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rsadelleMaster Post - Part 1
Patrick's house was located at the end of a long driveway, behind a gate where she had to wait for him to buzz her in. It wasn't quite as garishly large as some of the places she'd seen, but he could probably fit a movie crew, its stars' entourages, and a handful of extraneous celebrities with room to spare.
Patrick himself was waiting in the open door, looking surprisingly like he belonged there, even in his jeans, faded t-shirt, and trucker hat.
"Hi," he called when she climbed out of the car.
"Hi," she called back. She slung her bag over her shoulder. "Nice place."
"Thanks." Patrick took a couple of steps back so she could come in. "It's home." The inside of the house was laid out in large, open spaces, all windows, white walls, and sparse but comfortable looking furniture. "You want something to drink?"
Victoria held up her Starbucks cup. "I'm good." There was a bottle of water in her bag too.
"Studio's this way." There was a wall in one of the rooms off the entryway with awards and photos of Patrick with famous people, but that dropped off as they went deeper into the house.
The studio was a real studio, with a large recording booth full of instruments and a control booth overlooking it. The control booth had framed Prince and David Bowie posters over another comfortable looking couch.
Victoria whistled in appreciation. "This is nice."
Patrick flashed her a grin. "I do a lot of work here. It means I can just get straight into recording if I wake up with an idea, instead of having to book studio time somewhere."
Victoria nodded. She had editing equipment in her office at home for the same reason.
Patrick sat down in one of the chairs at the soundboard, and she took the other and put her coffee down while she rummaged through her bag for her notebook and pen.
"I talked to Pete," she said while she was looking for them. She glanced up at Patrick. "It was kind of like kicking a puppy. He thinks you're amazing and brilliant."
Patrick took off his hat, ran his hand through his hair, and resettled his hat over it. "He's just there all the time, and it's like he's two seconds away from propositioning me." Patrick's fair skin turned faintly pink.
"He's married." Victoria pulled out her notebook and put her bag on the floor. "If that helps at all."
Patrick looked equal parts guilty and disgruntled. "I'll try to be nice to him. I just need a little space to work."
Victoria patted his arm. "I told him that. I think he'll tone it down." She flipped her notebook open to an empty page. "Let's hear what you've got."
He really was good. He had much of the instrumental music complete, even though he insisted they were rough cuts, and a couple of demos of two songs with lyrics. "It's just me singing," he said when he played her those two. "I have some ideas about vocalists."
Patrick's voice was good, but he was right that those two songs needed something else.
"And this one needs a female vocalist. All of my demos sound all wrong." Patrick handed her a sheaf of music and hit play. Years of childhood piano lessons meant she could follow it, although her sight-reading abilities weren't quite as good as they had once been.
"Play it again," she said when they got to the end, and Patrick let it play again. This time, Victoria sang along, trying to get a feel for how the words and the music fit together.
When she looked up from the lyrics at the end of the song, Patrick was looking at her with an alarmingly speculative look on his face.
"You should sing it."
Victoria laughed.
"I'm serious," Patrick insisted. "Your voice is good, and it works for the song."
Victoria put the music down. "I'm the director, not a singer."
"But you can sing." Patrick started doing something with the soundboard, adjusting sliders and dials. "And I know who your dad is. I'm sure you've been around a studio before. All you have to do is go in there," he pointed through the window into the booth, "put on some headphones, and sing into the mic."
"I grew up in studios," Victoria said, "but I was always just playing. I'm not that good a singer." Her dad was the singer, and she'd been in a couple of bands as a teenager - who hadn't? - before she decided she was better off in film school.
"You're good enough, and you have the right kind of voice." Patrick abandoned his fiddling to look at her. "Trust me. I can coach you through this, and you'll come out sounding better than you ever imagined you could."
One or two of those bands had taped themselves playing. "I've heard myself recorded, and it's not that great."
"Just a demo," Patrick said. "Hop in the booth, do one take, see how you feel about it. If you don't like it, we'll use it to get someone else interested in recording it."
Victoria was impressed with his ability to make it sound completely reasonable and as if she'd already agreed to it. She picked up the music to read through the lyrics again. A higher note there, and there, she would have to emphasize it differently than she had the first time. She realized what she was doing, but she couldn't bring herself to put it down. Patrick really had done amazing things with Pete's words.
"I'll show you what you need to do." Patrick stood up and opened the door into the studio itself.
Victoria still wasn't sure this was a good idea, but she followed him in anyway.
"You're going to put these on." Patrick took the music from her and handed her a pair of headphones. "And you sing into here." He pointed at the mic. "You have to get right up to it." He stepped up so his mouth was bare inches away from the mic. "And then you just sing." He put the music on a stand in front of the mic and glanced between it and her before adjusting the height a bit. "I'll cue you in."
Victoria put the headphones over her ears and took a deep breath as she settled them into place. This was crazy. She wasn't a singer.
"Okay," Patrick said, and she looked through the window to see him leaning forward to speak into a mic of his own. "This is just a demo, so don't worry about how you sound or anything. Just sing."
Victoria took another deep breath. If she could direct Gabe in a second movie, she could sing one song on tape once through.
She read through the lyrics one more time, and then she looked up and nodded at Patrick. "Okay," Patrick's voice said through her headphones. "I'm going to cue up the music, and you just sing."
Victoria nodded again, and there was a minute of silence and then the music started to play.
She took in a deep breath and stopped thinking about it. She opened her mouth and just sang, glancing down every few words to make sure she was getting the lyrics right. It felt surprisingly good to sing, to feel the song coming out of her and resonating through her body.
Maybe it had been too long since she'd done something like this, something she could just do without having to think too hard about it.
She got to the end of the song in no time at all, and the sudden silence that followed it snapped her back to reality with an almost physical blow.
She blinked at the mic and lyrics sheet before her, and then looked through the window where Patrick was looking particularly self-satisfied.
Victoria's legs were a little shaky when she walked out of the booth and back into the control room.
"That was great," Patrick said, and she was pretty sure he wasn't the kind of guy to hand out empty compliments. "The mix is going to be a little rough, but." He hit play.
The mix was a little rough, her voice not quite syncing right with the music. But it wasn't bad. It was better than she'd expected. She didn't hit any wrong notes, and if she didn't know, she wouldn't be able to tell where she'd had to look back down at the lyrics.
"I think we should use it."
When she looked up, Patrick was staring straight at her, like that was a completely reasonable thing for him to say.
It wasn't that good.
"I think we should find a real singer to do it, and you can use this to show her what she needs to be better than."
Patrick frowned at her, and she knew he had a reputation for being fierce, but that was the first time it had been directed at her.
"Let's use it," he said. "At least try it. Film with it, and if it doesn't work, you can replace it later."
He'd said it would be just a demo, too.
She had a sinking feeling of inevitability even as she agreed. "But only if you keep looking for someone else."
"I talk to musicians all day long," Patrick told her. "I'll see if anyone will work for it."
*
"I think you've been replaced." Gabe's voice came from too close to her ear.
Victoria looked up from the notes around the edges of her script.
"There." Gabe leaned in close enough that she could smell the pancake makeup on his face as he pointed across the set.
She followed the direction he was pointing and saw Cassadee talking to Spencer's new intern Serena? Celine? Whatever her name was, she had her arms crossed over her chest and a coolly disinterested look on her face.
"I don't think she's having much luck."
"No," Gabe said, "watch. She's looking every time Cassadee looks away."
He leaned in closer again, and his breath brushed against her cheek as they watched. Celine? Selena? was looking. Every time Cassadee looked somewhere else, Selena's - Victoria was pretty sure her name was Selena - face became unguarded and there was a spark of interest there. Someone eventually called Cassadee away, and Selena watched her go with an almost wistful look on her face.
"I'm rooting for them," Gabe said.
Victoria turned to look at him. He was really close. Close enough that it would be nothing at all to kiss him.
Gabe seemed to take her silence for something other than what it was. "I'm a romantic," he said, as if she'd been doubting him.
"Aren't you worried she'll steal her away?"
"No." Gabe put his hand on the arm of her chair. With the way he was standing, it was like he was curving around her. "Pete could steal her away, but love isn't like that." He shrugged. "Love will make her more herself, if Selena's worth anything at all."
Victoria almost couldn't breathe. She had never felt so much herself as she did when she was working with Gabe the first time.
"You are a romantic," she said, and if her voice shook, at least it wasn't enough to make him notice; he was still staring after Cassadee and Selena.
*
"We're shooting with music today," Nate told everyone as Gabe and Greta finally took their marks. "Maybe the final thing, maybe not."
Victoria had forgotten that was today. Or not forgotten, really, just let herself not think about it.
Alex Marshall clapped the boards. "Scene 23, take 1."
Victoria called "Action," and the music started to play.
Gabe was supposed to be three-quarters to the camera, but he turned all the way to stare at Victoria. "That's your voice."
Victoria called, "Cut!" and then sighed. "Yes, it's my voice. That was not your line."
"But that was your voice." Gabe kept staring at her, his eyes wide and surprised.
"Gabe," Victoria said, "we have a movie to make. Could you please at least pretend to be a professional and take your place and say your lines?"
He went back to his mark, and Greta wasn't turned so far away that Victoria couldn't see the face she made at him.
It took three takes before Gabe was fully back in character, and two more before he was doing what Victoria actually wanted him to.
When she called cut for the last time, Gabe beat a determined path to her. "So you sing."
"Not really. Patrick has this way of making you think everything he suggests is a good idea."
"No," Gabe said, "you sing. You're good."
Behind him, Spencer, Kevin, and Ryan were all waiting for her attention. "I'm good enough for a demo," she corrected. She pushed out of her chair, forcing him to take a step back to make room for her. "That's all."
"I think you underestimate yourself."
Victoria looked at him instead of past him, and found herself caught by the intensity of the look on his face.
"You," he said, and then he shook his head. "You're amazing," he said softly, and she wanted to step forward and lean into him, feel the force of that belief against her body.
She didn't trust herself to touch him, or speak, so she just nodded and stepped around him to see what her designers needed.
*
Victoria answered the knock on her office door with a called, "Come in."
"Hey, so," Gabe said, and he should have been out of makeup and gone already, "a bunch of us are going out. Ryland says he knows a karaoke bar that's the shit. You should come with us."
Victoria couldn't help smiling at his enthusiasm, even as she shook her head. "I don't think so, but you have a good time." She rearranged her face into a stern look. "Not so good that you look like shit on camera tomorrow."
"I never look like shit on camera," Gabe shot back. "You should come. It'll be fun."
Victoria was still shaking her head, and then he said, "Nate's coming," and she paused.
"He is?"
Gabe nodded. "I had to promise to buy him as many beers as he wants, but he's coming."
If Nate was going, then that meant he'd decided that he could handle hanging out with Gabe, at least in a group of people. That meant he either wasn't mad anymore or Gabe had won him over again.
"Greta's mysterious boyfriend is going to come and I sent Spencer a text letting him know he should casually let Selena know Cassadee's going to be there." Gabe grinned. "Plus Patrick said he'd do a song, and Pete's trying to get his wife to come, so you know that's going to be worth seeing."
