Page 32 of Best Served Hot
‘So, you think he’s gonna counter today?’ Nicole asked and took a big gulp.
‘I guess that depends on if he can handle the stress of playing wait and see,’ Alex mused. ‘Is he good with stress?’
‘You worked with him. Don’t you have an answer to that?’ Nicole asked with a sardonic smile.
Alex returned the look. ‘In my experience… Well, he doesn’t handle problems. At all. That’s his whole thing. He hands them off to underlings. He tells them it’s his way of mentoring. He’s preparing them to be in his place. Only I’ve seen him say that to, lemme think… About six different people.’
Nicole laughed. ‘And that’s how he is at home. He’s Mr No Problems. He’s like, let’s chill and sleep on it. Then he waits for me to fix the problem. Only he always had opinions on my decisions. I’d never done things quite right, not as well as he would have.’ She sat with that for a moment. ‘I don’t know why I took it for so long.’
‘I’m guessing he wasn’t like that when you met him?’ Alex asked.
‘No. It didn’t reveal itself for quite a while. And by then, I felt invested.’
Alex sighed. ‘Sunk cost fallacy. I know that one.’
‘Jen?’
‘Yeah. But I think with her, I felt like I could see the problems. I just decided it was what it was. Until she left.’ Alex looked away, embarrassed. She shook it off. ‘So, Ethan. A delegator and a half-arser. Where does that leave us?’
Nicole considered. ‘He can’t delegate blackmail negotiations, I assume. So he’s either gonna put his head up his arse and hope it goes away. Or… He’ll do what he did last night. He’ll come up with a half-baked solution and throw it at you in the hopes you’ll just admit defeat and slink off.’
‘That sounds about right. I guess I’ll just wait for that, then.’
‘You handled him like a pro last night. You OK to keep going?’ Nicole asked. She wanted to stay considerate of her partner in crime.
Alex smiled slowly, her eyes sparkling, and Nicole marvelled at how Ethan had misjudged her. She was very obviously a savvy, smart individual, but Ethan would never see her coming because he’d never really seen her. He’d only see the obvious shit—a hot young blonde.
Even last night, it was clear he underestimated her. And that’s why Alex Torrence was gonna kick his ass.
***
Nicole had to bust her arse to get home to shower and change and get to the studio in time for the first day of shooting the ep entitled, ‘Salt in the Wound.’
They were covering five pages today, scenes that involved a B story about some nervous doctor who stuffed up finding a vein on a patient and then got a case of the yips about performing any injections at all, culminating in an overwrought emotional scene where she breaks down and tries to quit. Until one of her fellow junior doctors gives her a speech about blah blah blah. It was ABC, and Nicole couldn’t have cared less. She could direct this in her sleep.
She walked into the studio to see an operating room set being dressed. Alex approached, her hands full of paperwork. She looked far more focused than Nicole felt.
‘Hi,’ Alex greeted her brightly. ‘So, day one.’
Nicole nodded. ‘Day one.’
‘Have you met the crew yet?’
‘Not all of them. Shall we do a littlehithing now?’ Nicole said reticently. She never liked this bit.
Alex nodded. ‘I’ll get everyone’s attention.’ She turned to the crew, some of whom were standing about, others hard at work assembling lighting rigs.
It always looked this way on a set. If you didn’t know better, you’d wonder why the hell some of them were even there. But everyone had their time. Once action was called, all those electricians would down tools, and the inert group would turn into camera operators, boom operators, and script supervisors.
Ethan was nowhere to be seen because he was one of the few people who genuinely did very little except take credit. In her heart of hearts, even before Alex, Nicole had suspected that he was this lazy.
She’d felt bad for thinking that. But now she felt free to think what she pleased. It became clear to her at that moment just how often she’d ignored her feelings in favour of his. She’d have to work on that.
‘Hi, everyone!’ Alex yelled. ‘So, obviously, you all know me.’
There was a small, awkward silence. Nicole watched Alex’s reaction to it. It was subtle, but she saw pain flicker in her eyes.
Only an actress, Kendall Evans, gave her a little wave. ‘Glad to see you back,’ she said sincerely, and a few other voices chimed in to agree.
