing out, so we played ‘you show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.’ I hear he’s still … you know,” she shared as she wiggled her pinky at David.
This was the type of stuff that had made her famous in the UK. David didn’t know if he should laugh or sit in horror as he thought about his little girl. He was firmly in Harriet’s dad’s corner, wanting to send his daughter, Carol, to an all-girls boarding school too.
“Actually, my parents were quite open with my brother and me. I didn’t realize that they’d tricked me into sharing everything with them until I was nearly out of high school. That was when I discovered that the sharing was a one-way street, and they were keeping secrets from us,” David overshared.
“What’s your best mom story?” Harriet asked.
He sat back and thought for a moment. He should have considered where Harriet was coming from rather than the question she asked. If he had, he’d have realized this was how she was able to get people to open up and say things that made for good gossip.
“This happened to my older brother. He was the trailblazer, and I will always be thankful for that. When I was in middle school, he brought his first girl home for dinner. It was entertaining as hell as my mother ‘put her to the question,’ as we call it. She grilled my brother and his girl as my dad and I sat back and enjoyed that show. It can be pretty entertaining as long as you’re not on the receiving end.
“At some point, my mom decided she didn’t like the girl. That was when she began to make observations about the poor girl’s makeup. I can still hear her commenting on her eye shadow and how my brother didn’t like girls who wore so much of it.
“Then she went in for the kill,” David said.
“I hate to ask.”
“As they were leaving, my mother said, and I’ll quote: ‘If I never see you again, it was nice meeting you.’”
Harriet genuinely laughed.
“She didn’t. Did the girl ever come back?”
“Hell, no. But by then, my brother was off to woo another girl.”
At that point, Frank couldn’t take any more and stepped in front of the camera. David closed his eyes for a moment when his brain made the connection that all this was being filmed. She’d won round two.
Harriet was smart enough to figure out the interview was done. She told her cameraman to pack up.
“We have this party to go to. Would you like to come with me?” David asked.
Frank looked like he might get sick. Harriet blinked in confusion.
“I have a boyfriend,” she reminded David.
“I’m not asking you to go behind his back. I just like you and would hope we might become friends.”
He could see the wheels turning in her head. He was ready to chalk it up as a failed attempt when she looked him in the eyes.
“Just friends,” he promised.
“Then I accept. I’ve always wanted to go to one of these.”
◊◊◊
Chapter 4
David
Frank decided to return to the hotel since he had an early flight to New York in the morning. David’s new PA, Kristen, was sitting in the front seat next to his driver. She looked straight ahead when David got in, which made him assume that she wanted to go to the party and was afraid he wouldn’t let her.
“Hey, Kristen. You promise not to be a pest tonight?” David asked.
Harriet glanced over at him, but he shook his head to let her know to stay out of it.
“Yes,” Kristen answered like a petulant teen.
“Young lady …”
“Yes, I promise to not bother anyone,” she said.
He was so getting a new PA when he got home. Although she was a good five years older than he was, he felt like he was the adult in their relationship.
“Then you can come to the party.”
Harriet snickered when she heard the little squeal of joy from the front seat. He had no doubt that she would be digging for dirt on what was going on before the night was over.
The party was being held in Wimbledon at one of the studio executives’ homes. It was a lovely night, so they had the party in their large fenced-in backyard. There was a separate cottage at the back of the property. A bar and stage with a drum set and amps were set up next to it.
Everything was very … dignified.
They had waiters in black vests with silver trays of appetizers and champagne milling through the crowd. The press was also mingled. They had a wide array of media, including reporters with their recorders, videographers, and photographers. The guests were a mix of people in the business and their plus-ones, all dressed to impress.
David felt like he’d stumbled upon a fundraiser for some posh charity-of-the-moment.
“I’m going to make a quick circuit to say hello to everyone, and then I’m leaving,” David told Kristen and Harriet.
“I want to stay,” Kristen pouted.
“Do what you want,” he said dismissively.
David spotted his favorite Bond Girl talking to none other than the current James Bond. They were in discussion with two of the original Bonds. Harriet and Kristen tagged along as David put on his best smile and approached them.
“… I will say the gadgets you got to play with were much better than what I used.”
“You had a jetpack that allowed you to fly. I would kill to have been able to do that,” Stewart Thatcher, the current Bond, said.
“David!” Rita James, his favorite Bond Girl, called out to him. She actually played his mother in the current movie and was his mentor in real life.
He put his hand around her waist and kissed her cheek.