That would be worth seeing, although Victoria wasn't sure she wanted to witness it if it went badly enough that it resulted in Patrick pulling out of the project.
"Come on. You don't have to stay all night." Gabe stopped just short of grabbing her arm, which was one of the smarter decisions he'd ever made. "Just hang out for a while."
Victoria had already planned for it to be a long day, which meant Gizmo was safe with her parents, and she could call them to let them know he would have to stay later or overnight. Nothing on her desk was absolutely pressing. They weren't scheduled to shoot until noon tomorrow.
Victoria gave in. "Only for a while."
Gabe beamed at her like she'd given him the moon. "This is gonna rock."
Victoria smiled back at him. "I have a couple of things I need to finish up before I can leave. Where are we going?"
"I don't actually know where it is," Gabe admitted. "Cassadee got directions from Ryland. I'll have one of them text you." He grinned at her again and then ducked out the door.
Victoria couldn't stop smiling as she did the last few things that needed to be dealt with before she could leave. Ryland texted her directions, and she called her parents as she walked to her car.
She spent the drive telling herself she was doing the right thing. She mostly believed it by the time she reached the bar. She recognized most of the cars in the lot, which told her it was the right place.
It was also, she found when she walked in, empty of nearly anyone but her cast and crew. A handful of PAs huddled around the songbook. Ryland and a group of the crew were lining up shots at a table in the middle of the room. The rest of their group was at tables in orbit around that one.
Greta was at the outside edge, leaning against a guy who had an arm draped casually over her shoulder and onto her chest.
"You made it!" She smiled at Victoria, looking absolutely beatific. "This is Mike."
Victoria shook his hand. "Nice to meet you."
"You too." Mike squeezed Greta closer. "Greta says good things about you."
"She says you cook for her," Victoria said. "I have to admit I'm jealous."
Mike grinned and pressed his lips to Greta's temple. "You should come over for dinner sometime."
"Then you'll really be jealous," Greta added.
Victoria laughed. "I might have to."
She moved on past a handful of crew at the next table until she could pull up a chair and sit down next to Nate at the central table. He already had a beer in front of him and a shot in his hand.
"Hey," he said, looking surprised to see her. He downed his shot. "You came."
"Gabe's very persuasive," Victoria said, keeping her voice low.
Nate matched her volume as he said, "Whenever you want to get out of here, I'll go with you if you want."
Victoria put her arm around his shoulders and hugged him. "Thanks." She let go and raised her voice to carry across the table. "What are we drinking?"
"Vodka!" Ryland grinned. "You in?"
"Just one." Victoria took the shot he poured for her and tossed it back to the accompaniment of a lot of cheering. She grinned at her crew.
"Victoria's hardcore," Gabe announced. He'd appeared at her side when she wasn't looking and handed her a glass. He leaned down to say, "Cherry Coke with rum, extra cherries," into her ear, and then clapped his hands. "Who's going to get this party started and sing first?"
Victoria stared at her drink. Gabe used to tease her about it, and sometimes she'd ordered it just to see the look on his face, but she'd always liked the sweetness of the cherry.
"I think you just volunteered yourself, my friend," Ryland said.
Gabe laughed. "Oh, no. I'm waiting for the right moment." He called across the room, "Alexes! You singing or just browsing?"
Alex DeLeon flipped him off, which meant that Victoria's strategy of pushing him off onto Gabe had gone well.
"We need two more to do an NSync song," Alex called back, and Victoria started laughing as Gabe grabbed one of the other PAs and pushed him toward them. He corralled a second unoccupied PA, until the Alexes had become a group of five.
Most of them were terrible, although DeLeon was fairly good and made a passable Timberlake. The cheering was just dying down when Pete's voice carried across the room.
"I didn't miss Patrick singing, did I?"
Victoria turned to look, and Pete was bouncing on his toes but carefully holding the elbow of his wife. Victoria read as much entertainment news as anyone in Hollywood, but she hadn't realized quite how pregnant Ashlee was.
She turned the other way and looked for Patrick. He was at a table at the edge of their crowd, tugging his hat further down onto his head as if that would keep him from Pete's notice.
"That's Victoria," Pete said, as he and Ashlee walked past. Ashlee gave a wave that Victoria returned, but they didn't stop.
Victoria wasn't close enough to hear what Ashlee said to Patrick when she and Pete joined his table, but whatever it was had him tugging at his hat and blushing again.
Brendon took the stage, and he had a surprisingly well-trained, deep voice, and the stage presence to go with it.
"He's good," Gabe said into Victoria's ear.
She startled a little; she hadn't noticed him dragging a chair up close to her.
"He is," she answered. She sipped at her drink, which proved to be a mistake. Every burst of cherry over her tongue made her think of Gabe.
Gabe nudged at her arm. "Look what I did."
Victoria glanced at him to gauge the direction of his gaze, then followed it to where Cassadee and Selena had their heads bent over the songbook.
"And how is that about you?"
Gabe spread his arms wide. "This whole evening is about me." He let his arms drop. "And I told Cassadee that Selena can sing."
Victoria had long ago stopped wondering how Gabe always seemed to know everything about everyone.
"I bet they go for Joan Jett," she hazarded.
Gabe shook his head. "Britney."
"That would go well with the PAs' NSync."
Gabe grinned at her. "They are the right age for it." Then he looked thoughtful. "I wonder if I can get them to do a Backstreet song, for symmetry's sake."
They stopped talking to cheer for Brendon, and then Cassadee and Selena took the stage. If they'd been placing bets, Gabe and Victoria both would have lost, but Gabe was closer: Cassadee and Selena sang "Beautiful," trading verses and harmonizing on the chorus. They turned in to sing to each other at the end, and Victoria was at just the right angle to see both of their faces. Cassadee was a generally upbeat girl, but Victoria had never seen her look that ecstatically happy, and there was an answering softness on Selena's face. Looking at them made Victoria's heart ache, and her filmmaker mind wish for a camera.
She turned toward Gabe and found he was watching her instead of them. Victoria stared at him, breathless, for a moment, before saying, "Make her more herself, huh?"
A smile spread across Gabe's face. "Why, Miss Asher, are you a romantic too?"
Victoria bumped her shoulder companionably against his. "I guess it's catching." She moved away again, really because she couldn't be that close to him right then, but ostensibly so they could both clap and cheer for Cassadee and Selena.
Victoria pitied whoever had to follow them, but Ryland took the stage and did a version of "What's New Pussycat?" that made her laugh so hard she could barely breathe.
She was still gasping when Mike and Greta made their way onto the stage and Gabe leaned over into her space.
"When are you going to get up there?"
Victoria shook her head and fished a cherry out of her drink. "Everyone's already heard me sing."
"Which just means we know you're good." Gabe put his hand on her arm. "Come on. I'll sing with you."
Greta made a pretty good Sonny, but Mike would not have been Victoria's first choice for Cher. Victoria smiled at their duet anyway, because they were plainly in love and playing it up.
"I don't think we have any shortage of singers." Victoria glanced at Gabe. "I'm sure you can find someone else to fill up the evening."
"I don't want someone else to fill it up." Gabe's expression was firmly set on "stubborn." "Come on, we'll pick something ridiculous. It's karaoke; you should sing."
Victoria gestured at the stage with her drink. "They already took the best duet anyway."
Gabe glanced up at Mike and Greta beaming at each other. "I'm sure we can find something." He grinned. "We could do a two-person Backstreet variation."
Victoria laughed. "Yeah, that's not happening."
"Then come pick a song with me, or that's what I'm signing us up for."
"You can sign us up for whatever you want; that doesn't mean I'm going to get up there and sing it." Victoria sipped at her drink and turned her attention back to the stage just in time to cheer for the end of Mike and Greta's "I Got You Babe." It didn't work to get Gabe off of the subject.
"You can't disappoint your adoring fans."
Victoria raised her eyebrows and looked at him. "They're my employees, not my fans."
"Well," Gabe said, his voice dropping low enough that she had to lean in to hear him, "I'm a fan. You don't want to disappoint me, do you?"
The thing was that she didn't. With Gabe leaning in toward her and looking so earnest, she wanted to give him whatever he asked for.
As far as things he could ask for went, one karaoke duet didn't seem like that much.
"All right, all right!" She stood up and waved her drink toward the songbook. "Let's go choose a song."
"You're all my witnesses," Gabe announced to the room at large as he stood too. "Victoria has agreed to sing." He grinned at her. "No backing out now."
Victoria rolled her eyes. "I'm not backing out." She led the way to the songbook and started flipping through it.
There was enough room for them to stand side by side, but Gabe stood close against her back and looked over her shoulder. He was close enough that she could smell him. She hadn't had enough to drink to blame the way she wanted to turn into him on the alcohol.
"Don't You Want Me" was listed in the duets section. Victoria couldn't remember all the lyrics, but it was synthpop, which would appeal to Gabe, and it was better than "Summer Nights."
Victoria pointed at it. "Eighties synthesizer?"
"You know the way to my heart." Gabe grinned at her when she turned to look at him, and put their names on the list.
It put them next, so Victoria didn't have time to get nervous. She took her drink with her onto the stage and let Gabe introduce them as, "Your director and your star, here for a one-night only eighties music engagement," and then the music started.
"Summer Nights," she realized at the end of the first verse, might have been a better choice. She'd forgotten, or never known, that "Don't You Want Me" was actually not that fun, or light.
She nearly froze when she had to sing, "I still love you," but she sang it to the audience and didn't look at Gabe.
She gulped at the end of her drink when the song was over, and carefully made her way down the steps and back to her place next to Nate. The roaring of her heart in her ears drowned out the clapping.
Nate put his arm around her shoulders and leaned in close. "Are you okay?"
Victoria shook her head and put her glass down on the table so the clinking of the ice wouldn't betray her shaking hands.
"Do you want to leave? I'm pretty drunk so you'd have to drive, but I'll go with you."
Gabe had come down from the stage with her, but commandeered the DJ's mic instead of coming back to the table. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said into it, "our cast and crew karaoke extravaganza is coming to an end."
Victoria leaned against Nate's shoulder. Everyone else was looking at Gabe, so it wasn't strange for her to do it too.
"But we have one last song. Give it up for our composer, the one, the only, the incredible Patrick Stump!"
"Victoria?" Nate asked, low under the cover of everyone's cheering. Pete and Ashlee were as loud as the rest of them put together.
"I want to hear this," she said. She also wanted a moment to sit because she was still shaken enough that she thought her knees might buckle if she tried to stand up.
Gabe came back as Patrick took the stage, and he sat in the chair next to her again, but he didn't try to lean into her space. She looked determinedly forward at the stage, and ignored Nate's shifting closer that probably meant there was something going on between him and Gabe.
Patrick covered Prince. His body language was closed in and awkward, but his voice more than made up for it. He belted it out like he was made to sing about wanting "your extra time and your kiss."
Victoria found herself breathless, and she could hear Nate's breathing stutter. She looked past him to see how Pete was taking it. He and Ashlee were both riveted to the stage and clinging to each other's hands.
She thought, briefly, that perhaps Patrick had made a tactical error if he wanted Pete to give him space, but Patrick opened his eyes at just that moment and seemed to sing straight at Pete and Ashlee.
