Starling (Love in Los Angeles, #1)

2-2

PAUL KNOWS HE’S RIGHT when he gets to work and finds Alex sitting on his desk, a most Los Angeles sort of changeling. Somehow, he’s not surprised, even though there’s little interesting or appealing about the office itself. Like all the other backstage spaces for Fourth, and indeed the rest of Hollywood, it’s drab and involves a lot of fluorescent light and dingy white walls in need of a good scrubbing. The once-expensive but now decrepit and mismatched ergonomic chairs don’t make it any cheerier.

“No sign of Nick?” Paul drops his things down like Alex isn’t there. Maybe he’s not. Maybe he’s simply a ghost of yesterday’s disasters.

Alex levers himself off the desk and follows Paul into the kitchenette. “I’m not here for Nick.”

“I sure hope you aren’t here for me, because let me tell you, I am some bad company right now.”

“I’m hiding from Victor.”

“Oh. Well. Aren’t we all?” Paul says amiably as he rummages around in the tiny refrigerator for some juice that isn’t the wrong type of furry. He doesn’t mean it. He likes Victor more than most of his crew does. Paul doesn’t mind the demands he makes of the people he’s deemed worthy of his attention. Even the extent to which Victor tends to interfere with those people’s lives doesn’t really bother him anymore.

Alex leans against the doorframe but doesn’t say anything.

“Why’re you dressed up?” Paul asks. Not that he knows Alex’s personal style choices, but cargo shorts and nerd T-shirts are the uniform of the P.A. unless it’s cold enough for flannel. Certainly, it’s what Alex was wearing yesterday. But today he’s in tight, dark green cords with a long-sleeved and very fitted gray V-neck. “Are you about to quit?”

Paul watches Alex ponder the question. He looks pained.

“I don’t know.”

Paul gives up on the contents of the fridge and shoves the door closed with his hip before leaning back against it. “What is your deal?”

Alex ignores the question. “If you were offered an opportunity to do something you never wanted to do but maybe only because you never knew you could, and it would change your life — like in ways everyone fantasizes about but no one can really imagine — would you do it? Even if the offer was because of something stupid?”

“I’m going to go with yes. Granted, I don’t know you or what the hell you’re talking about, and my partner walked out on me yesterday and took the dog, so I might not be your best source of advice right now.”

Alex’s eyes widen comically. “Oh wow, your day did not get better.”

Paul surprises himself with his own laughter. “No. No, it really didn’t. Although that mess started before you cursed me with your well-wishes, so don’t get cocky.” He pauses. “What about yours?”

Alex shakes his head, and that startled look returns. Paul knows he’s an asshole for finding it appealing.

“I don’t know yet,” Alex says. Then, having seemingly found whatever he was looking for, he’s out the door.

Uncertain what to do in the face of that abruptness, Paul yells after him. “I’ll give your regards to Nick!”

Alex doesn’t respond.

—

* * * *

ALEX’S LIFE BECOMES frightening and disorienting. That, it seems, is how fairytales work.

There are meetings and more meetings, screen tests, and all manner of awkward conversations. These mostly involve people Alex had been happy to avoid in what he’s now starting to think of as his former life as a P.A.

Victor offers him a temporary gig in the production offices to shelter him from the worst of trying to do his usual job in the sea of interruptions and vanity the process becomes. When Alex says no, that he’ll deal with whatever s**t he gets from the crew for his sudden and possibly imminent change in circumstance, Victor nods with satisfaction. Alex suspects he has passed a test he didn’t know he was taking.

He changes his clothes in the studio bathroom between work and meetings. It’s a practicality but also deeply strange. Every time he walks back out the door he feels different than when he walked in.

Alex wonders if this process is supposed to teach him how to act.

—

* * * *

“WE’RE ADDING A CHARACTER,” Victor tells Paul late one night when the writers’ room is otherwise empty. Everyone else apparently has some semblance of a life. “That P.A. we pulled from the background shot. Alex Cook. Now Zach Reagan, junior reporter. New kid on the team. Young, but smart and hungry.”

“Yeah?” Paul looks up from his notes. There have been rumblings, but coming from Victor like this means opportunity. It also explains some things about Alex, who Paul’s been seeing around more and more in less and less explicable circumstances. No wonder his eyes are always so wide.

“Yeah,” Victor confirms, but his tone is mocking. “And he’s not going to be minor. So, if you want to pitch something that’s not cleanup on everyone else, this is your chance, because I’m going to make you fix the rest of the cycle.”

“Okay.” Paul takes a breath and has ideas already. “Thank you.” This is a vote of confidence and a reward for years of doing the s**t work.

“You should know,” Victor says, in the thoughtful voice that means he’s plotting something. “He looks like a delicate little thing, but he’s very much not.”

“Zach?” Paul asks. “Or Alex?”

Victor just smiles. “Show me what you’ve got on Monday.”

—