Introductions were made.
“David is going to help me get a drink. When I get back, you’d better be ready to dance with me,” she said to Stewart.
They’d been dating for over a year now, and David thought that this relationship looked like it might stick. In Hollywood, that was quite a feat.
David was happy when Harriet and Kristen stayed to listen to the gadget debate. Personally, he agreed with the original Bond. His e-wingsuit kicked ass compared to the jetpack. His stuntmen had filled him in about the one used in the movie, Thunderball. It only had a maximum flight duration of 22 seconds, but even then, it had reappeared in the 2002 film, Die Another Day.
“How was your first semester at USC?” Rita asked.
“There was a little drama with football, but I’m getting that worked out. I also played baseball,” David shared.
“What are you majoring in?”
“Business, with the goal of getting my MBA. USC is also a great film school. I plan to take some classes this summer to see if I want that to be my minor,” he replied.
“Learning the other side of the camera will only make you a better actor.”
“Someday, I might want to make my own movies.”
“You sound like every actor I know,” Rita said, looking amused.
“Says the woman who is branching out herself,” David shot back. “But unlike most actors, I think I might be able to do it.”
“If you surround yourself with the right people,” she quipped.
“If you keep teasing me, I’ll make you be my leading lady. When my film is panned, you’ll have your first box office failure and never work again.”
“I’m already playing a mom. It won’t be long before they’ll want to trot me out as the old Queen Victoria in a period piece.”
“PBS is way better than ending up on the Hallmark Channel,” David said with a serious face.
They both laughed, knowing that would never happen. Well, the part about his first attempt at producing or directing a movie sucking might be accurate, but America’s Sweetheart would never fall that far.
While they were getting their drinks, a sharp-looking black man made an announcement.
“The party will be starting in fifteen minutes. If the press would kindly wrap things up? We will be sending people around to collect all recording devices. Once that is done, we’ll kick things off.”
David looked at Rita.
“Did they say ‘all recording devices’?”
“Yes. That means you can have fun without worrying that it will end up in one of the gossip rags come morning.”
While David thought this was a brilliant idea and planned for all his future parties to instate that rule, he worried it might be an invitation to go wild. He was technically on break, he reasoned. Rita bailed on him and went to find her man.
◊◊◊
While the press cleared out, they sent the waitstaff around to collect all cell phones and the like. David had called his security to let them know he was giving up his bodycam for the night. Not because he wanted to, but because they ran this wand thingy over his body and found it. He was given a ticket like people received when they checked their coats to pick up his electronic devices when he left.
His ‘date’ was a huge disappointment. Harriet had called her boyfriend, and he’d hustled his butt to the party to be with her. To top it off, he gushed to David that he was his ‘biggest fan.’ All that kept David from slitting his wrists was that it had to be way past the old man’s bedtime.
The party began with some piped-in music and the handsome black man making a grand entrance with six party hos dancing around him. He held two liquor bottles over his head, and the crowd surged towards him.
“What’s that all about?” Kristen asked.
“That, my innocent American friends, is a Professional Party Starter,” Harriet explained. “His job is to make sure everyone has enough fun, drinks, and drugs … that the music is right … and that the beautiful people are present. Give him twenty minutes, and everyone will be loaded and half-naked and either dancing or shagging. You are about to have your minds blown.”
David shook his head in wonder as the girls handed out shots and other stuff that was probably illegal. He also noticed that the older crowd had all left, and a new group of younger people had flowed in.
He was debating whether he should leave when someone grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the stage. David wasn’t sure who it was because she pushed through the gathering crowd around the PPS, as he was now mentally calling the party starter.
When they broke through the other side, he stopped, jerking the girl who was dragging him, causing her to turn around.
“Pree,” David said as he recognized the terrorist/singer he’d met his senior year of high school. “What are we doing?”
“We’re singing together. Now, follow me,” she ordered.
Well, okay, then.
◊◊◊
Pree Amarnath had sung the featured song for Devil May Care. David might have asked Chubby to tell him who was deciding on the singer and sent the guy couple of her songs. Pree was no joke. She could absolutely shred a song, as he’d learned when the two of them had sung together for a Christmas Special.
David knew that he would never be able to do the vocal gymnastics Pree could pull off, but he could play her straight man and let his baritone carry the tune as she went off. That was how he found himself backstage as she joined her band.
“Gather round. I thought I would sing for you tonight,” Pree announced to the crowd.