"Holy fuck," Gabe said when Patrick reached the end of the song, in the moment of silence that hung in the air before the cheering of their crowd swooped up and carried it away.
Victoria made herself look at him. His eyes were wide, and there was a flush high along his cheekbones. She wanted to attribute it to alcohol, but although he'd had a drink in his hand all night, she was pretty sure it had been the same one.
"Well," he said, turning to her when the cheering started to die down. "If that doesn't encourage romance, nothing will."
"I'm not sure it's romance he's encouraging."
Gabe shrugged. "Look around you. No one in here close to hooking up is doing it for any reason other than love."
Victoria didn't look at anyone but him. Everything about him said he was sincere. He believed in love. That made his betrayal even worse.
There were people around her, her cast and crew still chatting and drinking and laughing, and she didn't care. It felt like her heart was breaking all over again.
"Hey," Nate said, close in her ear, and even with his arm around her shoulder, she'd forgotten he was there. "You okay?"
She wasn't, but she couldn't make herself say that to him with Gabe watching her.
Cassadee came up to them, with Selena hovering two steps behind her. "Gabe, is it cool if I take off?"
Victoria felt like she could breathe again when Gabe's attention went to Cassadee.
"Sure thing, chickadee."
Cassadee made a face at the nickname but didn't protest it. "Drunk driving is bad. Give me your keys," she demanded, hand held out.
Gabe held up both hands, both empty. "Totally sober," he told her. "Promise."
Cassadee stared at him, and it was funny, even in the midst of an evening that might not have been a good idea. Gabe had at least a foot and ten years on her, and she was staring him down like it was nothing.
Gabe finally threw up his hands. "I'm getting you a breathalyzer for your birthday. I'll get a ride if you really want to take my car."
"I don't need your car. I just don't want you to die or go to jail. That happens, and I'm out of a job." She turned to Nate and Victoria. "You won't let him drive if he's drunk, will you?"
Gabe laughed. "Stop haranguing the bosses and get out of here. I promise not to drive drunk, so go enjoy yourself." He reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear, and it was the kind of thing that would make Victoria think, if she didn't know better now, that he was sleeping with her.
It worked on Cassadee; she ducked in to hug Gabe. He said something to her too softly for Victoria to hear. Whatever it was made Cassadee smile, and she reached for Selena's hand when she turned away from them.
"My baby's growing up," Gabe said with over-exaggerated theatricality. There was something underneath his overacting, though, that was real.
Victoria was too weary to try to puzzle it out. She closed her eyes for a moment, against the sight of him.
"Vic?" Nate asked.
Victoria turned to him as she opened her eyes. "Yeah, I'm good." She gave him a wavery smile. "But I think it's time for me to call it a night." She stood up before anyone could try to talk her out of it. "I don't care how drunk you all are now," she said, raising her voice to carry across the crowd, "I still expect you on set on time tomorrow."
"Slave driver!" Ryland accused, complete with a dramatically pointed finger.
"You know it," she shot back. "And I'd like it if my actors weren't so hungover they can't be made to look pretty enough for film."
"Us too," one of the women from the makeup department called.
Ryland tossed his head back. "I'm always pretty."
Someone from makeup said, "Sure, when we're done with you."
Victoria thought they probably didn't need her for this conversation, and she pulled her bag off the back of her chair.
"I think I'm out too," Gabe said. "I'll walk out with you."
Nate stood up. "I'll walk with you too." Nate could hold his liquor, but he'd had enough that he was swaying a little on his feet.
"You'll never make it back inside," Victoria predicted. "You have a ride home?"
"Yeah, yeah. Plenty of volunteers willing to suck up to the AD." He looked past her to Gabe. "I just didn't want you to have to be alone with him."
Victoria didn't turn to see what that did to Gabe.
"How about we both walk her out," Gabe said, "and I'll give you a ride home."
Nate nodded, and he was drunk enough that it went on for a long time. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. You won't be alone with him, and I probably need to go home. And he bought my drinks all night."
Victoria slipped her arm around Nate. "I heard he was going to do that." Gabe hovered on the other side of Nate, but let Victoria take most of him. "But that doesn't mean you have to sleep with him," she teased.
"No, no, no," Nate said. "He wouldn't anyway, you know. Because he likes girls."
"Yes, he does," Victoria answered absently. She thought she'd probably underestimated just how drunk Nate was, but she was more concerned with getting Nate out to the parking lot without either of them falling down than she was with what he was saying.
"We can walk you to your car," Gabe said, "and I'll get Nate from there."
"That's a good idea," Nate said. "We should go to your car." He turned almost all the way to face Victoria, and she shifted her grip so they didn't fall.
"Then you need to walk." She got him turned around again, and they made it to her car without anyone falling over.
"You need to go with Gabe now," Victoria said, but Nate turned into her and wrapped both arms around her. She stumbled back under his weight, but managed to keep them both upright.
"I love you," Nate mumbled into her neck. "You're the best director."
"Thank you," Victoria said. She pressed a kiss to Nate's temple. "I love you too." She considered the way he was clinging to her and Gabe standing behind him. "Do you want me to take you home instead of Gabe?"
Nate pushed away from her, and Gabe stepped up to put a hand on his shoulder before she could do it herself.
"No," Nate declared. "Gabe and I have things to talk about."
He sounded so serious that Victoria bit back her smile. "Okay. Then I'll see you tomorrow." She spared half a smile for Gabe. "Thanks for inviting me."
Gabe reached around Nate to touch her arm. She forced down a shiver.
"Thanks for coming. I didn't know if you would." Gabe didn't wait for her answer before wrapping his arm more firmly around Nate's shoulders. "Come on, Nasty Nate. Let's get you home so you can be only mostly hungover when Victoria starts yelling at us tomorrow."
*
Victoria was skimming through the pages for the day to see if there was anything she needed to change or check on when there was a light tap on her office door. It opened before she could say anything, and Nate's head poked around the edge of it.
"Come on in," she said, softly.
Nate shuffled through the door and dropped down onto her couch without taking off his sunglasses. "I'm too old for this shit," he mumbled.
"You just have to limit it to nights when you don't have to be at work the next day." Victoria crouched in front of him and tugged his sunglasses down far enough that she could see his eyes. "Are you good to work?"
Nate grimaced and pushed his shades back up. "Yeah. I just need some coffee. Or a lot of coffee."
Victoria sat back on her heels. "Catering's open, and yet you came here first."
"Yeah," Nate said. "That's the other thing. I can't remember everything, but I think I might have said a lot of dumb shit to Gabe last night."
Victoria tugged his sunglasses down again so he couldn't hide from her. "What kind of dumb shit?"
Nate made a face, scrunching up his features and looking chagrined. "The kind of dumb shit where I told him not to break your heart again."
Victoria's heart dropped to somewhere in the vicinity of her stomach. She let go of Nate's shades and sat back again, away from him.
"I know," he said, looking as miserable as Victoria had ever seen him. "If it helps, I think I also told him not to break mine." He smiled without looking like he meant it at all.
Victoria scrubbed her hands over her eyes. If Gabe hadn't already known he was getting to her, he did now. She let her hands drop and decided to start with the second part first.
"How in love with him were you?" She hadn't recognized it before, when she was in so deep she couldn't see anything but Gabe. She might not have recognized it now, except for the way Nate looked so miserable confessing to her.
Nate jerked back as if she'd slapped him, but said, after a moment, "Not as much as you were."
"And you chose me."
"How could I not?" Nate slid forward on the couch and drew her into a hug that was just as awkward for the angle as for the moment. "You're my director."
"You shouldn't let that keep you from," she started, but Nate interrupted her.
"He was in love with you too, and I made my choice." Nate pulled back and pushed his sunglasses up again. "I should go get some coffee before I have to deal with this day." He stood and held out a hand to help Victoria off the floor.
She didn't let go once she was standing, and instead pulled him toward her for a real hug. "You're a good friend," she said.
"Don't say that yet. You don't know how this day is going to go." Nate sounded like he was trying for joking, but it came out mostly tired. "You want me to bring you anything from catering?"
Victoria shook her head. "I already got my coffee, and I'm not hungover." She went back to her desk, but when Nate closed the door, she dropped her head down onto her forearms.
Maybe everyone who said making a movie with Gabe again was a mistake was right.
Victoria drew in a shaky breath. It was too late to change her mind about that. And too late to hope things could be like any other movie.
At the knock on her door, she sat up, brushed her hair back, and said, "Come in."
"I've been to makeup already, so don't yell at me," Gabe said, even before he was all the way into the room.
"I'm the director," Victoria said more calmly than she felt. "I don't need a reason to yell at you."
"Ouch." Gabe half smiled at her as he said it, and then he just looked at her for an uncomfortably long moment.
"What did you come in here for?" Victoria wasn't actually sure she wanted to hear the answer, but she knew she didn't want him just looking at her like that, like he was pleased to see her and she was something he wanted to look at. She was feeling too raw for that.
"Last night," Gabe said. "I was glad you came." His smile broadened into a grin. "My assistant is running late, and so is Spencer's intern."
Victoria couldn't help smiling back at him. "You're really invested in this relationship for someone who isn't actually in it."
Gabe shrugged lightly. "It's love. I'm a lot more invested in it these days."
Victoria drew in a breath, but she didn't have a chance to say anything before Gabe kept going. She wasn't sure what she would have said anyway.
"Love matters." Gabe shrugged. "Sometimes I think it's the only thing that does."
"Do you?" The words slipped out of her. "I wouldn't expect you to think that way."
"Two years is a long time," Gabe said. He came closer. Victoria took a step back, and he stopped just within touching distance. He touched the back of his hand to her cheek. "I have no intention of breaking your heart."
It felt so good to have Gabe touching her that Victoria leaned into his hand. Then she remembered that it was a bad idea, that whatever he said now, he'd broken her heart once, and she stepped back again, out of his reach.
"I'd appreciate it if you didn't." She turned away from him, not caring that it meant he would know how much of an effect he had on her. "You should be on set. Go rehearse with Greta or something."
"I know my lines." Gabe was too close to her again, his voice coming from just behind her.
Victoria exhaled, gathered herself together, and turned around. "Then go make sure Greta knows hers. Or check on your assistant. Or get yourself a bagel. Just go do it somewhere that is not my office."
Gabe touched her again, a brief pressure of his hand against her arm. "You should come out with us again." He stepped away and left her office.
"Fuck," Victoria breathed. The last thing she needed was to let herself believe she could have something with Gabe. She only wanted it if it was everything, love and sex and forever all tied up together. Gabe wasn't like that, no matter how much he said he believed in love.
She could do this. She could go out and watch Jasper and Caroline grow closer. She could tell Gabe and Greta how to make that work.
She wasn't going to believe she could have Gabe. She'd seen Greta and Mike together, and was pretty sure even Gabe couldn't tempt Greta away from that relationship. It wasn't going to be like last time.
She left her office and arrived on the set just in time to see Cassadee slide in between two PAs, a cup of coffee in her hands, looking for all the world as if she'd been there the whole time.
