When Graham first signed with him, Fenton Management had been up and running for only a few years. Before that, Harry had been an entertainment lawyer who had grown tired of contracts and fine print and thought he might have a knack for managing the careers of actors instead. His first client was a round-faced, bespectacled kid from a popular sitcom, and after that, he’d somehow scraped together a decent roster of young actors with dubious levels of talent.
Before Graham had signed the contract for the trilogy, back when the casting was still under wraps and nobody could have known how quickly his star would rise, Harry had been the only one willing to take a meeting with him. Graham would always be grateful for that, for his faith in him, a completely untested high school kid whose only credit was a middling performance in Guys and Dolls. Now he was by far Harry’s biggest client, and in addition to the usual amount of time and attention this position merited, it also seemed to have earned him an often grumpy, middle-aged shadow while on location.
“This is bad,” Harry was saying, running his hand through what was left of his hair in a worried manner. “You can’t just waltz into a town like this, ask out the first girl you see, and then leave her high and dry.”
Graham looked over. “Is that what the story said?”
“No,” he said with a shrug. “But word’s out.”
“I didn’t leave her high and dry,” Graham explained. “It’s just that there was a mix-up…”
“That’s not the point,” Harry said, scraping his chair around so they were facing each other. “The point is that you’re supposed to be with Olivia.”
Graham glared at him. “Am I?”
“In a town like this, with no other girls around for the next few weeks, everyone figured you two would just—”
He raised an eyebrow. “Just what?”
“You have to admit, it would be great publicity for the film—and for you,” Harry continued, oblivious to the look on Graham’s face. “You’re at a crossroads here, career-wise. Your next project, your next girlfriend—these are all important considerations. And don’t look at me like that. This is why you pay me the big bucks—to tell you these kinds of things. To take you to the next level, we need to step carefully, okay?” He paused and threw up his hands. “Plus, she’s Olivia Brooks, for Christ’s sake. It’s not like I’m suggesting that you sleep with a troll.”
“You don’t get to tell me to sleep with anybody,” Graham said, rising from his chair.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant—well, you can at least try, can’t you?”
Graham walked over to the tiny window at the back of the trailer, which looked out over the set. The cameras were already positioned, and the director—a young guy named Mick, who was coming off an indie darling that had surprised everyone by garnering an Oscar nomination—was pacing with a gaggle of production assistants at his back. Soon, Graham would be called out there to run down the street after Olivia, sweep her up, and kiss her passionately. And not just once, but probably more like eighteen to twenty times.
“There are others girls around, you know,” he said without turning around. “Just because this isn’t New York or L.A. doesn’t mean there aren’t interesting people.”
“Right,” Harry said. “I’m sure she was lovely.”
Graham smiled, remembering the look on Ellie’s face when she first saw him under the lights of the porch, but then he realized Harry was talking about Quinn. Before he could say anything, there was a knock on the door, and they both turned.
“Five minutes, Mr. Larkin,” someone called, and Graham took a deep breath. No matter how many times he did this, no matter how prepared he felt, this was the moment when his stomach always dipped. There was an art to being himself now, and it didn’t come without effort. In some ways, it took more acting for him to carry himself a certain way on set than it did to lose himself in his character, a teenage boy whose father had just died in a tragic boating accident, and who had complicated feelings for the girl who had witnessed it.
Without another word, Graham brushed past Harry and out the door of the trailer, breathing in the heavy air before hurrying down the steps, where a PA with a headset and a clipboard was waiting to escort him the twelve feet it took to walk to his mark, as if he might get lost along the way. Graham was used to this by now; sometimes you were treated like a god, and other times, like a four-year-old.
They’d already rehearsed earlier, and now the director greeted him with a few last-minute notes. They were shooting out of order, so today’s scene was actually one that would come near the end of the film, when his character finally broke out of his haze and realized what had been in front of him all along. Graham looked up as that very someone approached, dressed in an absurdly short jean skirt and a red bikini top.
“Hey,” Olivia said with a little smirk. Her long blond hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail that had probably taken the hair people hours to make so perfectly casual, and her makeup was applied in such a way as to make it look like she wore none at all. “I heard you’ve been enjoying the town.”
“Just checking out the local cuisine,” he said, trying to keep the edge out of his voice. Olivia was undeniably gorgeous, but something about her grated on Graham. She’d been in the Hollywood machine for years now—she’d started her career as a precocious kid on a popular medical drama—and the truth was, it showed. He first met her a couple of years ago at a party for one of her films, and when they’d been introduced, she’d barely looked at him, only tossed a haughty glance his way as she lit her cigarette before moving on to someone far more famous. That was before the first Top Hat movie had come out, and from the way she acted around him now, he guessed she probably didn’t remember that particular night. But then, from what he’d heard about Olivia, she didn’t remember a lot of nights.
The main street of town had been completely blocked off for filming. At the opposite end of the road, Graham could make out the ice-cream shop, and he wondered if Ellie was there now. Along the sides of the street, crowded behind metal gates, people leaned in with their cameras ready, taking photos and videos as a few big-shouldered security guards paced in front of them.
Graham wiggled his fingers and cleared his throat. He enjoyed shooting on location—studio lighting being no match for the sun—but he felt edgy today in front of an audience. When he first started acting, he’d been unsettled to discover that the filming so often happened out of order, and this was exactly why: it seemed impossible to work up to the big kiss when none of the preceding moments had been explored yet. It just wasn’t the way things worked in real life, and he felt like he could use a bit more of a drumroll.
Still, he knew most guys his age would give anything to kiss Olivia Brooks, and here he was being paid—and nicely—to do it. At the moment, she was discussing something with the assistant director on the other end of the set, and Graham hopped up and down a few times, trying to get his head in the right place as he waited. The wardrobe supervisor ran over and held out a hand, but it took him a second to realize she was waiting for him to take off his shirt. As he peeled it over his head, the crowd let out a high-pitched cheer, and Graham couldn’t help laughing, even as someone else trotted over with a comb to tease his hair back into place. He scanned the crowd once again, hoping that Ellie wasn’t there watching, though he suspected this would be the last place he’d find her.
When it was finally time to start, Graham took a long breath. He was supposed to go running down the street, hook Olivia around the waist, and then half pick her up as they kissed. It was, to be honest, a bit more acrobatic than Graham thought was realistic, and when they’d practiced it, it hadn’t gone particularly well. He wasn’t bad at scooping her up, but the momentum of the whole thing and the way that they spun often meant he missed her when he went for the kiss, and twice he’d gotten her neck instead.