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chronic-ghost · 10 months

Text

Chapter 1 of Recovery Road

chapter rating (this will change!): T

pairing: dieter bravo x f!reader

word count: 6444

chapter summary: dieter joins the production of an old friend and meets his new co-star

chapter warnings/tags: discussions of addiction/rehab, smoking, cursing, angst, no use of y/n, named reader but no physical descriptions other than hairstyle/clothing, adult language

a/n: Highly recommend reading the AO3 version. I've been working on doing some fun things with formatting work skins, so please check that out! My FC for Heidi is Sarah Goldberg and Timothy Olyphant as Mark, but yours doesn't have to!

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“Despite the meteoric success of their first and only film together, Recovery Road, neither Dieter Bravo nor Natalie Lorraine were present when the film won the Oscar for Best Picture that year— an oddity for the main leads of such a critical and commercial darling. Cobbled together from stories from other cast members, director’s cut commentary, and straight up rumors, there is no clear cut picture of what happened to prevent the two stars from basking in the rewards of the film’s success. Perhaps in twenty years, if we’re all still around and the internet monolith continues to chug forward, we’ll get some tell-all documentary on Netflix where all things will be revealed. Blood shed. Lives lost. The whole shebang. Until then, you can find this old reviewer sitting up in his attic rewatching one of the most poignant and moving depictions of love and addiction we’ve gotten in the last three decades. Recovery Road is not, nor has it ever been, one to miss.” - John Michael David, Rolling Stone, “Why Recovery Road Still Stays With Us Today”

It’s getting hot inside the car.

If he was going to sit this long in the fucking car, he should have left it running. Summers in LA are sneaky. Desert air is cold in the dark, but piercing in the day. He had purposefully parked in the shade, but it was still too much. He feels sweat break out across his hairline and he knows that won’t be a good look. He needs to look completely put together, completely at ease, relaxed. Unflinching. Unrufflable. Like he does tai chi every thirty minutes and can harmonize with the universe during rush hour traffic.

He’s got to keep it together.

But he can’t take his fucking palms down from his eyes. The heel of his hands dig into his eye sockets and for all the pressure it builds, it feels good. The pressure flushes out every other thought in his head and he needs to go into this clear-headed. If he fucks up again, it’s not just his ass on the line.

He wants to believe things are going to be different this time. He wants to believe he’s going to be different. He’s worked his ass off to get here – sweated and shook and vomited into his own lap as the withdrawals tightened every muscle in his body – and now he just needs this one chance. Chloe – patient, perfect Chloe – was counting on him. If she said he could do it, he probably could.

His left hand, third finger, twinges and that’s what brings his hands down from his face. He looks at the ring there. That gold beautiful ring. A promise made real. He swallows.

Today, it’s a table read. Done it a thousand times. He’s actually early, for fuck’s sake. He glances down, triple checking he’s not wearing slippers or that mangy robe. Jeans. Black shirt. Easy. Chloe warned against the rings, but he’d sooner part with those than his right hand entirely. Sure he fucked up, sure he was a fuck up, but there were parts of Dieter Bravo that just had a right to exist. People wouldn’t recognize him without his rings.

He did cave about the earring though.

You’re almost thirty-six, darling. Nobody but rockstars can wear earrings at that age.

When he went into rehab, he was thirty-three. He had lost two years of his life in that prison and he was not about to do it again. He had left his sobriety token at home, but he wished he had it now, just for something to squeeze, something to soothe his feverish palm. Again, Chloe had quietly nudged him: “do we need to get you a fidget spinner, baby?”

He wanted to joke, “that’s what the adderall is for”, but given that his doctor was forced to prescribe him something else for his ADHD after they found a dozen empty pill bottles under his bed, it probably wasn’t all that funny.

He breathes, counting down just like the nice lady at the rehab center taught him to.

Your self-destructive habits formed out of necessity. It’s time to reshape them.

Today, it’s just a table read. He can do this.

He pops the sunglasses out of their holder on the console and slips them over his eyes. He takes one more glance out of the rearview mirror, half-expecting to be staring down the long lens of a TMZ reporter. He grabs the script from the passenger seat, curls it under his fingers— and still doesn’t move.

He likes this script. He likes the writer, seen their work in the past and it rocks. It’s good. It’s a good part. It’s actually better than good. It’s Oscar bait, they say on the internet, and he has the lead part. An aging musician struggling to rebuild his life after a drug addiction ruined his band’s final tour. The scriptwriter didn’t actually say that he had Dieter in mind when he wrote the part, but Jesus– suffice it to say, he understood the material.