Gabe noticed her about the same time Victoria did, and left his conversation with one of the other PAs. He was only halfway to her when he asked, with a grin, "Good night, chickadee?"
"It's Cassadee, you dumbass." Cassadee smiled as she said it, and she slid out from between the PAs on either side of her to meet Gabe in the middle of the set. Victoria, at the camera in the middle, was close enough to hear her say, "I'm late for work. That's all you're hearing about it."
Gabe tucked Cassadee's hair back, and leaned in to kiss her forehead. "I'm happy for you, kid."
Cassadee ducked away from him. "I'm not a kid, and you're getting lipstick all over me." Victoria knew her well enough to know she wasn't actually mad about it, and she was still kind of smiling over the edge of her coffee cup.
"He's hard to resist," Nate murmured. Victoria hadn't even noticed him approaching.
"He is," she agreed, "but anything's possible." She glanced around and realized everyone who needed to be there was on set. "Okay, people," she called to the room at large, "places. Let's see how well we can do with an approximate hangover rate of fifty percent."
There were a few laughs and some groans, but her crew settled into where they were supposed to be.
*
"Come in." Sometimes it seemed like every time Victoria sat down to get something done, someone knocked on her door. Part and parcel of being the director, she supposed, but sometimes she wished she could do away with the interruptions.
"I thought you'd still be here." Gabe was back in his own clothes, and he'd taken his makeup off, although there was a spot of it still there against his hairline. Of course, this far into filming, the actors never quite got it all off.
"Director's work is never done."
"It would be if you could let someone else do some of it. How much of what you're working on could Nate take care of?"
"I'm sure you didn't come in here just to harangue me about delegating."
"No." Gabe leaned against the wall.
Victoria was pretty sure a photographer - or more than one - had clued him in to how well the pose suited him.
"I came to see if you wanted to get dinner."
"Gabe," Victoria said, and Gabe held up a hand.
"Just dinner," he said. "You have to eat, and I miss being friends with you."
Some of the crew were probably still hanging around, doing last-minute things before they left for the day, but for all intents and purposes, they were alone and they had time.
"I didn't end that."
"I know." Gabe didn't look any happier about it than she was. "Let me buy you dinner. We'll go someplace quiet where we can just talk. I'm not always an asshole."
"I do actually know that." Even if she didn't remember what he'd been like before, she'd seen the way he was with Cassadee and Greta, and the way he and Nate had become friends again. "I trust you to do what I tell you on the set, but I don't trust you with me."
At that, Gabe looked downright sad. "I know," he said, "and I don't know if I'll ever be able to convince you that you can. I want to try, though, if you'll let me."
Victoria wanted that too. She wanted to just trust him, but the memory of how much it hurt when he betrayed that trust kept her from giving in to that.
"I don't know if you can either." Victoria glanced at her desk. It would be better to get some of it done, but none of it had to be done right then. "But you can buy me dinner." She had to turn away from the hopeful look on his face; gathering up the things she needed to take with her provided a convenient excuse.
"Do you mind driving?" Gabe asked. "I gave Cassadee my car keys."
Victoria couldn't control the laugh that bubbled up out of her. "What would you have done if I'd said no?"
"Caught a ride with one of the crew, or called a cab."
Victoria looked around the office to make sure she had everything she needed. "Don't you have a car for a reason?"
"Sure, but Cassadee and Selena were going out to the pier, and that's always more fun in the convertible." Gabe held the door for her.
Victoria shook her head. "You're like the most indulgent dad ever. How'd you get Cassadee to stick around, anyway? You went through, what? Three assistants on First Date."
"Four," Gabe corrected. "You're forgetting about Frank the flake who never even showed up for work. Cassadee's smart. She told me straight up when I interviewed her that she's not staying. She wants to produce. She's only working for me to get the insider view of the whole process and make contacts."
"I never would have guessed," Victoria admitted. "She seems very committed to her job."
"She's smart," Gabe said again. "She knows what it takes to make it, and she's willing to work for it. And she doesn't take any shit." He shrugged. "There are some people she could work for who wouldn't like that."
Having met a lot of people in the business, Victoria could only agree with that. "You know, she can always come ask me questions if there are things she wants to know. Directors see a lot of what producers do."
Gabe's smile was both pleased and surprised. "Thanks. I'll let her know."
"Just because I'm not singing JT with the PAs doesn't mean I don't care about helping people who are new to the business. Besides, anyone who can put up with you is someone worth knowing."
"Come on, you know you love me." Gabe seemed to catch what he'd said at the same moment it slammed into Victoria and made everything, which had been so easy, awkward again. "I didn't mean-"
"Shut up," Victoria said, a little harsher than she intended. She pressed the unlock button on her key fob harder than necessary. "Just get in the car."
Victoria threw her bag in the back while Gabe folded himself into the passenger seat.
"I don't understand how you still have this tiny thing," he said. "You're actually tall, you know."
Victoria rubbed her hand over the dashboard. "This car is my baby, and Gizmo fits in the passenger seat just fine." She started the car, and sound blasted out of the speakers. She turned it down enough that she and Gabe could hear each other. "Where are we going?"
Gabe shrugged. "Anywhere you want that has something I can eat and is quiet."
Victoria considered that as she pulled out of her parking space and Gabe picked up the binder of CDs near his feet. There was El Burrito, the place they used to go to when they were filming First Date, but even though she'd eaten there since then, she thought it would hold too many memories. There was another burrito place, though, closer to her house, that was almost as good.
"Still listening to the collected works of Weezer," Gabe said.
"Always." Victoria glanced over at the open binder on Gabe's lap. "You can change it if you want."
"Are you sure? I'm actually cool with Weezer."
"They're my CDs. It's not like you can pick something I don't like."
Gabe flipped through a few more pages and then pushed the eject button on the stereo. The silence while he switched CDs echoed loudly. It was a relief when Chromeo started blasting out of the speakers.
"I can't believe you still don't have an iPod hookup for this thing."
When Victoria glanced over, Gabe was half leaning against the window and looking at her.
"Habit. And this way I'm not fiddling with it all the time."
"How very safety conscious of you."
Victoria glanced in the mirror and looked over her shoulder as she merged onto the freeway. "Safety first. Can't be too careful in my little car."
"I can't believe your parents don't freak out about this. My dad keeps telling me to buy something more sensible."
"It's British. Well, the original was." Victoria shrugged. "I think they think it'll keep me close to my roots or something."
Gabe laughed. "Yeah, I can see how you'd need that, what with living in the colonies and all."
Victoria didn't want to let it be that easy, didn't want to just laugh, but the smile spread across her face anyway. "Apparently we're all too emotional here in the States. We can't all be first-generation immigrants straight from the motherland. And what about you, Mr. convertible and Hollywood lifestyle? What do you know about staying close to your roots?"
"I think this was my pops' dream, though, for us to have a better life." Gabe had stopped laughing and his voice turned thoughtful. "It wasn't like your dad just choosing to come here."
When they were on set, and she could compartmentalize Gabe into being just one of her actors, she could sometimes forget that he knew so much about her. She didn't answer him, and he let her drive the rest of the way with only Chromeo to accompany them.
When they got there, Gabe held the door and followed her into the restaurant. "Classy," he said. "I offer to buy you dinner and you bring me to a cheap burrito joint."
"It's an awesome burrito joint, and it's quiet," Victoria retorted. She stopped in front of the menu board. She didn't really need to read the menu, but Gabe did, and she needed to focus on something other than him. He tended to consume every bit of her attention when she let him.
"I'm ready," he announced after a moment, and she moved forward to the counter to order.
Before, they would have ordered a couple of beers and sat in a booth laughing and drinking them slowly until way too late. This time they both ordered water with their burritos and sat at a table that had straight-backed chairs. It didn't seem to matter; a booth might have invited more comfortable lounging, but Victoria still felt like they were the only people in the world who mattered.
She slid her glass back and forth across the table, looking at it instead of Gabe.
"So this is weird," Gabe said.
"It was your idea," Victoria reminded him. She looked up and found him studying her.
"I want to know you."
The words "You already do" were on the tip of her tongue, but she didn't say them.
"Two years," he said, still looking at her.
"Two years," she echoed. "You're more famous."
"You're more beautiful."
Victoria closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to look at him. "You said this was just dinner." She opened her eyes again, and he looked like he hadn't so much as blinked.
"It is," he said. "But I forgot what I see when I look at you."
"You see me every day."
"I see the director every day. I don't think I've seen Victoria in a long time."
"Victoria hasn't been ready for you to see her."
She hadn't meant it to hurt, but Gabe's nod was jerky.
"Tell me," he said, "what Victoria is like now."
"Not as trusting. Not willing to be charmed. Really fucking glad you know how to be a professional." She hadn't meant that to hurt either, but she'd never lied to him.
Gabe grimaced. "I suppose I deserve that."
Victoria nodded and didn't soften it. "Tell me what Gabe is like now."
"More trustworthy. Starting to think nothing's as important as love. Willing to work for what he wants. Really fucking glad you hired him."
"You were always willing to work for it."
"For some stuff, but not the important things. There are a lot of things I've never worked for." He smiled wryly. "Most people are willing to be charmed."
The waitress came by with their burritos, and Victoria watched Gabe smile at her and thank her in Spanish. She smiled back and asked if they wanted anything else without ever looking at Victoria.
"Case in point," Victoria said when the waitress was out of earshot.
Gabe laughed ruefully. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I can't help it."
"That's a lie," Victoria said. "You're one of the best actors I know. You can make yourself into anyone."
Gabe looked actually surprised by the compliment. "Thank you. Then I guess I'm just not used to turning off the charm."
"I suppose it's a useful skill in Hollywood." Victoria bit into her burrito. As the flavor of it exploded across her tongue, she realized just how long it had been since she last ate.
"You still do that."
"Do what?" Victoria looked up as she spoke, and the naked affection on Gabe's face made her breath catch.
"Go too long without eating, and then devour something when someone reminds you."
She did have a tendency to do that. "I get busy. We can't all have assistants taking care of us as a way to climb the ladder."
Gabe shook his head. "If you think Cassadee's taking care of me, you have entirely the wrong idea about our relationship. She refuses to make coffee for me, and she'll only go buy it if she wants some too."
Victoria grinned at him. "That's probably good for you. Keeps the ego in check."
"Ouch." Gabe smiled at her around the edge of his burrito.
Victoria really was hungry, and she devoted most of her attention to her burrito for long minutes. Gabe let her, but every time she looked up, she could see his attention was still on her.
"How is it?"
"Good. Lots of avocado." After a moment, he added, "Not as good as El Burrito."
The land mines of the past hiding in every possible conversational topic were what made Victoria think spending time with Gabe might not be a good idea.
"No," she agreed, "but more bearable right now."
Gabe put his burrito down. "Sometimes," he said, "I wish you would lie to me."
"Do you really? I thought there were enough people in your life who lie to you." It was something he'd told her before, and she didn't think, until after she'd said it, about the way her repeating it would tell him she remembered that.
"Okay," Gabe conceded, "maybe not really. I guess I wish the truth were easier to take."
"That's one of those things you have to work for."
"I'm willing to do that."
Victoria wanted him to work for it, to work for her, so much it made her heart ache.
