Real Love Read online

  Thirteen

  Two hours after they wrapped, Daisy found herself in a cab with Alexa, headed into the city for their ‘Date.’ No one had spoken in five minutes. After a while, Daisy thought she should probably say something. It was getting ridiculous.

  ‘How did you feel it went today?’

  Alexa looked up from her phone. ‘Oh, I… I don’t know really.’

  Another pause and Daisy took a second stab. ‘Ryan seemed happy enough.’

  ‘Ryan’s always happy as long as you do exactly what he wants you to.’

  Daisy wasn’t sure what to say to that.

  On the other side of the cab, Alexa wasn’t feeling good about the way she was being. But she couldn’t seem to help it. It was nerves, she knew that. Nerves had always made her a tad bitchy. She supposed it wasn’t just this cab ride or the dinner or the Paps waiting for them. It was that damn kiss.

  It had made her feel thoroughly on display, having to kiss Daisy like that, in front of everyone, on camera. She kept thinking that if she went for the kiss with too much enthusiasm, everyone would know that she really wanted to do it. More specifically, Daisy would know. That’s what had been holding her back.

  And even though she’d tried to be as lukewarm as she could manage, she still somehow felt she’d given herself away. Hence the wall that Daisy kept attempting to break through and Alexa kept rebuilding, slapping cement and bricks in place as quick as she could.

  But Alexa wouldn’t be able to keep it up all night, she knew. Because Daisy didn’t really deserve the ice queen routine. She hadn’t really done anything wrong when you broke it down. Yes, she’d rebuffed her. But Alexa knew it was immature to treat Daisy coldly.

  She thought she should perhaps say something to Daisy, try to act like a human being with her. And there was safe territory for her to walk into, luckily. Work. Because she’d been quite impressed with Daisy’s work today. In fact, she’d been rapt right from day one, not just by her gravity defying bottom. Daisy had talent. And she should know she was good if she didn’t already. She should be told every day of her life, as a matter of fact.

  ‘Hey, I thought you-’

  ‘Here we are’ said the cabbie, pulling in. ‘Rick’s.’

  Daisy thought Alexa had started to say something but when she turned to her, her mouth was firmly closed. Must have misheard.

  Daisy and Alexa climbed out of the cab. Daisy didn’t know if she was going to be accosted by a group of photographers, calling her name and blinding her with their flashes. But it didn’t happen. There was no one at all, she was relieved to find. Daisy reminded herself that she wasn’t Beyoncé. She wasn’t even Solange. Whoever Ryan had sent to capture hers and Alexa’s evening, they’d no doubt just be bloggers with camera phones.

  They went into the restaurant to find that Rick’s, which had sounded informal, was anything but. It was what Kathy would call ‘Swanky with a capital S.’ Daisy tried not to look too overcome. She put a look on her face that she hoped said ‘Pah! I come into places like this every day of the week.’ Luckily, she was still gussied up from shooting this afternoon so that helped her to feel a little less out of place.

  Once they were seated, a waitress was immediately on hand to take drink orders. Alexa didn’t even look at the menu.

  ‘We’ll have your most expensive bottle of wine, please.’

  The waitress looked surprised but took the order. Once she’d gone Alexa looked at Daisy. ‘Cut and Shut are footing the bill, so why not take them for every penny we can squeeze out of them?’

  ‘Will Ryan be annoyed?’ Daisy asked her.

  ‘God, I hope so’ Alexa replied as the waitress came back with the pricey booze. Daisy heard a ridiculous giggle come out of her mouth, which she dearly wished she could stuff back in. But it was out now, making her sound like a drunk schoolgirl. She knew what it was. Nerves. She often found herself getting a bit silly when she was nervous, which she absolutely was to be sitting with Alexa without the safety net of the LIM cast and crew around. She hadn’t been alone with her since…

  Right. That night. When Alexa had made a pass at her and she’d dashed out into the night as though the place was on fire.

  ‘What do you think you’ll have?’ Alexa asked as she took a sip of wine.

  Daisy picked up a menu and had a glance. ‘A salad, I guess?’

  Alexa shook her head. ‘I think we can do a bit better than that.’ She ran her finger down the menu and said ‘There we are. Kobe steak.’

  ‘So the plan is to simply pick the most expensive things you can find?’

  ‘Why not? Ryan demanded that we come here so we could be puppets in his little PR scheme. Why not make him pay the price?’

  Daisy considered it as the waitress appeared. ‘So, what would you like?’ she asked Daisy.

  ‘I’d like to start with some caviar and then’ she looked at Alexa. ‘What do you think, shall we both go for the Kobe steak?’ Daisy asked.

  Alexa grinned, surprised. ‘Yep. Kobe steak times two. And for my first course… Actually, can you just bring everything on the starter menu?’

  The waitress’s scribbling pencil ceased it’s scratching for a moment. ‘Everything?’

