Page 37 of Agony

“And what did he have you do?” he asked, sipping his wine.

“Worst thing I had to do was stand there while the actors and actresses did their jobs. Max never asked me to do anything gross or disgusting. Hell, there were days that he’d let me leave early because he could see how miserable I was. Anyway, the day he fired me, he told my friend Arsen that he got me a job with Golden Hills Media and here I am,” I finished with a shrug.

“Max is a good guy,” Jareth said. “I went to high school with him. We even went to the same college together. He just decided to go a different route with his degree. Not that I’m judging him; he must make good money or he wouldn’t keep doing it. I’m more personal than that, so I stuck to Hollywood,” he said with a laugh.

I laughed along with him, feeling myself finally becoming comfortable.

He looked around and waved Mandy over. We ordered our food, I took the fish and chips lunch portion and he ordered a steak, medium and white garlic mashed potatoes.

I did some mental calculations. Something as simple as what we ordered put us already at around fifty dollars.

I saw him raise an eyebrow behind me suddenly looking rather curious. I turned around and shook my head. Adesynne was standing on the other side of the gate and she was waving me over. I saw Arsen sitting in his car parked right next to the gate. His eyes were locked intensely on Jareth.

“Excuse me,” I said, my face turning beet red. I walked quickly toward Addie.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I hissed.

“I had to see him with my own eyes,” she said looking over my shoulder. “And that one wanted to see the competition. I swear we just got here though. We’re leaving too. We’re gonna go shopping so I can get some souvenirs for everyone back home. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she said with a wink.

I shook my head as she walked back to Arsen’s car and hopped in. He finally tore his gaze away from Jareth and smiled at me. I blew him a kiss and waved at them as they drove away.

As I walked back to my table with Jareth, I saw him watching the car leave.

“Sorry about that. My cousin can be a little overzealous sometimes,” I explained sitting down.

“It’s okay,” he replied with a grin.

Mandy reappeared and placed our plates in front of us. I grabbed my napkin, undid it, and placed it on my lap. I grabbed the knife and fork and cut a piece of my fish off. The fork was hovering a few inches away from my open mouth when I noticed that Jareth was still leaning back in his chair watching me with a smile.

I raised my eyebrow and put my fork down, suddenly feeling very self-conscious.

“Ever think of stepping in front of the camera? Instead of just standing behind the scenes?” he asked.

“What? No, hell no. I wasn’t going to strip down for anyone there,” I replied, my face turning red.

“I wasn’t talking about Devil’s Den,” he said laughing. “I meant for me. I’m sure I could find a part for you in this movie.”

“That’s more Addie’s speed,” I replied, making a face. “I like being behind the scenes. It’s what I went to school for.”

Jareth’s smile widened and he finally leaned forward and started to eat his lunch. Between bites he told me about what I would be doing. For once I wasn’t going to be a go for; I was actually going to do something with meaning that wasn’t degrading.

Jareth said that as his assistant, I had to be sure to always be on time and if there were nights that he needed me to stay late I would have to do so. I agreed to that; I didn’t have much of a life anyway, so working fourteen hour days would make me feel like I was actually doing something. He also said I would be on call a lot, too. When I asked why, he said because there would be nights, he was sure, that he would stay up going over the footage from the day before and he would want an extra pair of eyes. He also said that once I got used to going over the raw footage and understood what I was to look for, he’d leave that job entirely to me.

I felt like I was going to overdose on the amount of pride going through my veins. He seemed so confident that I would do a great job, that he was willing to leave a lot in my hands.

Afternoon turned to dusk, while I sat there across from Jareth. He was on his fourth glass of wine and I was filling up nicely on my soda. I had my face in my hands on the table top while he told me some funny stories about being a director. I told him some of the horror stories of what I had seen at my last job.

“Where did the time go?” he asked, suddenly looking up at the sky.

I pulled my phone out of my purse.

“Oh wow, we’ve been here for a little while,” I said giggling at the time. It was almost seven p.m. I also noticed that I had about five text messages waiting for me to read, but I swiped to dismiss them. “Addie and Arsen are going to kill me if I don’t get home soon.”

I dropped my phone back into my purse and smiled at Jareth.

“You can blame it on me,” he said with the wave of a hand. “Considering I’m your boss now, you can’t exactly have just run away.”

I grinned and put my purse on the table. Jareth put his face in his hand and looked at me curiously.

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