Part 3
Patrick's house was located at the end of a long driveway, behind a gate where she had to wait for him to buzz her in. It wasn't quite as garishly large as some of the places she'd seen, but he could probably fit a movie crew, its stars' entourages, and a handful of extraneous celebrities with room to spare.
Patrick himself was waiting in the open door, looking surprisingly like he belonged there, even in his jeans, faded t-shirt, and trucker hat.
"Hi," he called when she climbed out of the car.
"Hi," she called back. She slung her bag over her shoulder. "Nice place."
"Thanks." Patrick took a couple of steps back so she could come in. "It's home." The inside of the house was laid out in large, open spaces, all windows, white walls, and sparse but comfortable looking furniture. "You want something to drink?"
Victoria held up her Starbucks cup. "I'm good." There was a bottle of water in her bag too.
"Studio's this way." There was a wall in one of the rooms off the entryway with awards and photos of Patrick with famous people, but that dropped off as they went deeper into the house.
The studio was a real studio, with a large recording booth full of instruments and a control booth overlooking it. The control booth had framed Prince and David Bowie posters over another comfortable looking couch.
Victoria whistled in appreciation. "This is nice."
Patrick flashed her a grin. "I do a lot of work here. It means I can just get straight into recording if I wake up with an idea, instead of having to book studio time somewhere."
Victoria nodded. She had editing equipment in her office at home for the same reason.
Patrick sat down in one of the chairs at the soundboard, and she took the other and put her coffee down while she rummaged through her bag for her notebook and pen.
"I talked to Pete," she said while she was looking for them. She glanced up at Patrick. "It was kind of like kicking a puppy. He thinks you're amazing and brilliant."
Patrick took off his hat, ran his hand through his hair, and resettled his hat over it. "He's just there all the time, and it's like he's two seconds away from propositioning me." Patrick's fair skin turned faintly pink.
"He's married." Victoria pulled out her notebook and put her bag on the floor. "If that helps at all."
Patrick looked equal parts guilty and disgruntled. "I'll try to be nice to him. I just need a little space to work."
Victoria patted his arm. "I told him that. I think he'll tone it down." She flipped her notebook open to an empty page. "Let's hear what you've got."
He really was good. He had much of the instrumental music complete, even though he insisted they were rough cuts, and a couple of demos of two songs with lyrics. "It's just me singing," he said when he played her those two. "I have some ideas about vocalists."
Patrick's voice was good, but he was right that those two songs needed something else.
"And this one needs a female vocalist. All of my demos sound all wrong." Patrick handed her a sheaf of music and hit play. Years of childhood piano lessons meant she could follow it, although her sight-reading abilities weren't quite as good as they had once been.
"Play it again," she said when they got to the end, and Patrick let it play again. This time, Victoria sang along, trying to get a feel for how the words and the music fit together.
When she looked up from the lyrics at the end of the song, Patrick was looking at her with an alarmingly speculative look on his face.
"You should sing it."
Victoria laughed.
"I'm serious," Patrick insisted. "Your voice is good, and it works for the song."
Victoria put the music down. "I'm the director, not a singer."
"But you can sing." Patrick started doing something with the soundboard, adjusting sliders and dials. "And I know who your dad is. I'm sure you've been around a studio before. All you have to do is go in there," he pointed through the window into the booth, "put on some headphones, and sing into the mic."
"I grew up in studios," Victoria said, "but I was always just playing. I'm not that good a singer." Her dad was the singer, and she'd been in a couple of bands as a teenager - who hadn't? - before she decided she was better off in film school.
"You're good enough, and you have the right kind of voice." Patrick abandoned his fiddling to look at her. "Trust me. I can coach you through this, and you'll come out sounding better than you ever imagined you could."
One or two of those bands had taped themselves playing. "I've heard myself recorded, and it's not that great."
"Just a demo," Patrick said. "Hop in the booth, do one take, see how you feel about it. If you don't like it, we'll use it to get someone else interested in recording it."
Victoria was impressed with his ability to make it sound completely reasonable and as if she'd already agreed to it. She picked up the music to read through the lyrics again. A higher note there, and there, she would have to emphasize it differently than she had the first time. She realized what she was doing, but she couldn't bring herself to put it down. Patrick really had done amazing things with Pete's words.
"I'll show you what you need to do." Patrick stood up and opened the door into the studio itself.
Victoria still wasn't sure this was a good idea, but she followed him in anyway.
"You're going to put these on." Patrick took the music from her and handed her a pair of headphones. "And you sing into here." He pointed at the mic. "You have to get right up to it." He stepped up so his mouth was bare inches away from the mic. "And then you just sing." He put the music on a stand in front of the mic and glanced between it and her before adjusting the height a bit. "I'll cue you in."
Victoria put the headphones over her ears and took a deep breath as she settled them into place. This was crazy. She wasn't a singer.
"Okay," Patrick said, and she looked through the window to see him leaning forward to speak into a mic of his own. "This is just a demo, so don't worry about how you sound or anything. Just sing."
Victoria took another deep breath. If she could direct Gabe in a second movie, she could sing one song on tape once through.
She read through the lyrics one more time, and then she looked up and nodded at Patrick. "Okay," Patrick's voice said through her headphones. "I'm going to cue up the music, and you just sing."
Victoria nodded again, and there was a minute of silence and then the music started to play.
She took in a deep breath and stopped thinking about it. She opened her mouth and just sang, glancing down every few words to make sure she was getting the lyrics right. It felt surprisingly good to sing, to feel the song coming out of her and resonating through her body.
Maybe it had been too long since she'd done something like this, something she could just do without having to think too hard about it.
She got to the end of the song in no time at all, and the sudden silence that followed it snapped her back to reality with an almost physical blow.
She blinked at the mic and lyrics sheet before her, and then looked through the window where Patrick was looking particularly self-satisfied.
Victoria's legs were a little shaky when she walked out of the booth and back into the control room.
"That was great," Patrick said, and she was pretty sure he wasn't the kind of guy to hand out empty compliments. "The mix is going to be a little rough, but." He hit play.
The mix was a little rough, her voice not quite syncing right with the music. But it wasn't bad. It was better than she'd expected. She didn't hit any wrong notes, and if she didn't know, she wouldn't be able to tell where she'd had to look back down at the lyrics.
"I think we should use it."
When she looked up, Patrick was staring straight at her, like that was a completely reasonable thing for him to say.
It wasn't that good.
"I think we should find a real singer to do it, and you can use this to show her what she needs to be better than."
Patrick frowned at her, and she knew he had a reputation for being fierce, but that was the first time it had been directed at her.
"Let's use it," he said. "At least try it. Film with it, and if it doesn't work, you can replace it later."
He'd said it would be just a demo, too.
She had a sinking feeling of inevitability even as she agreed. "But only if you keep looking for someone else."
"I talk to musicians all day long," Patrick told her. "I'll see if anyone will work for it."
*
"I think you've been replaced." Gabe's voice came from too close to her ear.
Victoria looked up from the notes around the edges of her script.
"There." Gabe leaned in close enough that she could smell the pancake makeup on his face as he pointed across the set.
She followed the direction he was pointing and saw Cassadee talking to Spencer's new intern Serena? Celine? Whatever her name was, she had her arms crossed over her chest and a coolly disinterested look on her face.
"I don't think she's having much luck."
"No," Gabe said, "watch. She's looking every time Cassadee looks away."
He leaned in closer again, and his breath brushed against her cheek as they watched. Celine? Selena? was looking. Every time Cassadee looked somewhere else, Selena's - Victoria was pretty sure her name was Selena - face became unguarded and there was a spark of interest there. Someone eventually called Cassadee away, and Selena watched her go with an almost wistful look on her face.
"I'm rooting for them," Gabe said.
Victoria turned to look at him. He was really close. Close enough that it would be nothing at all to kiss him.
Gabe seemed to take her silence for something other than what it was. "I'm a romantic," he said, as if she'd been doubting him.
"Aren't you worried she'll steal her away?"
"No." Gabe put his hand on the arm of her chair. With the way he was standing, it was like he was curving around her. "Pete could steal her away, but love isn't like that." He shrugged. "Love will make her more herself, if Selena's worth anything at all."
Victoria almost couldn't breathe. She had never felt so much herself as she did when she was working with Gabe the first time.
"You are a romantic," she said, and if her voice shook, at least it wasn't enough to make him notice; he was still staring after Cassadee and Selena.
*
"We're shooting with music today," Nate told everyone as Gabe and Greta finally took their marks. "Maybe the final thing, maybe not."
Victoria had forgotten that was today. Or not forgotten, really, just let herself not think about it.
Alex Marshall clapped the boards. "Scene 23, take 1."
Victoria called "Action," and the music started to play.
Gabe was supposed to be three-quarters to the camera, but he turned all the way to stare at Victoria. "That's your voice."
Victoria called, "Cut!" and then sighed. "Yes, it's my voice. That was not your line."
"But that was your voice." Gabe kept staring at her, his eyes wide and surprised.
"Gabe," Victoria said, "we have a movie to make. Could you please at least pretend to be a professional and take your place and say your lines?"
He went back to his mark, and Greta wasn't turned so far away that Victoria couldn't see the face she made at him.
It took three takes before Gabe was fully back in character, and two more before he was doing what Victoria actually wanted him to.
When she called cut for the last time, Gabe beat a determined path to her. "So you sing."
"Not really. Patrick has this way of making you think everything he suggests is a good idea."
"No," Gabe said, "you sing. You're good."
Behind him, Spencer, Kevin, and Ryan were all waiting for her attention. "I'm good enough for a demo," she corrected. She pushed out of her chair, forcing him to take a step back to make room for her. "That's all."
"I think you underestimate yourself."
Victoria looked at him instead of past him, and found herself caught by the intensity of the look on his face.
"You," he said, and then he shook his head. "You're amazing," he said softly, and she wanted to step forward and lean into him, feel the force of that belief against her body.
She didn't trust herself to touch him, or speak, so she just nodded and stepped around him to see what her designers needed.
*
Victoria answered the knock on her office door with a called, "Come in."
"Hey, so," Gabe said, and he should have been out of makeup and gone already, "a bunch of us are going out. Ryland says he knows a karaoke bar that's the shit. You should come with us."
Victoria couldn't help smiling at his enthusiasm, even as she shook her head. "I don't think so, but you have a good time." She rearranged her face into a stern look. "Not so good that you look like shit on camera tomorrow."
"I never look like shit on camera," Gabe shot back. "You should come. It'll be fun."
Victoria was still shaking her head, and then he said, "Nate's coming," and she paused.
"He is?"
Gabe nodded. "I had to promise to buy him as many beers as he wants, but he's coming."
If Nate was going, then that meant he'd decided that he could handle hanging out with Gabe, at least in a group of people. That meant he either wasn't mad anymore or Gabe had won him over again.
"Greta's mysterious boyfriend is going to come and I sent Spencer a text letting him know he should casually let Selena know Cassadee's going to be there." Gabe grinned. "Plus Patrick said he'd do a song, and Pete's trying to get his wife to come, so you know that's going to be worth seeing."