She had picked a song that David was sure he would fall on his face singing. It was way too high for his voice. It was Pink and Nate Ruess’s Just Give Me a Reason. The music started, and Pree began to sing.
When David had first heard her sing, she reminded him of one of the classic rockers from the sixties, Janice Joplin. Then she showed that she was much more than a screamer and could hold her own with anyone. When she did that, David thought of another singer, Christina Aguilera.
The song was about a woman who suspects that her relationship is over and begs her man to give her a reason not to end it. Pree’s rendition had David near tears as it came time to join her on stage.
“Ladies and gentlemen … David A. Dawson,” Pree announced as he came from the back.
He gave the crowd a wave. While he didn’t have Nate’s range, David dug down and gave a credible performance singing-wise. What he did know was acting and how to sell an emotion. By the end, he had to blink back real tears because he’d fallen entirely into character.
He was slightly embarrassed when Pree picked up on it and gave him a hug.
“You all right?” she asked in his ear.
“Give me a second,” he replied as he released the feelings he used when filming.
When he was ready, they followed with Uptown Funk, which gave them a chance to dance on stage. It also got the rest of the crowd up as the party kicked into high gear.
Everyone was saved when Pree kicked David off the stage.
◊◊◊
David made a mental note that his PA was MIA. He momentarily worried about her, but she was in her mid-twenties and had indeed survived parties like this, so he let it go.
The consensus from his fellow castmates was that he should stick to acting. David decided they were just jealous.
He then decided that he had to find somewhere else to be when two of them—Mia Hilliard, his love interest in the movie, and Isabel Alexandra, Ben Cowley’s girlfriend—suggested they find a room. He made good his escape when the PPS and his assistants plied the girls with more shots.
David slipped off into a back corner of the yard as he watched the two girls try to figure out where he’d gone. He found a girl sitting alone. He might have left her alone if she wasn’t his future wife. David, like most men, had a type. Personally, he liked tall, athletic girls who were smart.
But this girl was none of that, except for maybe the smart part. She looked to be short and had obviously let the freshman fifteen grow to the 'I’m married and don’t give a damn' thirty. What she had was red hair and the requisite pale skin with freckles and blue eyes.
David had once looked it up, and less than two percent of the population had natural red hair. The same article said that redheads were more likely to have devil children, but he wasn’t looking for any more kids.
“Uhhhh, no,” was her greeting when he smiled at her.
“No, what?”
“No. Not interested.”
David knew right then that he also liked her for more than her looks.
“Uh … no, not interested in what?” he asked, playing dumb.
“In whatever you’re selling.”
“I didn’t even say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was?” David asked, giving the English rose a confused look.
“Yeah, you were about to give me your best pickup line. Something like, ‘Sup’ and give me a head bob. For future reference, that is neither witty nor charming. Then you would follow it up with the classic, ‘Can I touch your belly button … from the inside?’”
David choked on something as he tried not to laugh.
“Seriously! People have said that to you?” he asked, and she nodded to let him know they had. “Just so you know, I’m not that guy.”
“I’ve been around enough to know that guys cruise parties like this where the girls are encouraged to drink a lot. Since most guys who attend could never get anyone in the light of day, they capitalize on our lowered inhibitions.”
“You’re just crazy enough to be interesting. And for your information, I do just fine in the light of day,” David fired back.
“Then what are you doing here?” she asked.
“I’m in the movie.”
“Wow. That movie was actually good.”
“Thank you. What, pray tell, are you doing here, little Miss Know-it-all? Besides making a sport out of scowling at any man who walks by,” he said.
“Please, scowling can be fun.”
“Look, I have to go. It was nice meeting you,” David said as he turned to walk away.
Then he twirled around and came back.
“Just so you know, all I was going to say was, ‘My name is David. What’s yours?’
“Then I was hoping we would talk a little, and I would find out that you’re not the kind of girl that comes to parties like this. That would explain why the prettiest girl in the whole place was sitting all alone, glaring at everyone. Because you’re right. Most guys are dirty pervs who would seduce you and leave you. That’s it,” he said.
He turned and began to walk away.
“David?”
He turned back, and she was smiling.
“Colleen,” she shared.
“Nice to meet you, Colleen,” David said and left her.
◊◊◊
David was ready to go and decided that he’d best check on Kristen before leaving. It was a good thing he did because he found her out of her mind, either drunk or stoned or, most probably, both. She was sitting on a couch between two men who were in the process of undressing her.
“Sorry, guys, but that one’s mine, and we have to go,” David said.
