Page 12 of Love At First Fright
Ellis fucking Finch. Rudest man in the City of London.
He had changed out of the cream sweater into a navy shirt, his hair still damp and brushed back from his face.
“I hope I’m not late, I got stuck in the rain,” Ellis said in his gruff British voice. Far too deep to be the voice of Alfred. Another tally added to the con pile. The rest of the people began to find their seats, and Rosemary realised with a mounting horror that there were only two vacant seats left. One for Vincent, the director, and one for Ellis. Crucially, one of those seats was right beside her.
She watched covertly as Ellis stalked over to the tea station and made himself a cup. He took sugar in his tea, which she found oddly surprising. The teacup and saucer looked comically dainty in his hands, not that Rosemary had noticed the size of his hands.
“What’s Vincent’s ETA?” Jeremy called out.
“I’m here, I’m here,” came a French-lilted voice, quicklyfollowed by the entrance of a willowy trans man who was wrapped up so thoroughly against the autumn chill—even though it was positively balmy in this room—that he appeared to be at least seventy percent scarf.
Vincent settled himself in the empty chair on the other side of the room and, when he caught Rosemary’s gaze, offered her a quick smile. They hadn’t spoken much, apparently the studio had assigned Vincent the project later on than usual, but during their brief Zoom call, Vincent had walked Rosemary through his vision for the project, and she had felt a lot of her concerns ebbing away. Vincent was a powerhouse director in Hollywood, and had won his first Oscar at age twenty-five for an autobiographical movie about his process of transitioning—having him direct her movie was a real “pinch me” moment. There was one concern that still bothered her, though, and he happened to be sliding into the final empty seat beside her.
She didn’t think he had noticed her yet; he was clearly used to big rooms with lots of people and had learnt to only pay attention to the ones in charge…which, despite this entire film existing solely as a product of her imagination, did not seem to be her.
As Vincent and Jeremy chatted through something to do with act 3 in hushed tones at their end of the table, Rosemary watched as Ellis pulled out a battered—she wouldn’t say well-loved—copy ofWhen the Devil Takes Holdout of his bag. He flipped through the pages, and she realised it was covered in small, scratchy pencil annotations. He had the script open, too, and seemed to be comparing them.
As he did so, Ellis rolled up his sleeves, resting his bare forearms on the table.
At that moment, Rosemary realised three things about Ellis Finch. First, his forearms were somehow both lean andmuscular at the same time, dusted with dark hair. Second, he smelt offensively good. Like soap and fresh cotton and something woodsy. Cedar, maybe. And third, there was a small, infinitesimally small, part of her that wondered if she’d been wrong about Ellis. She had made an assumption that the style of action flicks he’d been in before meant he was uninterested in acting in anything serious, any role with in-depth characterisation. But here he was, comparing handwritten notes that he had made across both the script and the novel she’d written. Could he care?
“Oh.” The sound came out involuntarily.
A pair of serious grey eyes flicked to hers, and held, taking her all in.
“What are you doing here?” Ellis asked, low and quiet, as if he was embarrassed on her behalf. What, did he think she had followed him here like some sort of stalker?Oh, come on.
“I’m here for the meeting.”
His brows knitted together.
“Alright, everyone, thanks for joining us. We can keep this meeting quick, there’s just a couple of things to run through while I have you all in the same room,” Vincent began, sipping from a large coffee cup in between words. Rosemary suspected that the majority of his PA’s job would be taken up by making sure that coffee cup stayed full.
“Do we have everyone then, we’re good to go?” Jeremy asked.
“Where’s the author, Rosemary Shaw? She was on the roster for today,” someone said from the other side of the table, though Rosemary didn’t notice who. She felt anxiety jolt through her.
“Present,” she said, hoping it would sound tongue-in-cheek, when in reality her voice was shaking a little so she sounded likethe new girl on the first day of high school. All eyes in the room found her.
“You’reRosemary Shaw,” Ellis said from beside her. He didn’t seem all that pleased by the revelation.
“Last time I checked,” she bit back.
“You’re not who I was expecting.”
How dare he?
“Well, neither are you.” She used her softest, most menacing drawl to let him know exactly what she thought of him. Rosemary was gratified to see Ellis’s serious mouth flattening to a line. She turned back to the table and nodded as Vincent continued the meeting, throwing around words that seemed incongruous with the subject matter, like “full fat schedule” and “day out of days.” Rosemary was out of her depth, and tried her best to keep up. She sent up a secret thanks that Lyn was in the corner taking notes. Ellis didn’t speak to her again, but every so often she felt his eyes on her, assessing.
5
So this was Rosemary Shaw.The woman who had tried to get him pulled from the movie. She was nothing like Ellis had expected, when he’d imagined their meeting. No, instead, he was faced with a haughty little North American woman who looked like she’d just stepped out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting. Her long wavy copper hair was plaited back, exposing the smooth, pale column of her neck, and her face was framed with cat’s-eye glasses that only served to accentuate her piercing gaze. She was young, younger than many of the screenwriters he knew. There was a sunniness about her that spoke of someone who wasn’t yet as disillusioned with the industry as he was. Peachy, that’s how he’d describe her.
Rosemary had full lips that he couldn’t quite draw his eyes from, and when she snapped back at him—he probably deserved it for how he’d snipped at her in the churchyard—her nose had tinged pink from the simmering dislike.
It was clear to Ellis that Rosemary Shaw hated his guts.
As the production meeting drew to a close, he felt her shiftin her chair, the scent of lavender (not powdery, but fresh and herbal) and something minty hit him and, almost involuntarily, Ellis turned to face her. He should give her a piece of his mind; say something about how he knew she didn’t want him cast as Alfred. But when Ellis pivoted in his own seat, he felt his leg graze Rosemary’s, looked down, and saw a pattern across her plump thighs. Peeking through the dark tights she wore, there was a twisting curve of a tattoo. Ellis’s mouth went dry, and all thoughts of arguing fled his mind.
