Page 28 of Shine For Me

June

The first week of shooting flies by. It always seems to go that way when the hours are this long. We only have these first five weeks to get all the interior shots at the studio and all the town scenes we’ll be shooting out on the streets of Wilmington. This is a popular filming spot and the studio is booked solid through the summer. Tons of shows and movies set on the East Coast and in the Midwest end up filming here—there’s a state-of-the-art studio in town, the streets of Wilmington can stand in for pretty much any small town in America, and there’s access to not only the beaches on the Atlantic Ocean but also marshland and rivers.

I fall into bed exhausted most nights and curse the universe when my alarm goes off in the morning. The only thing powering me through this first overwhelming stretch of filming is an endless supply of coffee. That and knowing that I’ll get to hang out with Bash and Fox when I get to set.

This isn’t the first time I’ve worked with a family member. The director of this film is my cousin Gabe—but he’s quite a bit older than me and completely obsessed with his work, meaning we’ve never been close. But working with Bash feels like hanging out with a friend. Between him and Fox, this is one of the most fun sets I’ve ever been on.

The three of us are sitting at the edges of the sound stage on Monday afternoon, all of us glued to our phones. This is the exciting life of a working actor—I spend just as much time waiting around as I do actually filming scenes. You wait for hair and makeup to do their thing. Wait for the crew to light the stand-ins as they go through the scene. Wait some more for everything to be relit for close up shots. Sometimes you need that time for studying your script or learning blocking, but there’s plenty of time where there’s not much to do except sit here.

I’ve worked with plenty of actors who spend most of their waiting around time scrolling social media on their phones. No wonder entertainment industry people are crazy—that stuff will rot your brain and I try to avoid it at all costs. Instead, I’ve tried to pick up some new hobbies during my waiting time. I’ve gotten pretty good at knitting, read a library’s worth of books on my kindle, and taught myself to be pretty proficient at French with a language app on my phone. My absolute favorite thing to do is play online Scrabble. I’m kind of obsessed.

This Monday afternoon, the three of us are waiting for the lighting team to finish up with the stand-ins before we can do our reaction shots—close ups of our faces while the other actors say their lines behind the camera. We worked straight through the weekend and tomorrow will be my first day off since we got to North Carolina. I have zero plans except to stay in my pajamas and not leave my room. I can hardly wait.

“Junie?” Bash asks suddenly, and I tear my gaze away from the letter tiles on my phone, annoyed he distracted me from the triple word score I was about to nail. My cousin is looking around the sound stage with a perplexed expression. “Why do people keep looking at you?”

“Because she’s Juniper Cain,” Fox says drily, not looking up from his phone. Fox spends most of his off-camera time with his eyes glued to his phone and earphones in. It doesn’t surprise me that he always has music on, since it’s such a huge part of his life and his family. I can’t count the number of times I’ve sat next to him and wondered what, exactly, he’s listening to. What puts that intense look of concentration on his face? Does he like the same rock music that his dad is famous for, or does he prefer something else? Most importantly, what does he think about when he’s listening so intently?

I can’t help but wonder if the key to truly understanding Fox Ransome must lie in the answer to those questions.

“June.” Bash snaps his fingers in front of my face and I realize that I’m staring at Fox, completely forgetting about the question that my cousin asked. I shake myself as color comes to my cheeks and I hope it wasn’t completely obvious that I was mooning over someone right in front of Bash.

“Sorry, what?”

He makes an impatient gesture around the bustling sound stage. “People are looking at you.”

Having people look at me isn’t exactly an unusual circumstance, but it doesn’t often happen on set. Every single person here is busy with their own jobs, not to mention far too experienced to get star struck. But as I let my eyes scan the area, I realize Bash is right. I’m getting a lot of covert looks. On the other side of the stage, a pair of PAs are standing with their heads close, looking down at a phone. One of them looks up, locks eyes with me, and a look of embarrassment crosses her face before she hurriedly looks away.

With a growing sense of worry in my belly, I navigate away from my word game and open a web browser. A google search of my name doesn’t pull anything up. I type in my dad’s name, then Grey’s. Nothing. Swallowing hard, I type out my mom’s name. It’s been a while since anyone wrote anything about her, but every so often some asshole reporter thinks it’s a good idea to dredge up the JJ and Bethany Cain divorce drama.

But there’s nothing about her, either. Maybe the weird glances were all in my imagination? I’m about to say that to Bash when a message chimes on my phone. It’s from Justin Sinclair, the head of the PR firm our family uses. It’s not very often I get a message or call directly from Justin. He usually deals directly with my grandfather, leaving an underling to pass along messages to the rest of us. Seeing his name does nothing to calm the worry roiling in my gut.

Justin Sinclair:Wanted to fill you in regarding blind item in today’s New York Post. There will be some gossip that it refers to Adam but—

There’s more to the message, but I ignore it and click on the link he sent to the blind item. It’s written the way these gossip pieces typically are—lots of innuendo with just enough details to get people talking and guessing while not expressly naming anyone. Anyone with the slightest bit of familiarity with Adam will assume he’s the one who was caught in a hotel room with a campaign intern.

“Well,” I mutter, feeling strangely numb. “I guess that explains his visit.”

“What?” Fox asks. “Who are you talking about? What’s going on?”

I hold up a finger and go back to the message from Justin, reading quickly. He assures me that his team is working on it, that they’ve been in contact with Adam’s people, and there’s no hard evidence to tie him to the gossip piece. I actually laugh out loud at that. No hard evidence. Exactly the words you want to hear about your so-called fiancé.

“June.” Fox’s voice is sharp. I feel his fingers wrap around my wrist and I look up into worried, blue eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I say, hating how shaky my voice sounds. I shouldn’t be upset about this. It’s not that I give a shit what Adam does or with who—not anymore. And I knew as soon as he showed up at my house in LA talking about wanting another chance that something was going on. He was probably trying to get ahead of this story. Which means it won’t stop at one vague blind item in a gossip column. Whatever Justin says about “evidence,” I’m one hundred percent convinced there’s going to be more to this.

The thought of weathering a cheating scandal makes cold dread trickle through me. My name showing up on all the gossip sites. The gleeful spite disguised as sympathy in the stories and comments. More paparazzi following me while I’m trying to work. The need to be seen more often in Adam’s company to refute the rumors.

And for what? All of that hassle, the embarrassment, my name being dragged through the mud, just to cover for some asshole who never loved me.

Just to keep the peace with my grandfather.

“God damn it,” Bash mutters, and I glance over to see him reading something on his phone. So he found the item, too. And clearly half the crew knows about it. My cousin looks up at me, his eyes blazing. “Is it true?”

I shrug. “It doesn’t really matter either way.”

His mouth drops open. “Of course it matters! If this asshole is cheating on you—”

“What?” Fox thunders. Before I know what’s happening, he grabs my phone.