Page 67 of Bad Reputation

But this job wasimportant. Maggie knew that she was making a difference here. If Bernard had been on set instead of her, would Tasha have confided in him? Would he have been forceful enough with Vincent?

She didn’t know.

Maggie wanted to pay her bills, sure, but she also wanted to get her reputation back and to do work that mattered. This job was giving her all those things, and Bernard’s referral—that wasn’t something to turn her nose up at, not at all. If she wanted this career, she had to work to have it. That was for sure. “I’ll email your agent.”

“Good,” Bernard said. “You could do this full time. I absolutely believe that.”

At least one of them did.

“I do have one quick question.” Maggie intertwined her fingers in her lap, trying to stop herself from fidgeting. “Socializing with the crewand some of the cast—it’s something I’ve been doing, and I’m realizing it’s become a habit. Is that ... okay? Or is it unprofessional?”

She wasn’t going to get into that moment in the doorway of the pub when she’d foolishly—so foolishly—confessed her moment of almost-jealousy to Cole. She’d covered it up, or at least she thought she had, and he’d never mentioned it again. But the memory of it was there like a bruise on her skin.

“Oh, that’s fine—it can even be an asset. You need people to trust you to do your job, and those friendships help. Plus you want to have a reputation for being part of the team and easy to work with, and you’re earning that.”

“Good. Great. I just don’t want to be too ... familiar.”

“I get it. Especially because there can be confusion about what we do—”

Do intimacy coordinators act the scenes out with the actors?That was what Bernard meant. Maggie’s brother had asked her that, and the answer was no, of course not.

“So it’s good to have professional boundaries. But as long as you’re not getting drunk with your coworkers every night—”

“Nope, definitely not.”

“Then I don’t see it as being a problem. But it’s a solid question to ask. Obviously, given the ‘drama’ in your recent employment history, it’s good to be especially sensitive to those boundary questions.”

Bernard used sarcastic air quotes arounddrama. He’d always been clear that he thought Maggie’s firing had been beyond ridiculous, but there had been an obvious subtext for that support:Don’t step in it again. One scandal, if it was the kind Maggie had been hit with, was understandable. It made her more sympathetic. But a second scandal? Worse yet, one in which she was at fault?

That would be beyond the pale.

Bernard was saying exactly what Maggie already knew. Hanging out with Cole and the rest of her colleagues atWaverleywas fine. But that had to be as far as it went.

Whatever she felt sometimes when Cole was leaning close, talking into her ear over the roar in the pub. When his fingers brushed hers when they reached for the same french fry. When his gaze caught hers and held until everything that wasn’t him went fuzzy. That had to stop.

“Absolutely. I’d never cross a line.”

She couldn’t afford to.

Chapter 17

INT. BACKSTAGE ON THEWAVERLEYSET

Cole shifted in his seat. “I can see what you’re getting at, but I’d never thought about whether Geordie is a ... what did you call him?”

“A manifestation of male privilege and entitlement.” Libby Hansen, the journalist sitting across from Cole, delivered that in a rush, without so much as a pause between the words. She probably used a cute hashtag version in her reviews. #MOMPAE, or maybe just #HeSucks.

Cole knew what she was suggesting about Geordie, though. “Right. Yeah. I mean, maybe.”

Libby jotted that onto her pad. She wrote the dot over theias a heart.

Cole had expected this interview to be fluffier. When they’d told him Libby was a freelance critic who had a million followers on TikTok, he’d expected her questions to be of the boxers-or-briefs variety. But this kid hadn’t been alive when the boxers-or-briefs moment had happened.

Dressed in pink head to toe, Libby clearly had a fluffy side. But she was also whip smart and shrewd, and it was quite possible she was seeing through Cole right down to his skeleton.

Her brown eyes flicked up to him. “What drew you to Geordie?”

“Not his privilege or entitlement, that’s for sure.”

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