The aging musician was going to help a young upstart find her way in the music scene. She joins the band. They flirt, they fuck, they fall in love, and everything is ruined by their own egos. End credits. Lights up. Oscar in his hand.

He didn’t recognize the name of his co-star when his agent sent over the cast list. He honestly didn’t even ask about her. He knew the director, had worked with her in the past, and thought she had a real eye for scenecraft and a knack for finding that beating heart of a moment. He trusted her with casting the right part for his opposite, just as she had casted him. But it wasn’t even about her, his co-star– he was ready to dig in and see what the director could pull out of him.

And fuck, if it worked for RDJ, then it could work for him.

This had to work for him. He feels the pressure return behind his eyeballs.

“Fuck it,” he hisses and nearly kicks the door open. The script curled up in his hand like a baseball bat, Dieter Bravo strolls across the hot parking lot to the studio sound stage and into the rest of his life.

He is used to being stared at. He is used to all eyes on him, but not like this. This feels too much like that last party when the cops showed up and found all of his illegal prescriptions. It makes him itch.

The empty stage is filled mostly with crew and staff, setting up lighting and testing the sound recording. They’re all busy, getting ready for next week to start filming, but they all still have time to send him a worried glance. Because if he fucked up, they’d all be out of a job until shooting wrapped. They had enough courtesy to not actually whisper in front of him, but he knew exactly what they were saying just after he’s out of earshot:

“Oh, fuck, this is a Bravo flick? Shit, I gotta get another gig.”

“That asshole is here? Oh my God, this thing’ll be shut down in two weeks!”

“Fuck that guy and his stupid hair.”

Okay, that last one might have been projecting. He catches his own gaze in a pane of glass while he waits for the director’s assistant to return. His hair, despite his best attempts, would not lie flat, would not stay unrumpled. Another thing Chloe thought a man of his age shouldn’t have.

He hasn’t seen another cast member and now he’s worried he got the time wrong and he’s missed it and he’s already started all of this off all wrong —

“Dieter! Oh my God, you’re here!”

Heidi, the director, beams at him so bright he actually feels himself go warm. She has her arms out open for him and he rushes to her, picks her up in his arms and twirls her. Her hair is back to her natural silvery blonde, cut short and kept out of her face with a tornado of bobby pins. He’s never seen her without her jean jacket, even at premieres.

Early on in their careers, he found he had too much respect for her to try and sleep with her and they formed, over the years, the closest thing he could call a healthy relationship. She was like his sister, since his own didn’t seem like she’d ever pick up the phone again.

It also helped that she was a raging lesbian, happily married, and wouldn’t go near his dick for all the money at Warner Brothers Studios.

“Dieter, you look so fucking good, dude.” She pats his face and scrunches up her nose, those black headphones knocking around her neck. “Fuck, it’s been too long.”

“I know, Di, I know.” He always liked that their nicknames sounded alike. Dee and Di. A team. “How’s Lucy?”

“Pfft, you know her. Taken the kids up to Canada for the summer. Says the trees are more ‘real’ there,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I miss the little buggers, but shit, it’s nice to have a quiet house.”

He laughs, the knot in his chest easing. “Before school starts up again, you’ll have to come by the new place.”

“Oh, shit, that’s right. You just moved back into the neighborhood, didn’t you? I heard about that. You and, uh . . .”

He hides the blush in the tips of his ears with his hand, acting like he’s scratching an itch on the side of his head. “Yeah, Chloe and I are still together. Been married for a little over two years now.”

At that, Heidi’s bright green eyes snap open wide. She nearly launches herself at him to grab his hand, gawking at the only gold ring on his finger. “Shutthefuckup. You got married?! You asshole, why wasn’t I invited?”

He swallows past the hard knot in his throat. “It was a small thing. Could hardly call it a party.”

Heidi, as she usually does, takes not a lick of his bullshit. “Uh huh. Well, shit, I guess we have to double-date now.”

“I’d like that.” He grins.

Her shock softens, and she punches his shoulder softly, her smile wide across her face. “You fuckin’ dork. I can’t believe you got married. Who knew Dieter Bravo would settle down?”

He doesn’t know what to say to that, doesn’t know what’s going to come out of his mouth if he tries to answer, so he just shrugs. Her eyes linger on him for a second more, before looping her arm through his and leading him away from the stage.