That would be worth seeing, although Victoria wasn't sure she wanted to witness it if it went badly enough that it resulted in Patrick pulling out of the project.
"Come on. You don't have to stay all night." Gabe stopped just short of grabbing her arm, which was one of the smarter decisions he'd ever made. "Just hang out for a while."
Victoria had already planned for it to be a long day, which meant Gizmo was safe with her parents, and she could call them to let them know he would have to stay later or overnight. Nothing on her desk was absolutely pressing. They weren't scheduled to shoot until noon tomorrow.
Victoria gave in. "Only for a while."
Gabe beamed at her like she'd given him the moon. "This is gonna rock."
Victoria smiled back at him. "I have a couple of things I need to finish up before I can leave. Where are we going?"
"I don't actually know where it is," Gabe admitted. "Cassadee got directions from Ryland. I'll have one of them text you." He grinned at her again and then ducked out the door.
Victoria couldn't stop smiling as she did the last few things that needed to be dealt with before she could leave. Ryland texted her directions, and she called her parents as she walked to her car.
She spent the drive telling herself she was doing the right thing. She mostly believed it by the time she reached the bar. She recognized most of the cars in the lot, which told her it was the right place.
It was also, she found when she walked in, empty of nearly anyone but her cast and crew. A handful of PAs huddled around the songbook. Ryland and a group of the crew were lining up shots at a table in the middle of the room. The rest of their group was at tables in orbit around that one.
Greta was at the outside edge, leaning against a guy who had an arm draped casually over her shoulder and onto her chest.
"You made it!" She smiled at Victoria, looking absolutely beatific. "This is Mike."
Victoria shook his hand. "Nice to meet you."
"You too." Mike squeezed Greta closer. "Greta says good things about you."
"She says you cook for her," Victoria said. "I have to admit I'm jealous."
Mike grinned and pressed his lips to Greta's temple. "You should come over for dinner sometime."
"Then you'll really be jealous," Greta added.
Victoria laughed. "I might have to."
She moved on past a handful of crew at the next table until she could pull up a chair and sit down next to Nate at the central table. He already had a beer in front of him and a shot in his hand.
"Hey," he said, looking surprised to see her. He downed his shot. "You came."
"Gabe's very persuasive," Victoria said, keeping her voice low.
Nate matched her volume as he said, "Whenever you want to get out of here, I'll go with you if you want."
Victoria put her arm around his shoulders and hugged him. "Thanks." She let go and raised her voice to carry across the table. "What are we drinking?"
"Vodka!" Ryland grinned. "You in?"
"Just one." Victoria took the shot he poured for her and tossed it back to the accompaniment of a lot of cheering. She grinned at her crew.
"Victoria's hardcore," Gabe announced. He'd appeared at her side when she wasn't looking and handed her a glass. He leaned down to say, "Cherry Coke with rum, extra cherries," into her ear, and then clapped his hands. "Who's going to get this party started and sing first?"
Victoria stared at her drink. Gabe used to tease her about it, and sometimes she'd ordered it just to see the look on his face, but she'd always liked the sweetness of the cherry.
"I think you just volunteered yourself, my friend," Ryland said.
Gabe laughed. "Oh, no. I'm waiting for the right moment." He called across the room, "Alexes! You singing or just browsing?"
Alex DeLeon flipped him off, which meant that Victoria's strategy of pushing him off onto Gabe had gone well.
"We need two more to do an NSync song," Alex called back, and Victoria started laughing as Gabe grabbed one of the other PAs and pushed him toward them. He corralled a second unoccupied PA, until the Alexes had become a group of five.
Most of them were terrible, although DeLeon was fairly good and made a passable Timberlake. The cheering was just dying down when Pete's voice carried across the room.
"I didn't miss Patrick singing, did I?"
Victoria turned to look, and Pete was bouncing on his toes but carefully holding the elbow of his wife. Victoria read as much entertainment news as anyone in Hollywood, but she hadn't realized quite how pregnant Ashlee was.
She turned the other way and looked for Patrick. He was at a table at the edge of their crowd, tugging his hat further down onto his head as if that would keep him from Pete's notice.
"That's Victoria," Pete said, as he and Ashlee walked past. Ashlee gave a wave that Victoria returned, but they didn't stop.
Victoria wasn't close enough to hear what Ashlee said to Patrick when she and Pete joined his table, but whatever it was had him tugging at his hat and blushing again.
Brendon took the stage, and he had a surprisingly well-trained, deep voice, and the stage presence to go with it.
"He's good," Gabe said into Victoria's ear.
She startled a little; she hadn't noticed him dragging a chair up close to her.
"He is," she answered. She sipped at her drink, which proved to be a mistake. Every burst of cherry over her tongue made her think of Gabe.
Gabe nudged at her arm. "Look what I did."
Victoria glanced at him to gauge the direction of his gaze, then followed it to where Cassadee and Selena had their heads bent over the songbook.
"And how is that about you?"
Gabe spread his arms wide. "This whole evening is about me." He let his arms drop. "And I told Cassadee that Selena can sing."
Victoria had long ago stopped wondering how Gabe always seemed to know everything about everyone.
"I bet they go for Joan Jett," she hazarded.
Gabe shook his head. "Britney."
"That would go well with the PAs' NSync."
Gabe grinned at her. "They are the right age for it." Then he looked thoughtful. "I wonder if I can get them to do a Backstreet song, for symmetry's sake."
They stopped talking to cheer for Brendon, and then Cassadee and Selena took the stage. If they'd been placing bets, Gabe and Victoria both would have lost, but Gabe was closer: Cassadee and Selena sang "Beautiful," trading verses and harmonizing on the chorus. They turned in to sing to each other at the end, and Victoria was at just the right angle to see both of their faces. Cassadee was a generally upbeat girl, but Victoria had never seen her look that ecstatically happy, and there was an answering softness on Selena's face. Looking at them made Victoria's heart ache, and her filmmaker mind wish for a camera.
She turned toward Gabe and found he was watching her instead of them. Victoria stared at him, breathless, for a moment, before saying, "Make her more herself, huh?"
A smile spread across Gabe's face. "Why, Miss Asher, are you a romantic too?"
Victoria bumped her shoulder companionably against his. "I guess it's catching." She moved away again, really because she couldn't be that close to him right then, but ostensibly so they could both clap and cheer for Cassadee and Selena.
Victoria pitied whoever had to follow them, but Ryland took the stage and did a version of "What's New Pussycat?" that made her laugh so hard she could barely breathe.
She was still gasping when Mike and Greta made their way onto the stage and Gabe leaned over into her space.
"When are you going to get up there?"
Victoria shook her head and fished a cherry out of her drink. "Everyone's already heard me sing."
"Which just means we know you're good." Gabe put his hand on her arm. "Come on. I'll sing with you."
Greta made a pretty good Sonny, but Mike would not have been Victoria's first choice for Cher. Victoria smiled at their duet anyway, because they were plainly in love and playing it up.
"I don't think we have any shortage of singers." Victoria glanced at Gabe. "I'm sure you can find someone else to fill up the evening."
"I don't want someone else to fill it up." Gabe's expression was firmly set on "stubborn." "Come on, we'll pick something ridiculous. It's karaoke; you should sing."
Victoria gestured at the stage with her drink. "They already took the best duet anyway."
Gabe glanced up at Mike and Greta beaming at each other. "I'm sure we can find something." He grinned. "We could do a two-person Backstreet variation."
Victoria laughed. "Yeah, that's not happening."
"Then come pick a song with me, or that's what I'm signing us up for."
"You can sign us up for whatever you want; that doesn't mean I'm going to get up there and sing it." Victoria sipped at her drink and turned her attention back to the stage just in time to cheer for the end of Mike and Greta's "I Got You Babe." It didn't work to get Gabe off of the subject.
"You can't disappoint your adoring fans."
Victoria raised her eyebrows and looked at him. "They're my employees, not my fans."
"Well," Gabe said, his voice dropping low enough that she had to lean in to hear him, "I'm a fan. You don't want to disappoint me, do you?"
The thing was that she didn't. With Gabe leaning in toward her and looking so earnest, she wanted to give him whatever he asked for.
As far as things he could ask for went, one karaoke duet didn't seem like that much.
"All right, all right!" She stood up and waved her drink toward the songbook. "Let's go choose a song."
"You're all my witnesses," Gabe announced to the room at large as he stood too. "Victoria has agreed to sing." He grinned at her. "No backing out now."
Victoria rolled her eyes. "I'm not backing out." She led the way to the songbook and started flipping through it.
There was enough room for them to stand side by side, but Gabe stood close against her back and looked over her shoulder. He was close enough that she could smell him. She hadn't had enough to drink to blame the way she wanted to turn into him on the alcohol.
"Don't You Want Me" was listed in the duets section. Victoria couldn't remember all the lyrics, but it was synthpop, which would appeal to Gabe, and it was better than "Summer Nights."
Victoria pointed at it. "Eighties synthesizer?"
"You know the way to my heart." Gabe grinned at her when she turned to look at him, and put their names on the list.
It put them next, so Victoria didn't have time to get nervous. She took her drink with her onto the stage and let Gabe introduce them as, "Your director and your star, here for a one-night only eighties music engagement," and then the music started.
"Summer Nights," she realized at the end of the first verse, might have been a better choice. She'd forgotten, or never known, that "Don't You Want Me" was actually not that fun, or light.
She nearly froze when she had to sing, "I still love you," but she sang it to the audience and didn't look at Gabe.
She gulped at the end of her drink when the song was over, and carefully made her way down the steps and back to her place next to Nate. The roaring of her heart in her ears drowned out the clapping.
Nate put his arm around her shoulders and leaned in close. "Are you okay?"
Victoria shook her head and put her glass down on the table so the clinking of the ice wouldn't betray her shaking hands.
"Do you want to leave? I'm pretty drunk so you'd have to drive, but I'll go with you."
Gabe had come down from the stage with her, but commandeered the DJ's mic instead of coming back to the table. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said into it, "our cast and crew karaoke extravaganza is coming to an end."
Victoria leaned against Nate's shoulder. Everyone else was looking at Gabe, so it wasn't strange for her to do it too.
"But we have one last song. Give it up for our composer, the one, the only, the incredible Patrick Stump!"
"Victoria?" Nate asked, low under the cover of everyone's cheering. Pete and Ashlee were as loud as the rest of them put together.
"I want to hear this," she said. She also wanted a moment to sit because she was still shaken enough that she thought her knees might buckle if she tried to stand up.
Gabe came back as Patrick took the stage, and he sat in the chair next to her again, but he didn't try to lean into her space. She looked determinedly forward at the stage, and ignored Nate's shifting closer that probably meant there was something going on between him and Gabe.
Patrick covered Prince. His body language was closed in and awkward, but his voice more than made up for it. He belted it out like he was made to sing about wanting "your extra time and your kiss."
Victoria found herself breathless, and she could hear Nate's breathing stutter. She looked past him to see how Pete was taking it. He and Ashlee were both riveted to the stage and clinging to each other's hands.
She thought, briefly, that perhaps Patrick had made a tactical error if he wanted Pete to give him space, but Patrick opened his eyes at just that moment and seemed to sing straight at Pete and Ashlee.