They weren’t in much better shape as they turned and gawked at him as he scooped his PA up and walked out of the room.
When he reached the front door, one of the waiters already had their electronic equipment in bags. He handed them to David, acting like it was normal to seeing a man carry a half-naked girl from the party.
When David stepped outside, his driver had already pulled up. David suspected that the host might have planted hidden cameras. He was glad he hadn’t gotten up to more than having a cocktail or three.
◊◊◊
Chapter 5
Brook
Brook and six of her friends had moved into her grandmother’s Brooklyn condo for the summer. Grace Davenport had hired them all to help start the New York branch of Holistic Wealth Management. Brook had wanted to travel, maybe see Europe, for the summer. But her mother, Ava, had called and asked her to spend the summer in New York.
Brook couldn’t say ‘no’ to her mother because Ava had agreed to manage the new branch after her divorce had become final just a month ago. Ian, Brook’s father, had left for California, where he had accepted a position as a political science professor at Stanford. She planned to visit him later this summer, once he got settled.
It hadn’t been hard to convince her sorority sisters to join her because they were offered top dollar and the promise of many résumé-building experiences. Well, that, and staying in a penthouse condo located in the heart of DUMBO—short for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass—the most expensive neighborhood in Brooklyn.
The condo was situated right on the water’s edge. The floor-to-ceiling windows offered NYC skyline, East River, and bridge views from almost every room.
Keira stuck her head into Brook’s bedroom and looked a little overexcited. Today was Holistic’s board of directors meeting. They’d all gotten a chance to help prepare presentations and coordinate everyone coming into town.
While the board meeting was a big deal, what had Keira and the rest of Brook’s roommates excited was that David Dawson was attending. They were teasing her because her ex had admitted that she was one of his true loves. It was all well and good until the paparazzi showed up and staked out their building.
Her roommates had dragged her to see David’s latest movie last night. After the shower and towel scenes, the consensus was that Brook needed to have her head examined for dumping such an outstanding specimen of manhood.
She thought back to that scene and his half-naked, glistening body. Flexing muscles, yum! Brook bit her bottom lip. If she kept her eyes closed and didn’t move, she was afraid that her desire would become all too real.
Brook could almost picture David making his model walk toward her, a nice, easy gait where his muscles rippled with each step. She could practically feel his breath on her neck as he leaned down to kiss it. Her mouth parted slightly. She licked her dry lips.
“The car is downstairs. You need to get a move on,” Keira said to bring her out of her fantasy.
“How do I look?” Brook asked, trying to cover that she was flustered.
“Way too professional for meeting your ex. You should wear that black dress with the slit up the front. You want to remind David what he’s missing.”
“Give it a rest. He got over me a long time ago,” Brook reasoned. “Besides, I’m seeing Bastian now.”
“Please. Bastian went home for the summer, and everyone knows his ex is lying in wait to pounce on him the first chance she gets. And after seeing your ex, there’s no way Bastian measures up,” Keira said with a look of mischief. “Be honest, which one was better in bed?”
Brook had refused to share any personal information about her relationship with David. This was just another ploy to get her to spill details. She gave Keira a look that communicated her feelings on the topic.
“Okay, fine. Just tell me this. Is he as good-looking in person as he is in the movies?”
“Better,” Brook said.
Keira fanned her face with her hand like some Southern belle having the vapors.
“Do me a favor and talk me up to him,” she begged. “Oh, and don’t let the others get near him. We don’t need a repeat of what Mallory did at our last party.”
They’d had a little get-together after finals that had gotten out of hand. Brook’s sisters had to get rid of all their alcohol, so someone got the bright idea to make the ‘kitchen sink’ of sorority-girl drinks: Long Island Iced Teas. The trouble started when the syph boys had shown up.
There was a fraternity next to their house that had a bad reputation. The girls had started calling them ‘syph boys’ because the rumor was they’d all gotten syphilis over spring break from a bunch of skanks from Wellesley College.
Mallory had started early and made some bad decisions. They’d had to save her from herself when she decided to climb this poor freshman boy in the middle of the party room. The funny part was she denied it ever happened and insisted that all the pictures they took were fake.
Brook had to chuckle because that little stunt would have ended up far differently if she’d climbed up David and stuck her tongue down his throat. He wasn’t some ordinary nervous freshman.
Truth be told, David would never have done anything with Mallory because she was drunk. That was one of the things Brook missed about him. While he wasn’t really a ‘good boy’ in the sense that he was saving it for marriage, he had a solid moral code.