“So have you read the script?”

He nods eagerly. “Yep. The whole thing. Front to back. It’s fucking incredible, Heidi.”

“Yes it is! There’s so much to work with. It’s a little hoity-toity for my taste in some places, but I think there’s a way to balance the shmaltz with genuine emotion, you know? The script, it’s so raw and real, I know you can get to those places.”

“Yeah, like I haven’t already,” he jokes off-handedly. They’re standing in the big open bay, where the crew can wheel in giant cranes for lighting or special effects, when Heidi freezes. A frown is growing over her face as though realizing something for the first time. A wind blows in and he thinks he can smell the desert in it.

“Oh, fuck, Dee,” she murmurs, not even looking at him. “This script, the material . . . you just got out of fucking rehab, and—,”

He shakes his head, a bit frantic. He’ll get on his hands and knees to let her keep him on this project. “Heidi, this is fine. I’m fine.”

He takes her by her shoulders and makes her look him in the eye.

“I want this part. I want this part so fucking badly. I know I can do it too. I’m going to do this project and it’s going to blow your fucking socks off. You can count on me. I’m responsible now, I promise.”

At that, her green eyes soften. “Responsible and married? Who the fuck are you and what have you done with Dieter Bravo?”

Early on in their careers, she had also been right by his side, doing line after line of coke off hookers and strippers. But then she grew up. If she can have a family and a beautiful wife, then why can’t he?

“Dee, look,” she says softly and touches the hand around her shoulder. “I’m not worried about any of that. I always knew you were something special, if you could just get out of your own way.” She glances away, shame making her mouth tick. “But I should have checked in more. I knew you were still in rehab, even after those times I called. I should have stayed in touch. I’m sorry.”

Something about her pity was unbearable. “Don’t. Please. It’s in the past. It’s over and I want to move on. This time, it’s going to be different.”

Heidi nods, smiling. “For sure, dude. We’ll do this together.”

He can fucking breathe again. She sees this and takes him by the arm, letting him get his feet under him. The air is warm, and Heidi’s hand is firm against his forearm.

“I know the email said to meet at the sound stage, but everyone’s working out here, so I just put us in the back of the studio. Much more quiet. C’mon, I think I saw Mark’s car up front.”

She leads him to the next building, chattering on and on about the composer they got. How the music is gonna fuck so hard, they’re even trying to convince the studio to let them record a full fake album for the movie — “if you don’t wanna sing, Dee, that’s totally fine but I am begging you to do at least some of the guitar,” — and the building door opens.

It’s a squat building, probably more offices than anything to do with production, but it’s where Heidi is taking him, and the door opens. A man, much younger than he is, stumbles out, giddily laughing over his shoulder. He looks to be a PA of some kind — wiry, a little strung out, probably with dreams of writing the next Citizen Kane someday — but he’s looking at something over his shoulder.

Or rather at someone.

A woman, barely that but with all the cosmic designs of one, steps out after him. Her white cowboy boots hug just below her knee, her smooth legs, rich with the sun, curl up into a men’s white collared shirt. She walks and only a flash of denim shorts peek out from under the shirt.

She isn’t laughing, but smirking. Knowing something this poor PA has no concept of. Her black aviators push her lush hair out of her face and her fingers glitter with silver jewelry. She’s smiling at the PA like a leopard seal smiles at lemmings.

She chews something in the back of her teeth and then blows a bright pink bubble. The PA’s smile falls off his face as he watches, wide-eyed, the gum snaps in her mouth.

Dieter immediately and, without question, dislikes her. Dislikes her so much, he can feel it burn in his chest.

Her wicked eyes slide from the PA, over his shoulder, and lands squarely on Dieter. She blinks.

“Oh, hey, kiddo, you found the right place.”

Heidi walks up to her and shakes her hand. That sharp-toothed glint in her eye is gone as she eagerly chats up Heidi, and the PA might as well have disappeared off the face of the earth.

Heidi waves him over and it takes a full two seconds for him to remember how walking works. The sun is hot on his back.

The woman — the girl — is looking him up and down, calculating and cool. As if she, unlike him, hasn’t quite made up her mind about what she thinks of him.

Heidi waves a hand in between you two. She says your name and his mind suddenly locks onto it. He suddenly knows who you are before Heidi says it. He read it on the cast list. He hadn’t given it a second thought.

