Page 21 of Between Takes
Tom groaned. “I’ve been out front for the last hour and I haven’t seen him.”
The top of my head prickled as I listened. I’d watched Shaun collect his phone and wave goodbye with that nice smile that had made me think all was well.
And then he’d snuck away.
I blamed the smile. It was far too good at turning me inside out. It addled my suspicious brain. I should have walked him to the damn car.
I promised Tom I’d find him and hung up.
Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this job. Clearly I was already complacent. Add another five and a half months of reduced sleep and… I didn’t want to consider how disastrous that would be. Staying ahead of him took work.
Throwing caution to the wind, I walked back on set and found Brian. One look at my face and he held up his hands.
“Has anyone seen Shaun?” Brian shouted before I could open my mouth. His Welsh voice projected and echoed through the open space.
Everyone froze, all eyes flying to us. I must have worn a murderous expression because some of the younger members of the team backed away. Others laughed. When no one answered, Brian put a call out over the radio.
Almost instantly, I had my answer.
Face darkening, I stormed out of the studio and down the hall. I tried not to call myself an idiot for not immediately checking. Even so, I should have fucking known.
I found Shaun laid out on the dusty floor of the equipment store. Shaun stared up at the ceiling. A bottle of whisky sat open by his side. His face was wet, and as I watched, another tear fell. Some of my anger cooled at the sight of his sadness.
He was so lost in his own head he didn’t hear me approach. When I stood over him, his eyes widened in alarm. He swiped at his face and sat up, knocking the bottle over. He righted it with a fumbling hand.
I hated myself for feeling so much as a pang of sympathy for the ungrateful sod.
“I thought you would have gone home by now,” he grumbled, the gutted look of a man who’d had his heart ripped out replaced with the scowl I knew too well.
I kneeled down, mindful not to touch the floor with my bare knees. A sundress was a stupid idea. “Tom called me before I got in my car.”
He nodded, his eyes fixed on my face, assessing me, waiting.
“Did you agree to this show because you thought it would distract you?”
His shoulders slumped and he lay back down. “What did I say about getting personal?” he grumbled as his face hardened.
I kept going. “I looked you up after I accepted the job. Wanted to know what I was getting myself into.”
He grunted but otherwise remained silent.
“It’s been a year since Lily left and you went off the deep end. Considering how much you cost the last production, I was surprised you got this job.”
“Yeah, well, don’t let anyone convince you that studio execs are smart.” Bitterness dripped from his voice.
“You could have said no.”
“And let the world think I’m too hung up on a girl to work?” Shaun laughed, a surprisingly painful sound. “The press would have a field day with that one.”
If I’d proposed to my partner of twelve years and got dumped instead, I’d be torn up too. Not sure I’d have taken it out on the people around me and put my career at risk, though. I’d always thought the drama surrounding a celebrity breakup was exaggerated, blown out of proportion by the press and their love of clickbait headlines. Looking at Shaun, though, maybe there was some truth to it after all.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he growled, dragging me out of my head.
My eyes narrowed. I viciously squashed the pangs of sympathy gathering inside me. “You’re not doing a stellar job of proving them wrong.”
Maybe it wasn’t all about losing Lily Tyler. Maybe it was actually about losing super successful Lily Tyler. The pop princess and frontwoman of The Brightside, whose very existence netted Shaun all the publicity he’d ever needed to win awards and pull in audiences.
“I’m trying, alright?” He threw an arm over his eyes.
