Page 67 of Hot Mess

“Well, at least you’re in the right mood for today’s scenes,” he said.

I turned and glared at him. I didn’t need this. I needed to find Kayla. I needed Isaac to leave me a snarky message telling me I was overreacting.

But that wasn’t happening.

Isaac hadn’t called me back after I texted him what was up. That did not bode well.

When I got to the set May Rogers was already crying. Ever since she joined the cast she was always crying, needing her makeup fixed, getting in my way.

She was only slated for three episodes. My character had to make some questionable choices regarding her. Of course, that meant we had to film a sex scene.

My contract for Captain Wonder stipulated that any new projects had to maintain the integrity of the character as long as I was under contract. That meant no more overly sexual scenes. Unfortunately, the contract for this show preceded Captain Wonder. And as far as this crew was concerned, I was a gratuitous set of abs with lines. They couldn’t kill me off fast enough.

And they weren’t killing off May. In my opinion they shouldn’t have even hired her. If she didn’t like the lines in the script she refused to learn them. The only reason I knew she read them was because she complained about them. And she complained that we didn’t have enough scenes together.

The few scenes we had were more than enough for me. She had been a little less than professional when it came to filming the sex scene in the woods. But mostly, I didn’t like May because she was preventing me from leaving and getting to spend a few precious hours with Kayla.

I held onto my anger and let it work for me.

The scene went really well, and I expected Jeff to call it. May broke character before Jeff said anything and announced she felt there was too much hostility coming from me.

I growled in frustration. If I couldn’t be at home, I needed to at least be on the phone and not standing here while some actress who hit it big in her first handful of roles acted like a diva.

“May, that is not your—”

“You want to see hostility?”

“Nick, I think you need to leave now,” Steve told me in a cool voice.

“Oh, I’m leaving. I’m gone. I am so gone.” I threw up my arms and headed right back to my trailer. I had to search around for my phone from when I threw it. But as soon as I had it in my hand I was on the line with my pilot. I needed to get to LA. He needed to come get me ASAP.

I had a car waiting outside the lot within twenty minutes.

“Nick, what do you think you are doing?” Steve didn’t exactly chase after me, but he did.

“I’m taking a forty-eight-hour leave without pay to contemplate my poor behavior on set today. I think it’s a very good way of managing my tension, and I will reflect on the error of my ways.”

“No one kicked you off the set.”

I spun on him. “My finacée isn’t calling me back. I’m worried. I’m kicking myself off the set before I do more than yell at May for ruining a perfectly good take.”

Steve nodded and shook his head. I wasn’t the only one frustrated with her.

“I’ll be back once I know why Kayla isn’t returning my calls.”

He shrugged and let out a heavy breath. “I hope she’s okay. She’s a sweet lady.”

“Thanks. She’s a real contrast to that one back there.” I leaned in and lowered my voice conspiratorially. “When are the writers going to, you know?”— I cocked my head to the side indicating killing her character off.

“Ratings love her. And they really love the tension between your characters.”

I glared.

“Forty-eight-hours, I’ll let Jeff know. You realize May is going to tweet this out, that you were removed from the set after she confronted you about being hostile.”

“Fuck, change the story then. Tell Jeff I’m sick, whatever.” I ran my hand through my hair and looked down the road for my ride.

“I’ll tell Jeff your girl is sick. It’s why your focus is off. And I’ll do it in earshot of May. Maybe if she hears about your fiancée from someone other than you she’ll back off.”

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