Quicksilver Dreams(53)
“Mail.” I followed Reggie to his desk, the view of Sunset Boulevard from his tenth-floor office window spectacular as usual. I placed the envelopes in front of him.
“Right.”
“Peter left a long message. Wanted to thank you for dealing with the studio so efficiently. He’s sending you a box of chocolates.”
“Fine.” Good. Taylor got the money for Peter. She’s a fucking godsend. He’s such a prick. If he weren’t such a fucking amazing writer I’d tell him to go fuck himself, the fucking diva. No room for this shit in business. His thoughts came to me as clear as a bell, and I was warmed by them, thinking that he really appreciated me.
“Updated call log.” I handed him our traveling clipboard. He usually spent the morning returning calls. Throughout the day, I collected and updated his call log. Just one of the many pleasurable (sarcasm here) duties I performed.
I continued to stand there, trying to get a quick imprint of his baseline mood, see if there were any wayward thoughts about Frank, but general impressions were coming back to me instead of specifics. Low-level stress, which no one needed special powers to see in him, a sense of excitement over a new client he was going to take on who he thought would be successful and a growing irritation that he wasn’t alone in his office. At that point, he looked up at me impatiently. I’d been standing there staring at him too long.
“Was there something else?”
“No. That’s it.”
“Then go do what I fucking pay you to do. I’ll let you know if I need anything else.” I sensed an immediate guilt over the explosion. His thoughts followed. Maybe Frank’s right. If I keep acting like an animal, Taylor might leave. She’s got the connections now. I need to bump up her responsibilities. Make sure to give her a raise at her next review. Can’t afford to lose her.
I caught this as I turned to leave the room and felt like I’d hit pay dirt. Frank wasn’t after my head. Cool. He was batting in my corner or something. Who knew? People usually had their own agendas, which were nearly always self-serving. I didn’t know why he was sticking up for me and didn’t care. What was important here was that Frank wasn’t going to be a prick about the whole Friday episode. I’d exaggerated the event in my mind, clearly, as he didn’t seem to be looking to do me in. Beyond that, it just didn’t matter.
The day felt a bit off, unreal, even as I went through my to-do lists and marked off completed tasks, feeling only some of the usual satisfaction of accomplishment. I didn’t really know what was going on with Cyn. I had no idea where she was, what she was doing or why she’d needed to leave, really. Somehow she was connected to Ryder, that much was certain. She knew Nick, who knew Ryder, and I just don’t believe in coincidences.
And what in the world did Ryder want with me? Who were his goddamn people that he kept mentioning were being somehow warred against?
I put in copy requests to the mail room, looked through a few inquiry letters, made calls to various movie studios looking for open writing projects and answered calls with my usual efficiency. And still, intense, pale green eyes kept popping into my mind. My insane voice in my head wondered where he was and what he was doing and whether or not I would have a chance to be naked with him again. It was hard to acknowledge what a sick little puppy I was turning out to be.
“Got a lunch meeting with a new client. Need you to come and take notes.” Reggie came out of his office ready to leave. I could only stare at him and wonder what was going on. I never went to his lunch meetings. I could feel impatience rolling off of him, and I caught disjointed thoughts like need to look at tiles with Frank, why did we have to do that today and not the weekend? Get a workout in later, do dinner with Steve at Warner Studios about this new guy, fucking amazing, why the fuck is she looking at me like that?