"Holy fuck," Gabe said when Patrick reached the end of the song, in the moment of silence that hung in the air before the cheering of their crowd swooped up and carried it away.
Victoria made herself look at him. His eyes were wide, and there was a flush high along his cheekbones. She wanted to attribute it to alcohol, but although he'd had a drink in his hand all night, she was pretty sure it had been the same one.
"Well," he said, turning to her when the cheering started to die down. "If that doesn't encourage romance, nothing will."
"I'm not sure it's romance he's encouraging."
Gabe shrugged. "Look around you. No one in here close to hooking up is doing it for any reason other than love."
Victoria didn't look at anyone but him. Everything about him said he was sincere. He believed in love. That made his betrayal even worse.
There were people around her, her cast and crew still chatting and drinking and laughing, and she didn't care. It felt like her heart was breaking all over again.
"Hey," Nate said, close in her ear, and even with his arm around her shoulder, she'd forgotten he was there. "You okay?"
She wasn't, but she couldn't make herself say that to him with Gabe watching her.
Cassadee came up to them, with Selena hovering two steps behind her. "Gabe, is it cool if I take off?"
Victoria felt like she could breathe again when Gabe's attention went to Cassadee.
"Sure thing, chickadee."
Cassadee made a face at the nickname but didn't protest it. "Drunk driving is bad. Give me your keys," she demanded, hand held out.
Gabe held up both hands, both empty. "Totally sober," he told her. "Promise."
Cassadee stared at him, and it was funny, even in the midst of an evening that might not have been a good idea. Gabe had at least a foot and ten years on her, and she was staring him down like it was nothing.
Gabe finally threw up his hands. "I'm getting you a breathalyzer for your birthday. I'll get a ride if you really want to take my car."
"I don't need your car. I just don't want you to die or go to jail. That happens, and I'm out of a job." She turned to Nate and Victoria. "You won't let him drive if he's drunk, will you?"
Gabe laughed. "Stop haranguing the bosses and get out of here. I promise not to drive drunk, so go enjoy yourself." He reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear, and it was the kind of thing that would make Victoria think, if she didn't know better now, that he was sleeping with her.
It worked on Cassadee; she ducked in to hug Gabe. He said something to her too softly for Victoria to hear. Whatever it was made Cassadee smile, and she reached for Selena's hand when she turned away from them.
"My baby's growing up," Gabe said with over-exaggerated theatricality. There was something underneath his overacting, though, that was real.
Victoria was too weary to try to puzzle it out. She closed her eyes for a moment, against the sight of him.
"Vic?" Nate asked.
Victoria turned to him as she opened her eyes. "Yeah, I'm good." She gave him a wavery smile. "But I think it's time for me to call it a night." She stood up before anyone could try to talk her out of it. "I don't care how drunk you all are now," she said, raising her voice to carry across the crowd, "I still expect you on set on time tomorrow."
"Slave driver!" Ryland accused, complete with a dramatically pointed finger.
"You know it," she shot back. "And I'd like it if my actors weren't so hungover they can't be made to look pretty enough for film."
"Us too," one of the women from the makeup department called.
Ryland tossed his head back. "I'm always pretty."
Someone from makeup said, "Sure, when we're done with you."
Victoria thought they probably didn't need her for this conversation, and she pulled her bag off the back of her chair.
"I think I'm out too," Gabe said. "I'll walk out with you."
Nate stood up. "I'll walk with you too." Nate could hold his liquor, but he'd had enough that he was swaying a little on his feet.
"You'll never make it back inside," Victoria predicted. "You have a ride home?"
"Yeah, yeah. Plenty of volunteers willing to suck up to the AD." He looked past her to Gabe. "I just didn't want you to have to be alone with him."
Victoria didn't turn to see what that did to Gabe.
"How about we both walk her out," Gabe said, "and I'll give you a ride home."
Nate nodded, and he was drunk enough that it went on for a long time. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. You won't be alone with him, and I probably need to go home. And he bought my drinks all night."
Victoria slipped her arm around Nate. "I heard he was going to do that." Gabe hovered on the other side of Nate, but let Victoria take most of him. "But that doesn't mean you have to sleep with him," she teased.
"No, no, no," Nate said. "He wouldn't anyway, you know. Because he likes girls."
"Yes, he does," Victoria answered absently. She thought she'd probably underestimated just how drunk Nate was, but she was more concerned with getting Nate out to the parking lot without either of them falling down than she was with what he was saying.
"We can walk you to your car," Gabe said, "and I'll get Nate from there."
"That's a good idea," Nate said. "We should go to your car." He turned almost all the way to face Victoria, and she shifted her grip so they didn't fall.
"Then you need to walk." She got him turned around again, and they made it to her car without anyone falling over.
"You need to go with Gabe now," Victoria said, but Nate turned into her and wrapped both arms around her. She stumbled back under his weight, but managed to keep them both upright.
"I love you," Nate mumbled into her neck. "You're the best director."
"Thank you," Victoria said. She pressed a kiss to Nate's temple. "I love you too." She considered the way he was clinging to her and Gabe standing behind him. "Do you want me to take you home instead of Gabe?"
Nate pushed away from her, and Gabe stepped up to put a hand on his shoulder before she could do it herself.
"No," Nate declared. "Gabe and I have things to talk about."
He sounded so serious that Victoria bit back her smile. "Okay. Then I'll see you tomorrow." She spared half a smile for Gabe. "Thanks for inviting me."
Gabe reached around Nate to touch her arm. She forced down a shiver.
"Thanks for coming. I didn't know if you would." Gabe didn't wait for her answer before wrapping his arm more firmly around Nate's shoulders. "Come on, Nasty Nate. Let's get you home so you can be only mostly hungover when Victoria starts yelling at us tomorrow."
*
Victoria was skimming through the pages for the day to see if there was anything she needed to change or check on when there was a light tap on her office door. It opened before she could say anything, and Nate's head poked around the edge of it.
"Come on in," she said, softly.
Nate shuffled through the door and dropped down onto her couch without taking off his sunglasses. "I'm too old for this shit," he mumbled.
"You just have to limit it to nights when you don't have to be at work the next day." Victoria crouched in front of him and tugged his sunglasses down far enough that she could see his eyes. "Are you good to work?"
Nate grimaced and pushed his shades back up. "Yeah. I just need some coffee. Or a lot of coffee."
Victoria sat back on her heels. "Catering's open, and yet you came here first."
"Yeah," Nate said. "That's the other thing. I can't remember everything, but I think I might have said a lot of dumb shit to Gabe last night."
Victoria tugged his sunglasses down again so he couldn't hide from her. "What kind of dumb shit?"
Nate made a face, scrunching up his features and looking chagrined. "The kind of dumb shit where I told him not to break your heart again."
Victoria's heart dropped to somewhere in the vicinity of her stomach. She let go of Nate's shades and sat back again, away from him.
"I know," he said, looking as miserable as Victoria had ever seen him. "If it helps, I think I also told him not to break mine." He smiled without looking like he meant it at all.
Victoria scrubbed her hands over her eyes. If Gabe hadn't already known he was getting to her, he did now. She let her hands drop and decided to start with the second part first.
"How in love with him were you?" She hadn't recognized it before, when she was in so deep she couldn't see anything but Gabe. She might not have recognized it now, except for the way Nate looked so miserable confessing to her.
Nate jerked back as if she'd slapped him, but said, after a moment, "Not as much as you were."
"And you chose me."
"How could I not?" Nate slid forward on the couch and drew her into a hug that was just as awkward for the angle as for the moment. "You're my director."
"You shouldn't let that keep you from," she started, but Nate interrupted her.
"He was in love with you too, and I made my choice." Nate pulled back and pushed his sunglasses up again. "I should go get some coffee before I have to deal with this day." He stood and held out a hand to help Victoria off the floor.
She didn't let go once she was standing, and instead pulled him toward her for a real hug. "You're a good friend," she said.
"Don't say that yet. You don't know how this day is going to go." Nate sounded like he was trying for joking, but it came out mostly tired. "You want me to bring you anything from catering?"
Victoria shook her head. "I already got my coffee, and I'm not hungover." She went back to her desk, but when Nate closed the door, she dropped her head down onto her forearms.
Maybe everyone who said making a movie with Gabe again was a mistake was right.
Victoria drew in a shaky breath. It was too late to change her mind about that. And too late to hope things could be like any other movie.
At the knock on her door, she sat up, brushed her hair back, and said, "Come in."
"I've been to makeup already, so don't yell at me," Gabe said, even before he was all the way into the room.
"I'm the director," Victoria said more calmly than she felt. "I don't need a reason to yell at you."
"Ouch." Gabe half smiled at her as he said it, and then he just looked at her for an uncomfortably long moment.
"What did you come in here for?" Victoria wasn't actually sure she wanted to hear the answer, but she knew she didn't want him just looking at her like that, like he was pleased to see her and she was something he wanted to look at. She was feeling too raw for that.
"Last night," Gabe said. "I was glad you came." His smile broadened into a grin. "My assistant is running late, and so is Spencer's intern."
Victoria couldn't help smiling back at him. "You're really invested in this relationship for someone who isn't actually in it."
Gabe shrugged lightly. "It's love. I'm a lot more invested in it these days."
Victoria drew in a breath, but she didn't have a chance to say anything before Gabe kept going. She wasn't sure what she would have said anyway.
"Love matters." Gabe shrugged. "Sometimes I think it's the only thing that does."
"Do you?" The words slipped out of her. "I wouldn't expect you to think that way."
"Two years is a long time," Gabe said. He came closer. Victoria took a step back, and he stopped just within touching distance. He touched the back of his hand to her cheek. "I have no intention of breaking your heart."
It felt so good to have Gabe touching her that Victoria leaned into his hand. Then she remembered that it was a bad idea, that whatever he said now, he'd broken her heart once, and she stepped back again, out of his reach.
"I'd appreciate it if you didn't." She turned away from him, not caring that it meant he would know how much of an effect he had on her. "You should be on set. Go rehearse with Greta or something."
"I know my lines." Gabe was too close to her again, his voice coming from just behind her.
Victoria exhaled, gathered herself together, and turned around. "Then go make sure Greta knows hers. Or check on your assistant. Or get yourself a bagel. Just go do it somewhere that is not my office."
Gabe touched her again, a brief pressure of his hand against her arm. "You should come out with us again." He stepped away and left her office.
"Fuck," Victoria breathed. The last thing she needed was to let herself believe she could have something with Gabe. She only wanted it if it was everything, love and sex and forever all tied up together. Gabe wasn't like that, no matter how much he said he believed in love.
She could do this. She could go out and watch Jasper and Caroline grow closer. She could tell Gabe and Greta how to make that work.
She wasn't going to believe she could have Gabe. She'd seen Greta and Mike together, and was pretty sure even Gabe couldn't tempt Greta away from that relationship. It wasn't going to be like last time.
She left her office and arrived on the set just in time to see Cassadee slide in between two PAs, a cup of coffee in her hands, looking for all the world as if she'd been there the whole time.
Gabe noticed her about the same time Victoria did, and left his conversation with one of the other PAs. He was only halfway to her when he asked, with a grin, "Good night, chickadee?"