“This is your new co-star, Natalie Lorraine. The other lead. You two will be working very closely together for the next couple of months.”

She’s stopped chewing gum. Either she swallowed it or tightly packed it to the back of her gums, because there’s no slur, no crumpled edge to her words, when she extends her hand and says:

“Hi, Dieter. Nice to meet you.”

Your hand is soft in his and your lotion reminds him of lilac.

Today is just a fucking table read.

He tries to unclench his jaw when he says, “nice to meet you too.”

He’s on his third bottle of water and he’s eying the trashcan in the corner, wondering how discreetly he could throw away several plastic bottles before it looks weird. He’s got the script out in front of him on a long, white plastic table and a few people have stopped by to say hi. He had gotten up to stand and shake their hand, and several of them had blinked up at him, as if they had forgotten how tall he was, when he wasn’t hunched over, fighting a hangover. Heidi was gathering the last of the cast mates before the table read and had been gone for twenty minutes or so. Maybe —

In the corner, she laughs, the sound brilliant and loud. In a world full of perfect, practiced laughs, hers is noticeable, but not entirely bad, and a few people turn to look at her. She’s got a hand on Mark Bronson’s arm, clearly delighted at something he said, and he is obviously starstruck.

Dieter actively fights the scowl on his face. He’d known Mark for a while. Good guy, little vices, always put in the work. Been married to the same waitress he met out in Oregon on a shoot a decade and a half ago, and never once stepped out. Dieter had been thrilled to see him, to catch up on old times, Dieter purposefully making a joke that referenced the one time they were on that old cop show together when they first got to Hollywood. “Nobody would really believe we’re gangsters, now, eh, Dee?” Mark had said with a grin. “Too fuckin’ old.”

Mark had stayed and talked and that again eased the tension in his chest. If Mark actually hated his guts, then the Oscar really should go to him.

But as more people filed in, he excused himself to catch up with one of the directors of the art department and Dieter had taken the opportunity to grab as many bottles as a reasonable person would from the cooler. He likes ice cold water. The colder, the better the burn.

But here Mark is, sidled up to that girl, laughing it up like they were old friends. Traitor, he muses glumly, and thumbs the white plastic cap. He’s thought about Googling her — who the fuck is this girl — but didn’t know how to justify it if someone caught him.

The back door to the room opens and Heidi steps in.

“Alright, five minutes. Take your smoke breaks, your pee breaks, your whatever breaks. Hopefully not all at the same time, but I ain’t here to judge.”

There’s a collective chuckle before everyone moves to take their seats. He keeps his eyes trained on the water bottle as bodies weave around him, chair squeaking as they are pulled out and sat on. The atmosphere is relaxed, easy, everything he wanted. So why is he so fucking tightly wound?

“Thirsty?”

It takes him a second to unstick his gaze from the bottle. He knows you’re talking to him.

He glances up at your face from under his lashes. You aren’t exactly smiling at him, but there’s a light in your eyes that feels . . . playful. What a normal, innocent question. But when he doesn’t respond, you lean forward on your elbows, your rings interlocking on your fingers. Your gaze drops his and nudges the two empty plastic bottles around his script.

“And there’s two more under your chair. So are you—,”

“I like to keep hydrated,” he says, cutting you off. “It’s summer in LA and . . . uh, it’s hot.”

“Uh huh,” you reply, slowly. “Can I have one? You know, since it’s hot.”

His mouth twitches — get off your perky ass and get one yourself — but then he’s liable to see your bare legs again. And he knows a comment like that would get him some stares, which would not be good.

He swears you know all of this too, by the way your eyes glitter at him, daring him. That’s the worst– he’s figured it out. You look at him from under your thick eyelashes like you want to play a championship round of Truth or Dare, but it would only ever be Dare. You want to see him dance on hot coals, eat a sword, kiss a snake. You want to watch him squirm and it’s so obvious, he clenches his jaw.

He swallows and bends down. He holds out the water bottle by the very end to you, but you somehow manage to brush your fingers up against his anyway. He doesn’t physically recoil but he feels like he needs to go wash his hands.

“Thank you,” you say as you unscrew the cap then drink heavily from the bottle. It’s halfway empty when you put it on the table. Your tongue laps up the water from your lip.

He grunts as a response. You open your mouth to bother him further, when Heidi calls the start of the read. Dieter pulls his reading glasses out of his pocket, when he sees you’ve done the same. Silver, though, to his black, they’re perched on the edge of your nose, and you’re looking down at the script as if trying to divine lighting rods. You’re focused, the playful, tempting air gone, and there’s an intensity to your eyes that wasn’t there before. You look . . . almost normal.

