скачать книгу бесплатно
‘I didn’t mean to imply,’ he says, as if he’s read my mind, ‘that I think you’re a peasant.’
‘I should bloody well hope not.’
‘But then, to be fair to me, you did just call me – now, what was it? – Lord Chief Arsehole.’
‘That was different …’
‘That’s true. It was behind my back, for one thing.’
‘It wasn’t behind your back!’
‘Well, it wasn’t to my face.’
‘You set me up! You … entrapped me.’
‘Oh, stop getting your knickers in a twist. If you’re wearing any knickers beneath that thing,’ he adds. ‘I mean, Jesus, these costumes are like a bloody sauna as they are, without adding extra layers beneath them, aren’t they?’
I would say something in reply – I’m not sure what, exactly, because it’s not often that I get asked by strange men if I’m wearing any knickers, let alone strange men like Dillon O’Hara who, now that I come to notice it, is even better looking in real life than he looked on the pages of Cass’s Grazia – but I’m stunned into silence by the fact that he’s starting to take his clothes off.
Seriously: he’s undoing the Velcro down the front of his jumpsuit, peeling the fabric off his shoulders and down to his waist and then – oh, dear God – pulling his T-shirt up and over his head to reveal the most perfect torso I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
I’m not exaggerating: his shoulders are wide and packed tight with lean muscle, he has a smooth, rock-hard chest, and an actual, proper six-pack where most men – my horrible ex-boyfriend Daniel, for example – sport varying sizes of beer gut.
‘Ahhhhh.’ He lets out a sigh of satisfaction. ‘That’s better. They told me, the nice Wardrobe girls, that I’d be more comfortable if I took my T-shirt off, but I got all shy.’ He grins at me, in an extremely not-shy sort of way. ‘I assumed they were just after my body.’
I can’t tell, dazzled as I still am by the ridiculous perfection of the body in front of me, whether his cheeky arrogance is attractive or annoying.
I think, probably, it’s fifty-fifty.
For now, anyway, I need to concentrate on not staring while Dillon swivels round and takes something out of the back pocket of his jeans.
It’s an open packet of Benson & Hedges, from which he’s pulling a cigarette.
‘No!’ I yelp, and then, because he looks rather startled, I explain: ‘I mean, you can’t. Vanessa will have your guts for garters if you light up in costume.’
‘Vanessa … Vanessa … oh, you mean the scary production lady?
It’s reassuring to realize that Dillon is as scared of Vanessa as the rest of us.
‘Yes.’
‘But I’m the big star, right? I should be allowed to do whatever I want, whenever I want?’
I think he’s joking …
‘Or,’ he adds, with another of those grins, ‘I could just nip round the back of this catering bus and have a sneaky smoke where Vanessa won’t catch me. Might be safest all round, hey?’
‘I think that would probably be best.’
‘Join me?’
‘Huh?’
‘Join me? In a cigarette?’
‘Oh … I don’t smoke.’
The moment the words leave my lips, I regret saying them.
I mean, I don’t have to go all ga-ga over the man to be able to admit Dillon’s attractions. And yet here I’ve just turned down the opportunity to continue this little chat – while he remains, I should point out, completely shirtless – just because I don’t actually smoke cigarettes.
Which is nuts, because it’s not like I’ve never smoked. I used to. Admittedly only when I was drunk, and not since I was about nineteen, when I went on a trip to Paris with Olly and smoked so many overpowering French cigarettes that it put me off for life.
But is this sort of hair-splitting worth missing out on another few minutes in Dillon’s company, when he’s never likely to exchange another word with me again?
‘What I mean to say is that I try not to smoke.’
‘Oh, well, if you’ve given up, then all credit to you—’
‘No, no, I haven’t given up! I’ve failed completely at it! Love smoking. Love it to death. Literally to death, probably, the amount I smoke!’
‘Then be my guest.’ He hands me the cigarette he’s holding, takes another for himself and then reaches into his back pocket again for a lighter.
‘So you’re one of the extras, right?’ he asks, flicking the lighter on and holding it out towards me.
‘Mnnh-hnngh.’ This is because I’ve got the cigarette in my mouth. ‘I’ve sort of been promoted, though,’ I add, once the end is lit. ‘I mean, I’ve got my first line to speak today. It’s not exactly a proper part, and obviously I get to wear the ugliest costume on set, but …’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I’ve seen worse.’ He takes an expert puff on his own cigarette, blowing the smoke in the opposite direction from me (which is courteous of him, seeing as I’m technically smoking too; I just haven’t risked actually inhaling yet in case I cough and sputter, unattractively, all over him). ‘I’ve an ex or two that looked a bit like that,’ – he nods at the alien head I’m clutching in my hand – ‘without their slap on.’
This is unlikely. But I appreciate his generosity.
‘Anyway, if you’re one of the extras, you probably know a thing or two about the way things work around here.’
‘Work?’
‘Yeah, every show I’ve ever worked on, the extras are always the ones who know how it all works. Who’s the biggest diva. Who’s got the biggest coke problem. Who’s getting it on in the props storeroom. I mean, there’s always somebody getting it on in the props storeroom, isn’t there?’
Given that I’m about to furnish my entire flat from the props storeroom, I can only hope that he’s joking about this.
‘So?’ he asks. ‘Dish the dirt! Tell me who to avoid, who to cultivate, who I’m going to get a stonking great crush on …’
‘Don’t you have a girlfriend?’ I suddenly blurt.
No, I’m not sure what’s wrong with me, either.
His black eyes narrow. ‘That’s a very personal question.’
‘Sorry, I only asked because … well, I read things in Grazia, obviously … not that I read a lot of celebrity gossip! Only when I’m in the waiting room at the dentist, or something. Hardly ever.’
