Hot as Heller (Aster Valley 3)

While I waited for a callback, there was something else I needed to do.

I turned to Kix. “Tell me about New Year’s.”

It took him a minute for my words to sink in, but then he gave me his cheesy grin. The one that made it seem like we were best bros. We’d never been best bros. Despite my efforts for over fifteen years, we’d never been more than slightly repellant magnets, the kind you keep pushing together just so you can feel that awkward rejecting force when they get too close.

“It was sick, man.”

It made me sick, so he was close. “Why would you host a party at my house without telling me? When you know I would have hated having a bunch of strangers in my home?”

“Yeah, but it was New Year’s. And I was avoiding that stalker chick, remember? I was crashing at your place. Where else would I have hosted it?”

Was he serious? “You violated my trust! You were fucking busted by the cops, and you never said a word.”

He held his hands out as if to calm me down. “Wait just a minute. We weren’t busted by the cops. We were joined by the cops. Not the same thing. Also? You’re such a fucking Mary Sue. What do you care if I have friends over to celebrate a holiday? You’re acting like your house is some kind of sacrosanct place when everyone knows it’s like a fucking monastery. Just you and your nosy fucking mommy all up in your business.”

I felt like I’d been slapped in the face. My “nosy fucking mommy” had been the woman he’d come to when he’d lost roles and faced heartbreaking rejections. His own parents were nice enough, but they didn’t know the business. He’d come to my mother for help. Time after time he’d begged her for connections, advice, and help navigating the sometimes overwhelming machine of the film industry. She’d taken him under her wing as best she could. The only thing she hadn’t done for him was ever, ever let him get close to getting a role she wanted for me. She’d protected my own career like a rabid grizzly with a single precious cub.

Instead of tears pricking my eyes as I would have expected, I felt anger, white-hot and all-encompassing. I wanted to punch the shit out of his smug face and tell him to stay the hell away from me and mine.

“Don’t ever ask me for another goddamned favor as long as you live,” I said instead, in a low voice shaking with irritation. Why hadn’t I seen it more clearly before? I’d spent most of my teen years feeling guilt that I’d had success and Kix had been forced to settle for the leavings.

In reality, I’d had success because I’d worked my fucking ass off and had tried improving my skills while Kix had been off fucking around with friends or trying to make his way to the top with his ass instead of his head.

Why had I always felt like his own success or lack of it had anything to do with me?

“Don’t worry,” he said, sneering at me. “You don’t have anything I’d ever want. You have no friends, no sex life to speak of, and no fucking idea what you want to be when you grow up. You’re a washed-up child star whose mother has to sleep with directors to get you roles you’re clearly not suited for. Hell, you can’t even deal with getting a little roughed up on a shoot without calling Mommy to come take care of you and having to take the rest of the day off to snivel in your bed. Woe is poor fucking Finn Heller. Crying in his millions of dollars.”

My stomach roiled with disgust and betrayal. I tried to ignore the nasty lie about my mother, but it was near impossible. I needed to know if there was any truth to it at all, and unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking with a clear head at the moment.

I slammed my way out of the trailer, panning my gaze around to see if I could spot Nolan anywhere. My eyes landed on Joel sitting under the main craft services tent, eating a plate of some kind of pasta that was steaming in the cooling evening air.

“Great job today,” he said when he saw me approach. “You hungry? Join me.”

I stood across the table from him and clutched my hands together to keep from waving them around like a lunatic. “Where’s Nolan?”

His chewing continued as he shrugged. “No idea. Why?”

I wasn’t about to tell him the truth, that I needed to know if Nolan had ever had an inappropriate relationship with my mother. So I latched onto the other shitty situation at hand.

“I’m not okay with this evening’s call sheet. First of all, climbing at night is dangerous. Climbing at night on a rock face you’re unfamiliar with is downright idiotic. You can’t be serious about this.”