He slides his glasses on and looks back to his pages, the tips of his ears burning.

The table read goes well.

Sort of.

There’s a handful of scenes Heidi has picked out for the majority of the cast to read together. Mark does well, as the manager who is trying to hold all the egos together but struggling with demons of his own. He’s funny when he needs to be, but serious enough to flip a line read that deepens his character. God, he’s so fucking talented, Dieter thinks as the table laughs at one of his character’s jokes.

The other members of Dieter’s band in the movie are made up of a few guys, two girls. They have a natural chemistry that makes it seem like they’ve been friends for years. Dieter makes a note to try and get to know them better as people off the set to hopefully find his own rhythm with them. A few smile at him as he’s doing his own line reading and he feels good about it.

Everything is fine and easy, until there are a few scenes specifically between him and you.

You’re putting too much emotion into it for just a table read and it’s making him uncomfortable. These things are just to get to know everyone, to see how the cast can play off each other, but you’re out here acting like there’s cameras ten feet back. Have you ever even been to a table read before? Shouldn’t you know this?

After you deliver a heartfelt monologue about feeling lonely in the world, he hears a few sniffles. The two girls of the band are red-eyed and Mark is stone-faced. Even Heidi looks affected.

What the fuck is going on? Is he the only one not swayed by your bullshit?

All of a sudden, you take his hand from across the table, your eyes pouring into his and he’s caught off guard.

“Tell me you understand,” you say, your voice wet with emotion. “Tell me you understand why you can’t ever leave me.”

He wets his lips and sits up straighter in his seat. He squeezes your hand, opening up the light in his eyes. Fine, two can play that fucking game.

“I’m no good for you, baby,” he croons. “There’s a million of me out there and only one of you.”

“But you’re the only one I want. The only one I need.”

Fuck, you’re good. But he’s better. He turns your hand over, exposing your wrist to the cool air and thumbs your pulse gently. He smiles wistfully at you.

“What we want can kill us. I love you, darling, but that’s not enough.”

The room is silent.

He glances down and read the next stage action:

They meet in a passionate kiss.

His eyebrows raise and he glances back at you, halfway expecting you to throw yourself at him from across the table.

But, no. Instead of looking at him with love in your eyes, you are fucking furious. Your mouth is pulled into a tight line and he can see you mentally picture strangling him.

“Alright—,” Heidi calls out, her voice gruff. “Alright, let’s move on. Page one-fifteen.”

The room fills with the fluttering of paper and a few people sniff, rubbing their eyes.

You yank back your wrist out of his grip but don’t move to turn the page. And neither does he.

Oh, you’re mad that I did the exact same thing you were doing, but better? Sorry, hot tits, you have no idea who you’re fucking with. Welcome to the real world.

You look like you want to sink your fangs into him. You’re kind of cute, with your nostrils flared, in that megalomaniac kind of way.

A woman to his right asks what page they’re starting on, and it forces him to break eye contact with you. He tells her and thumbs to the correct page himself, where Mark is having an argument with one of the guys in the band.

He glances up at you. Tension still lines your body but you aren’t looking at him anymore. In fact, you’re making a clear point not to. His chest soars.

He is definitely counting that as a win.

He opens the back door to the studio lot and breathes in the evening air. Day one, knocked down and dragged out back. He feels so fucking good.

After the reading, Mark came over and congratulated him again on getting the part. He makes sure Dieter has his number before saluting him and announcing he’s heading home for the night. The band is hanging out in the corner, but the talk dies down as he approaches. One of the guys looks positively horrified as he smiles and waves at them.

“You did a great job today,” he says to their half circle. He’s never seen anyone’s eyes so wide in their heads before. “Have you all worked together before?”

“We’re an actual band and you’re really Dieter Bravo,” one of the girls blurts out. Her friend, presumably, elbows her and she blinks as though slapped. “I mean, we play real music. We’ve been on the radio a few times . . . but you’ve probably never heard of us . . .” She trails off, glancing helplessly at her friends to make her shut up.

Her friend, a young woman with hair so red it had to have been fake, rolls her eyes. “We’re The Sixers. We started out here in LA and we’ve been on the strip a few times. Our agent said that it would be great publicity if we were in a movie.”