"It's Cassadee, you dumbass." Cassadee smiled as she said it, and she slid out from between the PAs on either side of her to meet Gabe in the middle of the set. Victoria, at the camera in the middle, was close enough to hear her say, "I'm late for work. That's all you're hearing about it."
Gabe tucked Cassadee's hair back, and leaned in to kiss her forehead. "I'm happy for you, kid."
Cassadee ducked away from him. "I'm not a kid, and you're getting lipstick all over me." Victoria knew her well enough to know she wasn't actually mad about it, and she was still kind of smiling over the edge of her coffee cup.
"He's hard to resist," Nate murmured. Victoria hadn't even noticed him approaching.
"He is," she agreed, "but anything's possible." She glanced around and realized everyone who needed to be there was on set. "Okay, people," she called to the room at large, "places. Let's see how well we can do with an approximate hangover rate of fifty percent."
There were a few laughs and some groans, but her crew settled into where they were supposed to be.
*
"Come in." Sometimes it seemed like every time Victoria sat down to get something done, someone knocked on her door. Part and parcel of being the director, she supposed, but sometimes she wished she could do away with the interruptions.
"I thought you'd still be here." Gabe was back in his own clothes, and he'd taken his makeup off, although there was a spot of it still there against his hairline. Of course, this far into filming, the actors never quite got it all off.
"Director's work is never done."
"It would be if you could let someone else do some of it. How much of what you're working on could Nate take care of?"
"I'm sure you didn't come in here just to harangue me about delegating."
"No." Gabe leaned against the wall.
Victoria was pretty sure a photographer - or more than one - had clued him in to how well the pose suited him.
"I came to see if you wanted to get dinner."
"Gabe," Victoria said, and Gabe held up a hand.
"Just dinner," he said. "You have to eat, and I miss being friends with you."
Some of the crew were probably still hanging around, doing last-minute things before they left for the day, but for all intents and purposes, they were alone and they had time.
"I didn't end that."
"I know." Gabe didn't look any happier about it than she was. "Let me buy you dinner. We'll go someplace quiet where we can just talk. I'm not always an asshole."
"I do actually know that." Even if she didn't remember what he'd been like before, she'd seen the way he was with Cassadee and Greta, and the way he and Nate had become friends again. "I trust you to do what I tell you on the set, but I don't trust you with me."
At that, Gabe looked downright sad. "I know," he said, "and I don't know if I'll ever be able to convince you that you can. I want to try, though, if you'll let me."
Victoria wanted that too. She wanted to just trust him, but the memory of how much it hurt when he betrayed that trust kept her from giving in to that.
"I don't know if you can either." Victoria glanced at her desk. It would be better to get some of it done, but none of it had to be done right then. "But you can buy me dinner." She had to turn away from the hopeful look on his face; gathering up the things she needed to take with her provided a convenient excuse.
"Do you mind driving?" Gabe asked. "I gave Cassadee my car keys."
Victoria couldn't control the laugh that bubbled up out of her. "What would you have done if I'd said no?"
"Caught a ride with one of the crew, or called a cab."
Victoria looked around the office to make sure she had everything she needed. "Don't you have a car for a reason?"
"Sure, but Cassadee and Selena were going out to the pier, and that's always more fun in the convertible." Gabe held the door for her.
Victoria shook her head. "You're like the most indulgent dad ever. How'd you get Cassadee to stick around, anyway? You went through, what? Three assistants on First Date."
"Four," Gabe corrected. "You're forgetting about Frank the flake who never even showed up for work. Cassadee's smart. She told me straight up when I interviewed her that she's not staying. She wants to produce. She's only working for me to get the insider view of the whole process and make contacts."
"I never would have guessed," Victoria admitted. "She seems very committed to her job."
"She's smart," Gabe said again. "She knows what it takes to make it, and she's willing to work for it. And she doesn't take any shit." He shrugged. "There are some people she could work for who wouldn't like that."
Having met a lot of people in the business, Victoria could only agree with that. "You know, she can always come ask me questions if there are things she wants to know. Directors see a lot of what producers do."
Gabe's smile was both pleased and surprised. "Thanks. I'll let her know."
"Just because I'm not singing JT with the PAs doesn't mean I don't care about helping people who are new to the business. Besides, anyone who can put up with you is someone worth knowing."
"Come on, you know you love me." Gabe seemed to catch what he'd said at the same moment it slammed into Victoria and made everything, which had been so easy, awkward again. "I didn't mean-"
"Shut up," Victoria said, a little harsher than she intended. She pressed the unlock button on her key fob harder than necessary. "Just get in the car."
Victoria threw her bag in the back while Gabe folded himself into the passenger seat.
"I don't understand how you still have this tiny thing," he said. "You're actually tall, you know."
Victoria rubbed her hand over the dashboard. "This car is my baby, and Gizmo fits in the passenger seat just fine." She started the car, and sound blasted out of the speakers. She turned it down enough that she and Gabe could hear each other. "Where are we going?"
Gabe shrugged. "Anywhere you want that has something I can eat and is quiet."
Victoria considered that as she pulled out of her parking space and Gabe picked up the binder of CDs near his feet. There was El Burrito, the place they used to go to when they were filming First Date, but even though she'd eaten there since then, she thought it would hold too many memories. There was another burrito place, though, closer to her house, that was almost as good.
"Still listening to the collected works of Weezer," Gabe said.
"Always." Victoria glanced over at the open binder on Gabe's lap. "You can change it if you want."
"Are you sure? I'm actually cool with Weezer."
"They're my CDs. It's not like you can pick something I don't like."
Gabe flipped through a few more pages and then pushed the eject button on the stereo. The silence while he switched CDs echoed loudly. It was a relief when Chromeo started blasting out of the speakers.
"I can't believe you still don't have an iPod hookup for this thing."
When Victoria glanced over, Gabe was half leaning against the window and looking at her.
"Habit. And this way I'm not fiddling with it all the time."
"How very safety conscious of you."
Victoria glanced in the mirror and looked over her shoulder as she merged onto the freeway. "Safety first. Can't be too careful in my little car."
"I can't believe your parents don't freak out about this. My dad keeps telling me to buy something more sensible."
"It's British. Well, the original was." Victoria shrugged. "I think they think it'll keep me close to my roots or something."
Gabe laughed. "Yeah, I can see how you'd need that, what with living in the colonies and all."
Victoria didn't want to let it be that easy, didn't want to just laugh, but the smile spread across her face anyway. "Apparently we're all too emotional here in the States. We can't all be first-generation immigrants straight from the motherland. And what about you, Mr. convertible and Hollywood lifestyle? What do you know about staying close to your roots?"
"I think this was my pops' dream, though, for us to have a better life." Gabe had stopped laughing and his voice turned thoughtful. "It wasn't like your dad just choosing to come here."
When they were on set, and she could compartmentalize Gabe into being just one of her actors, she could sometimes forget that he knew so much about her. She didn't answer him, and he let her drive the rest of the way with only Chromeo to accompany them.
When they got there, Gabe held the door and followed her into the restaurant. "Classy," he said. "I offer to buy you dinner and you bring me to a cheap burrito joint."
"It's an awesome burrito joint, and it's quiet," Victoria retorted. She stopped in front of the menu board. She didn't really need to read the menu, but Gabe did, and she needed to focus on something other than him. He tended to consume every bit of her attention when she let him.
"I'm ready," he announced after a moment, and she moved forward to the counter to order.
Before, they would have ordered a couple of beers and sat in a booth laughing and drinking them slowly until way too late. This time they both ordered water with their burritos and sat at a table that had straight-backed chairs. It didn't seem to matter; a booth might have invited more comfortable lounging, but Victoria still felt like they were the only people in the world who mattered.
She slid her glass back and forth across the table, looking at it instead of Gabe.
"So this is weird," Gabe said.
"It was your idea," Victoria reminded him. She looked up and found him studying her.
"I want to know you."
The words "You already do" were on the tip of her tongue, but she didn't say them.
"Two years," he said, still looking at her.
"Two years," she echoed. "You're more famous."
"You're more beautiful."
Victoria closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to look at him. "You said this was just dinner." She opened her eyes again, and he looked like he hadn't so much as blinked.
"It is," he said. "But I forgot what I see when I look at you."
"You see me every day."
"I see the director every day. I don't think I've seen Victoria in a long time."
"Victoria hasn't been ready for you to see her."
She hadn't meant it to hurt, but Gabe's nod was jerky.
"Tell me," he said, "what Victoria is like now."
"Not as trusting. Not willing to be charmed. Really fucking glad you know how to be a professional." She hadn't meant that to hurt either, but she'd never lied to him.
Gabe grimaced. "I suppose I deserve that."
Victoria nodded and didn't soften it. "Tell me what Gabe is like now."
"More trustworthy. Starting to think nothing's as important as love. Willing to work for what he wants. Really fucking glad you hired him."
"You were always willing to work for it."
"For some stuff, but not the important things. There are a lot of things I've never worked for." He smiled wryly. "Most people are willing to be charmed."
The waitress came by with their burritos, and Victoria watched Gabe smile at her and thank her in Spanish. She smiled back and asked if they wanted anything else without ever looking at Victoria.
"Case in point," Victoria said when the waitress was out of earshot.
Gabe laughed ruefully. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I can't help it."
"That's a lie," Victoria said. "You're one of the best actors I know. You can make yourself into anyone."
Gabe looked actually surprised by the compliment. "Thank you. Then I guess I'm just not used to turning off the charm."
"I suppose it's a useful skill in Hollywood." Victoria bit into her burrito. As the flavor of it exploded across her tongue, she realized just how long it had been since she last ate.
"You still do that."
"Do what?" Victoria looked up as she spoke, and the naked affection on Gabe's face made her breath catch.
"Go too long without eating, and then devour something when someone reminds you."
She did have a tendency to do that. "I get busy. We can't all have assistants taking care of us as a way to climb the ladder."
Gabe shook his head. "If you think Cassadee's taking care of me, you have entirely the wrong idea about our relationship. She refuses to make coffee for me, and she'll only go buy it if she wants some too."
Victoria grinned at him. "That's probably good for you. Keeps the ego in check."
"Ouch." Gabe smiled at her around the edge of his burrito.
Victoria really was hungry, and she devoted most of her attention to her burrito for long minutes. Gabe let her, but every time she looked up, she could see his attention was still on her.
"How is it?"
"Good. Lots of avocado." After a moment, he added, "Not as good as El Burrito."
The land mines of the past hiding in every possible conversational topic were what made Victoria think spending time with Gabe might not be a good idea.
"No," she agreed, "but more bearable right now."
Gabe put his burrito down. "Sometimes," he said, "I wish you would lie to me."
"Do you really? I thought there were enough people in your life who lie to you." It was something he'd told her before, and she didn't think, until after she'd said it, about the way her repeating it would tell him she remembered that.
"Okay," Gabe conceded, "maybe not really. I guess I wish the truth were easier to take."
"That's one of those things you have to work for."
"I'm willing to do that."
Victoria wanted him to work for it, to work for her, so much it made her heart ache.
Part 3