Page 59 of Tempest

“You already know Vanessa,” I say. Britton has been a friend for long enough that she and my bestie have crossed paths on more than a few occasions. “The rest are mostly wives and girlfriends of Seattle’s NHL team.”

“How do you know them?”

“Someone I grew up with is on the team.”

“Oh? Oh! Look at your face! This is not just a someone, this is a someone you’ve done naughty things with.” She narrows her perfectly lined eyes at me. “You dirty slut, how dare you keep this information from me?”

“Oh, fuck off.” I laugh at her mock outrage. “You went to Saint Barts for an entire month with that Javier guy and didn’t tell me until a year later that you weren’t there for filming.”

“Only because he turned out to be a drug lord. How embarrassing.” She sighs with the dramatics only a great actress can deliver. “Besides, I was so young.”

“You were thirty-one,” I remind her.

“Which is very young when you plan to find your way into immortality before you die. Which I do, thank you very much.”

“Well, when you find that Lestat or whoever, send him my way. I swear I saw a frown line this morning.”

“Bullshit! You still look the same as when I met you, you’re like that Price is Right guy, you age backwards,” she says, getting out of the car.

“You need an eye exam.”

“You need to get laid, you’d frown far less,” she snaps. This is always how we’ve been. While Vanessa is my classy conspirator, Britton is a wild spirit always looking for fun and adventure. “Oooh, you have been getting laid! It’s written all over your face. Woman, you telegraph too easily. I need to teach you some tricks.”

“Stop looking at me,” I grumble, and she laughs louder.

“You and I are going to have a long talk later, my friend.”

“Yes, we are. You need to fill me in on what happened with you and that southern hottie who co-starred with you in that last movie.”

“Ah, Miles Jameson,” she says wistfully. “I think I could have made myself a wife for that man. If only I was the one he wanted.”

“Don’t I know that feeling all too fucking well,” I mumble, opening the door and ushering my friend in ahead of me. Seems we really do have some catching up to do.

The space is romantically lit with dim overhead chandeliers and candles on the tables. Its décor reminiscent of the twenties and thirties with perfectly draped crisp linens and dark wood. A few rope swings and acrobat bars hang from the ceiling so the performers will be seen from the entire room.

Everyone else is already here, because, of course, the Hollywood starlet is always fashionably late, even though I showed up at her hotel twenty minutes earlier than planned. Vanessa greets us with two glasses of pink champagne.

“Hey, thanks, Vanessa,” I say, air kissing her.

“Of course! Britt, great to see you, it’s been far too long.”

“Not since our girls’ trip to Dominican Republic, we should do that again soon.”

“That was three years ago, and I still haven’t recovered. I’m convinced you don’t know the meaning of the word relax,” Vanessa says.

“I do know,” Britton argues. “It means party until five in the morning, nap for five hours, and then start again.”

“If five hours is only a nap, I haven’t had a night’s sleep in eight years,” Isla says, stepping up to the three of us. “Hi.”

“Hi, thank you for your help with all this,” I tell her. “Britton Macy, this is Isla Wylder.”

“Wylder? Oh shit, you’re married to Cillian. I didn’t put it all together when Odette said NHL wives. You, my new friend, are a very lucky lady.”

“You know of him?” Isla asks, grinning like she knows exactly how lucky she is.

“My director for this film is a gay Canadian man with an obscene infatuation with your husband.”

“How obscene?” Isla asks.

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