“Oh, shit,” Dieter mutters, as surprised as they are, “The Sixers – yeah, I have heard of you before. I’m fucking old as hell, but I still listen to the radio.”

“You’ll have to give us some acting pointers,” one of the other guys offers up, his hands in his jean pockets. He seems less obviously starstruck but trying to play it cool.

“Only if you help me to remember how to play the guitar,” Dieter grins.

“You know how to play?” The first girl gawks.

He winks at her. “When everyone else around me is too drunk to notice I’m terrible.”

They laugh, the girl’s face whiter than a sheet, and then the redhead introduces everyone. “That’s Nick, Cooper, and Samuel. Our resident ghost here is Marie, and I’m Roxie.”

He vaguely wonders which of those are stage names, but is absolutely sure that’s not Roxie’s real name. But she seems like the kind of person who’d like it that way.

“You all are in good hands with Heidi,” he nods to the director, who’s been chatting with Mark and the art director. “She’s a visionary and really knows her shit. You’re lucky you get to have her as your first director.”

“Have you worked with her before?” Cooper, one of the guys with legitimate beatnik hair, asks.

Dieter nods. “Several times, actually. She’s fantastic.”

“Have you worked with her before?” Roxie asks as you walk across the room to pick up your purse. Dieter can feel that burn in his chest again as you bend over. He shakes his head.

“Is she new to the scene? Is that why she can’t afford any pants?” Roxie mutters and both Cooper and Samuel chuckle. Marie glares at her.

“I heard she was a child actress in the early 2000s,” Marie continues as if trying to re-right the ship. “Was pretty successful, but then dropped off the face of the earth. Until now, I guess.”

“Maybe she went the Bella Thorne way of child actresses,” Nick murmurs, shamelessly watching your ass as you’ve turned to speak with Heidi for a moment.

Roxie snorts. “She’s not that slutty. No one is that slutty, not even to sleep with the likes of you, Nicholas.”

“Oh, yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you –”

Roxie slams a hand over his mouth. “I will junk-punch you so hard if you say what I think you’re going to say.”

They’re like siblings, Dieter muses. Five, very talented, outrageous siblings.

“It was great to meet all of you,” he says and Marie’s eyes flutter back to him. “But I gotta split. We should all go out some time. Meet up outside of work.”

“Oh, I think we’d looove that,” Cooper sing-songs, his eyes on Marie. She flushes bright red and pinches his shoulder, while Samuel laughs. “Ow!”

Despite himself, this could actually be a fun shoot. He waves but none of them really see it, devolving into a squabble that makes him grin.

You’re gone, he notices, but Heidi is sitting alone at the table, going over her notes. The art director has left too.

He slides into the seat next to her and she lifts her head, smiling.

“Hey, Dee, you fucking crushed it today. Everyone’s been coming up to me to say how impressed they are with you.”

He huffs and rolls his eyes, leaning back in the chair. “Yeah, and did they follow it with, ‘especially after how much of a fuck up we thought he’d be’?”

Heidi playfully frowns at him. “C’mon, man, give yourself some credit. You earned the right to be here. I didn’t have to approve your audition.”

His throat tightens. No, she really didn’t. He shakes his head.

“You’re right. As always.”

Heidi grins, pleased, and drops her head back to her notes, marking things in a red pen.

“So what did you think of your co-star?”

Be nice, Dieter. “She’s . . . fine.”

Heidi smirks, but doesn’t look up. “Wow, I don’t think you’ve ever used less words to describe someone, much less a woman.”

He doesn’t like the way she says woman, as if there’s this cosmic reckoning that’s started and he just doesn’t know it yet. Sam and Diane, Bones and Booth – a destined sort of thing.

He rolls his jaw.

“She just acts . . . uppity, is all. Like she’s better than everyone else.”

Heidi snorts. “Okay, tell me how you really feel.”

“I don’t like her.”

At that, Heidi pauses and looks up, genuine concern on her face.

“Really? You don’t like her? She came recommended by the studio and she’s a bit much, but I didn’t think you’d actually dislike her.”

He back-pedals as fast as he can. This day is so close to being perfect.

“I mean, I don’t not like her . . . I just . . . I don’t know her.” If he is being honest, the best time to tell her exactly what’s been on his mind all day is probably right now. “And, fuck, Di, isn’t she a bit . . . I don’t know . . .” He swears he can hear the old Dieter laughing at him. “. . . young?”

Heidi grimaces, taking his concern seriously and he loves her even more for that.