‘You hardly ever go to the dentist?’
‘No! I mean, yes! I go loads!’ I say, continuing my apparent quest to make him think I have poor dental management and stinky cheese-breath. ‘Well, not loads … a normal amount, I’d say … Actually, it’s my sister Cass who reads all the gossip magazines—’
‘Then tell the silly cow not to believe everything she reads in them.’
‘Hey!’ I don’t care how gorgeous he is, standing here with his bare chest, and chivalrously blowing smoke away from me. ‘That’s my sister you’re talking about.’
‘Sorry.’ He looks, and sounds, instantly contrite. But then he is an actor, I suppose. Still, he repeats it. ‘Sorry. That was unforgivably rude of me.’
‘It was, a bit.’
‘It’s just that the girlfriend thing … it’s private, you know?’
‘Yes. Of course. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.’
‘Ah, you’re all right … Sorry, I’ve just realized I don’t know your name.’
‘Libby. Libby Lomax.’
‘Well, you’re all right, Libby, Libby Lomax. I’ll forgive you for calling me an arsehole. And for lying to me about being a smoker.’
Damn it; I’ve let the bloody thing practically burn itself out in my hand.
‘I am a smoker! I just forgot I had one,’ I say, popping the cigarette back into my mouth and hoping I can look one-tenth as sexy as him when I take a drag on it …
‘Dillon!’
Shit. It’s Vanessa, coming out of Wardrobe and walking towards us.
If she catches me smoking a cigarette, I’ll be off this location shoot in even less time than it would take Dillon to talk Cass into bed with him.
Instinctively, I do the first thing that springs to mind, which is to pull on the head I’ve got squashed under my arm.
It’s a nanosecond later that I realize I still have the cigarette between my lips.
But it’s OK! It’s OK, because all I have to do is walk past Vanessa and go, as fast as I can, round the other side of the catering bus, where I can pull my head off and take the cigarette out.
Or at least, I could, if she weren’t blocking my way with her arms folded and a scowl on her face.
‘Libby,’ she hisses, none too quietly, ‘what the fuck are you bothering Dillon for?’
‘She wasn’t bothering me, Vanessa, don’t stress about it.’ Dillon taps me on the shoulder from behind, and when I wheel round unsteadily he’s holding out one of my latex gloves. ‘You dropped this.’
‘Thank you,’ I mumble, snatching the glove and making to turn away again. But he stops me.
‘You’re smoking,’ he says.
Traitor! He’s sold me out, and right in front of Vanessa, too.
‘I mean, you’re really smoking, Libby.’
He’s staring into my eyes, through the pin-holes in my Warty Alien head, with such intensity that I can’t help but think … Is he saying he fancies me? I mean, nobody’s ever called me ‘smoking’ before, and certainly not someone as smoking-hot himself as Dillon is, but I suppose weirder things have happened—
‘For fuck’s sake!’ Vanessa ruins the moment by screaming, at Obergruppenführer volume, from behind me. ‘Her fucking head’son fire!’
At the very same time as she screams this, I inhale an extremely unpleasant smell that can only be burning latex.
OK, so I know the Thing To Do in a fire is to stay cool, calm and collected. I know the worst thing you can do is to panic, because you just start to drag other people under with you …
Oh, hang on a minute, that’s drowning.
In a head-on-fire scenario, panic, I suspect, is perfectly acceptable.
‘Shit!’ I almost out-scream Vanessa, pulling at my head in a wild frenzy. But it isn’t coming off! It isn’t coming off! ‘Get it off, get it off, get it off me!’
‘For fuck’s sake!’ Vanessa is yelling, again, as she stampedes away from us toward the catering bus door. ‘We need the fucking fire extinguisher!’
‘There’s no time for that.’ I hear Dillon’s voice, and then feel his hand grab my wrists to stop me ineffectually yanking at my head. ‘Stop,’ he orders, ‘and keep still.’
Then he grips the alien head, pulls it clear of my actual head, and throws the smouldering latex down onto the ground.
And then everything goes black.
I haven’t fainted, by the way. I think Dillon’s just thrown his T-shirt over me to put out any lingering sparks.
There’s a brief, stunned silence.
‘You all right under there?’ Dillon asks, a moment later.
I open my mouth to say ‘Just about’ when I’m hit, smack in the middle of the face, with a powerful jet of very cold liquid.
I gasp, which draws a large portion of sodden T-shirt into my mouth. I gag, splutter, and double over.
‘Fucking hell!’ I hear Dillon say, from my position near his groin. ‘It was under control. You didn’t need to blast the poor girl with the fire extinguisher!’
Ah, so it was very cold foam, then. Just in case I didn’t look like enough of an idiot with a wet T-shirt over my head … no, it has to be a foam-covered T-shirt instead.
But Vanessa clearly isn’t in any kind of mood for sympathy.
‘Libby! What the fuck are you playing at?’
‘Hey, leave her alone.’ I feel a hand on my shoulder, pulling me upright. ‘Let me get that off you,’ Dillon says, pulling at the T-shirt.
‘I’m fine! Might be better to leave it on for a bit longer, actually!’ Like, until the end of time. Or at least until I’ve regained my composure, and until everyone on the catering bus – whom I can now hear leaning out of the windows, asking each other what’s been going on, and having a good old chortle when they hear the answer – has gone home and, ideally, sixty or seventy years down the line, died, without me having to face them again. I grip onto the T-shirt at neck level. ‘Better not to … you know … expose burnt skin to the air.’
‘Shit, did your skin burn?’ Dillon rips the T-shirt off my head in one smooth movement; he’s obviously a man accustomed to removing items of clothing from women. ‘Oh, don’t worry, you’re all right. It’s only your hair.’
‘Only my hair what?’
