Charming Like Us (Like Us 7)

It brings me back to the wedding reception. When I was bent over the hatchback as the sun set along the coast, and I turned around. The glow of the waning sun illuminated Oscar Oliveira, and he was gorgeous.

I almost told him.

I’ve told plenty of guys they’re beautiful.

But I stopped myself because that moment felt different than those other times. Maybe I just wanted it to be different.

I clutch my spoon, another knot in my chest. Giving him time to read the fine print, I shovel spoonfuls of cereal in my mouth.

After a minute, he starts shaking his head aggressively.

“What?” I question. “It’s all standard.”

“This says he has to have at minimum ten interview sessions. Charlie can barely sit down for one.”

This is what I was worried about. “If he wants to do this, he has to put in the time. Either he signs it, or he doesn’t. It’s no sweat to me.”

Oscar doesn’t say anything.

I study him, up and down. “Do you want him to do the show?”

“Answering that would require me to know why he’s doing it. Which I don’t. He rarely tells me shit.”

“Why is that?”

Oscar gives me a pointed look. “I’m not your subject, Highland.”

“I can just ask Charlie.”

“Go for it,” Oscar says. “I’d love to hear his answer.” He stares down at the contract and flips through the last couple of pages. “You have in here that there’ll be an additional three people involved in crew. From a security standpoint, I’m a little concerned about all of you getting in my way. We Are Calloway filming lasts ten minutes around him. I can’t have that all day every day. It’s going to be a problem.”

“I need a crew—”

“I need to do my job,” Oscar cuts me off.

I let out a frustrated noise. “And I don’t need to do mine?”

“How hard is yours?” he wonders. “Because mine is fucking difficult every way you come at it. I can’t add something else to it. Narrow down your crew or it’s a no-go. I’ll cut the cord before Charlie even gets the contract.”

Confidence radiates from every pore, and his threat is palpable in the room. I’ve been head-to-head with enough guys on security to not cower. But something about Oscar slowly simmers my blood.

“For the pilot, I can agree to that,” I tell him. “But if it gets picked up for network, I can’t have a reduced crew.”

“I’m not budging from this.”

I shake my head. “Out of all the things to push back on…”

“You’ll understand when you start filming him,” Oscar says. “I’m not being an asshole just for shits and giggles. Just trust me on this.”

Getting a series order will happen down the line, and maybe I can renegotiate a bigger crew then. Right now, I just have to get off the block.

“I can agree to—” Static crackles, and I cut myself off, realizing the black radio pack beside the sink, earpiece cord wrapped around the small device, is turned on. Volume is so loud that I hear security clearly.

“Farrow to Thatcher, is anyone making a pit stop at the lake house?”

Oscar’s hand jolts fast towards the radio. Seizing it. Maybe to power it off or lower the volume so I can’t hear.

I’m production.

I’m not a bodyguard.

But as our eyes meet, something stops him. He cradles the radio in his palm.

I dunk my spoon into the milk and ask lightly, “Are Farrow and Maximoff already at the family’s lake house?” I heard they were spending their honeymoon there, but I didn’t know when they were leaving.

Oscar glances at the rising sun. “Yeah, they should’ve arrived this morning.” His muscles are still flexed. Still rigidly clutching the radio.

I may have gone to an Ivy League, but it doesn’t take a genius to know whatever Oscar is thinking, it’s not good. But more than anything, I can’t get over how he’s not shutting me out of comms.

I can’t name a single bodyguard who wouldn’t pull the plug and turn the volume to negative 100 on me, on anyone in production.

6

OSCAR OLIVEIRA

What in the ever-loving hell am I doing?

Turn the volume down on the damn radio, Oscar.

Put your earpiece in.

Don’t let Jack Highland listen to comms chatter.

I’ve never wavered about this. One girl I slept with was two seconds from hearing a bodyguard talk about Luna Hale. How she was close to flunking high school. I snatched the radio off my end table like it was the last Snickers on Earth, and I shut the girl out of my work.

In this jack-knifing second, my common sense is thrown in the gutter, making way for…what? Idiocy. No. No, I’m too intelligent to be that dumb.

Some part of me is instinctively saying, keep this guy in the loop. Keep him with you. Keep him close. And he might be production, but he understands sheltering secrets about the famous ones. He’s never betrayed them, and I have no reason to believe he’d betray me.