“It was a studio note. Execs say it makes the central conflict feel more . . .”

“Predatory?” His eyebrow lifts, disdain evident in his drawl. She frowns at him.

“Transcendent.”

There is nothing about that girl that is transcendent, he thinks bitterly.

He sighs and leans closer. Heidi notices his change in body language and leans forward too.

“I just cannot fuck this up, Di. I have to come out on top with this. It’s really important.”

That pity flashes across her face again and his stomach curdles. But she soothes a hand over his, her eyes serious.

“Dee, I know. I really do. I’m not going to let anything bad happen here. She starts acting up, she’s out. We don’t need her that badly.”

He couldn’t be sure if she actually had the power to kick a co-star off the set, but he wanted to believe she did. More importantly, she wanted him to believe she did.

“Thanks, Di,” he sighs. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

She chuckles and pulls her hand back.

“Go home to your wife at a normal hour.” She pauses, making a face as if she tasted something sour. “Your wife – God, I will never get used to that.”

“Hey, I got used to it, after my best friend left me for some brunette out in Bali,” he teases as he stands up.

Heidi scoffs. “That wedding was sick as fuck and you know it.”

“You know, I never did bill Lucy for the piercing I got there. Sober Dieter would never have made the decision to look like a Keith Richards knock-off.”

“Oh shut the fuck up and go home. To your wife.”

He’s laughing as he waves her good night.

He opens the back door to the studio lot and breathes in the evening air. Day one, knocked down and dragged out back. He feels so fucking good.

He’s thumbing through his keys when he smells smoke. Acidic smoke. Like those disgusting American Spirits he used to choke down.

You’re leaning by the trunk of your car, one heel kicked over the other, smoking a white cigarette through your fingers. Which would be fine with him, except your car is parked tightly in the space next to his and you’re blocking the way to the driver’s seat. He’d rather crawl through the trunk than have to bend around you.

You’re biting on your thumbnail, contemplative, and staring directly at him with unabashed contempt.

“Your reading was stilted,” you announce and then take a long drag.

“Excuse me?”

“Your reading today,” you say slowly as though talking to a stupid child, “it was stilted.”

He pops his jaw.

“That’s because it was a fucking . . .” He remembers to breathe. “That’s because . . . it was a table read. Have you ever been to one?”

“Yes.” You tap the ash off your cigarette on the heel of your boot, drawing his gaze to the flush of your thigh but he’s not going to fall for it. “It can be a great opportunity for actors to find their chemistry. To find their rhythm.”

“I know that.”

“Then where was yours? Huh?” You lift your eyebrows. Did you ever not want to play Dare?

“What are you talking about? I had a fine time with the band. We’re actually going to hang out outside–,”

“I mean with me.”

That burning sensation returns to his chest. You look at him as if you could sear a hole right through him. Your cigarette is left smoking, forgotten, between your fingers at your hip.

“The only time you ever gave me anything was after I touched you and even then, your performance was so saccharine, it made my teeth ache. I’m out here to prove I belong here, on this big budget film, and you’re stonewalling me. What do you have against me? What did I ever do to you?

He runs his tongue against the back of his teeth, guilt smothering the fight you aroused in him. He drops your gaze and puts his hands on his hips. He’s too old to be scolded like this.

“Nothing, alright? You didn’t do anything,” he says quietly. “It’s not you–,”

“Of course it fucking isn’t but thank you for saying so,” you snap.

You take one more drag before flicking the white butt onto the pavement of the gathering darkness.

“This is going to be a long shoot if you can’t get your head out of your ass.” You step forward and he instinctively takes a step back, but you come close anyway and shove a finger in his chest. “I don’t know what your deal is and I don’t care. We’re going to get through this even if I have to grab you by your hair and pull you to the finish line. Got it?”

Your eyes are shining, fierce, powerful. Your mouth could crush rocks.

He nods.

Maybe it’s the trick of the failing light, but he thinks your pupils are a little too unnaturally wide.

“Great. See you Monday.”

You turn away from him, stalking back to your car and hurling your purse into the side seat. The car, a Chevy that’s possibly older than he is, roars to life, with just as much vitality as you possess. He leaps back a second before the wheels squeal as the car lurches backwards and darts off into the dark.

He stands, watching the car pull away onto the road, until it’s gone. He can still hear the engine screaming in the distance.

He thumbs his keys again, shaking his head. For the first time in months, he would literally kill someone for a cigarette.

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