Blind Item(117)
“Hey, guys.” Kara stretched, one arm over her head. “Man, I passed out. Thanks for not waking me.”
“We woulda needed a fucking atomic bomb,” Seamus roared. “Everybody, this is Nico’s friend Kara.”
“Hi, Kara,” the table chorused. Kendall stood and extended his hand.
“I know you from somewhere, don’t I?”
“That’s entirely possible,” Kara demurred, waiting for Nic to move aside so she could sit opposite Tom. “But I don’t know you. Yet.”
She slid onto the bench across from him and set her backpack on the table.
“What’s good to eat?”
“Uncle!” Nicola yelled, smacking her fist into the table. Kara kicked her hard.
“Everything’s good,” Tom said eagerly. “You wait there, I’ll get you a plate.”
As he walked over to the buffet, Kara stared at his muscly thighs beneath his torn khaki shorts, and the golden skin of his belted arms.
“It’s so beautiful here,” she said softly, to nobody in particular.
“Hey,” Seamus said, raising a beer to her. “Did you bring your camera? I wanna say something.”
Kara pulled a Canon out of her backpack and turned it on, pointing it at him.
“You rolling?”
Kara nodded.
“I would like to thank my guests this weekend for coming up to Ojai and making my job less boring. So, here’s a toast to the girl I’m not dating, Nicola Wallace, and her friend Kara Jones, who Tom isn’t dating, either.” Seamus paused, and laughed. “Yet.”
Kara shifted her focus to Tom at the buffet and zoomed in. As if he sensed the camera, Tom turned and waved, and gave her a free version of a smile that usually cost twenty million dollars and a lot of back end.
* * *
Many bottles of wine later, Seamus pulled his phone from his pocket and looked at it, his brow furrowed.
“Hey, you drunks, it’s time for Nico and me to call it a night. I have an early fitting, and I cannot have a hangover for my second swordsmanship lesson.”
“Excuses, excuses,” called Tom as Seamus took Nicola’s hand and helped her off the bench.
“Is everything okay?” Nicola asked as they reached the edge of the tent.
“Dunno, love.” Seamus held his phone up to her face.
It was a text from Bluey.
Mate. I’m with Billy at Gaynor’s. Can Nic call real quick?
“Holy fucking shit.” She patted her pockets. “I left my phone up at the house.”
Seamus flicked his screen and hit dial, handing it to Nicola. Bluey answered before it rang once.
“Bluey, hey, it’s Nicola. What’s going on?”
“Oh, hey, mate, keep your shirt on. I’ll get Billy.”
After some rustling and what sounded like muffled laughter, Billy came on the line.
“Well, you picked the right day to take off work,” he began.
“Billy, is everyone all right?”
“Everyone except Max Zetta,” he laughed. “That bastard sure hated gays, but he loved the Lord.”
“Billy, you’re not making sense,” Nicola said impatiently, and Billy settled down to business, telling her everything. Seamus stood patiently, watching Nicola’s face transition from shock to laughter and back again. This was going to be a good one. Finally, she spoke again.
“So what the fuck are you going to do?”
“We have a call with Crystal in one hour, and we’ve come up with an offer she won’t be able to refuse.”
“I wish I was there.” Nicola regretted saying it as soon as she saw Seamus’s face fall.
“No you don’t,” Billy said. “Now go make love to your movie star.”
Seamus wrapped his arms around her as she lowered the phone, and Nicola rested her head on his chest.
“Do you wanna know what’s going on?”
“Not unless you absolutely need to tell me right this second.”
“I don’t. I’m happy just like this.”
“Nico, I know we agreed to try to keep things normal, but I figured that here, on a movie set, we could maybe just bend the rules a little bit.”
She met his gaze. He looked like a sad puppy. She thought about his offer.
“You’re right. It’s probably pointless to resist.”
“Good.” He released her from the hug and took her hand, leading her into the darkness below the bleachers. “When was the last time you fucked in a spaceship?”
CHAPTER 31
“GAYNOR, YOUR HOUSE IS EVERYTHING.” Billy sprawled in a balloony purple beanbag chair, rubbing his bare feet on an immaculate and expansive white flokati rug.
“What can I say? The seventies made me happy.” Gaynor punctuated her sentence with shakes of a martini shaker. She poured one for Billy, then turned and pointed the shaker at Bluey.