  Daisy and Alexa replied in unison. ‘Everything.’

  The waitress took the order to the kitchen and Daisy raised a glass. ‘To Cut and Shut and their generosity!’

  Alexa clinked her glass and they shared a conspiratorial smile. It was the most relaxed either of them had ever managed to feel around each other in their brief working relationship.

  Daisy wondered if the night might not be as horribly awkward as she’d feared.

  After they’d eaten the starters (which were all tiny but there were quite a lot of them), Daisy pushed the last plate away and washed it down with a sip of the expensive wine. She had to admit, even though she knew fuck all about wine, the pricey stuff did go down a tad smoother than the bottle she usually got from Tesco for £4.99. Daisy, now with a glass and a half of wine in her system, was feeling good and loose.

  ‘I’ve been wondering something about you.’

  Alexa, finishing her last bite, looked up at Daisy expectantly. Daisy could have sworn she saw a glimmer of apprehension but then it was gone and she was her usual poised self.

  ‘How did you end up in Laid in Medford?’

  Alexa gave a dry little laugh and said ‘Oh, well… It’s sort of a long story.’

  Daisy knew she was getting the brush off but the wine was making her more confident than usual. ‘The steak’s not even here yet. We’ve got time.’

  Alexa sighed. ‘Alright. In all honesty, it was by accident. I didn’t want to do scripted reality. I was going to be a ‘real actress’.’

  Daisy’s mouth fell open. ‘What?’

  ‘I’d been modelling since I was eighteen and I was doing OK. Enough to pay the rent, anyway. But when I hit twenty-five, I started to feel a bit long in the tooth for that world, not to mention the fact it was boring work. So I decided, as many in my profession have done’ Alexa added caustically ‘to go into acting. I started to take lessons and asked my agent to transition me, which he assured me he could do. And then he calls and tells me he’s got me an audition.’

  Daisy started to laugh. She could see where this was going. After all, it was practically her own story, minus the modelling. ‘Let me guess. He didn’t tell you what you were auditioning for.’

  ‘How did you know that?’ Alexa asked, agog.

  ‘How do you think I know that?’

  ‘My god. You too?’

  ‘Does anyone actually mean to go into scripted reality? Or are we all just press-ganged?’

  ‘I think we’re the exceptions, not the rule’ Alexa said with a world-weary smile.

  After the waitress slid their mains in front of them, Alexa felt bold enough to start her own line of questioning.

  ‘How’re you finding it anyway? Laid in Medford?’

  Daisy considered the question. How di
d she feel? The answer she arrived at was ‘Not as bad as I thought.’

  Alexa was quizzical. ‘What were you imagining?’

  ‘I thought you might be a bit scary, for a start.’

  Alexa, who’d begun to sip her wine, snorted into the glass. ‘Scary? Really?’

  ‘On my first day on the set, you did chuck wine in my face so I don’t think it’s the craziest idea.’

  ‘Shit, yes, I’ve been meaning to say something about that. I didn’t know you weren’t forewarned about it. I realised later and I did come to say sorry, but you’d gone.’

  Daisy was astonished. ‘You weren’t in on that?’

  ‘I’m not in on much. I just do as I’m told.’

  ‘Ryan always acts as if you run the show.’

  Alexa rolled her eyes. She knew people thought that. And it had always annoyed her because it couldn’t be further from the truth. ‘That’s just his way of kissing my arse. It’s all bullshit.’

  That gave Daisy pause. Later, she was going to have to rethink some of her preconceptions about the power structure of the show. But not now. Because, in a bizarre plot twist, she was having a good time with Alexa.

  ‘Anyway, you can’t have been all that scared of me. You tried to get into my knickers on your second scene.’

  Daisy, who had been lifting a piece of steak to her mouth before Alexa had spoken, felt her wrist twitch in surprise and her meat flew from her fork, airborne across the restaurant, landing a few feet away on the carpet. The waitress who’d been serving them all evening happened to be passing at that moment, and she leant down and picked the meat up in a fluid movement of beautiful discretion that went unnoticed by everyone but Daisy and Alexa. She slipped it into her pocket with a quick wink at Daisy.

  ‘She’s just earned a hell of a tip’ Alexa said.

  ‘You can’t take me anywhere’ Daisy said with a sigh.

  ‘It was my fault’ Alexa assured her. ‘I took you by surprise.’

  A silence fell across the table. But Alexa wouldn’t let this one get comfy.

  ‘I’m sorry about that night, by the way.’

  Daisy was almost certain she knew what night Alexa was talking about but instinctively, she pretended she didn’t. ‘What night?’

  Alexa gave her a cynical look but she went along anyway. ‘At the bar, after we shot… I suppose I got carried away with the scene we’d done. Which makes me as stupid as every viewer that does the same thing’ she added with a small, self-admonishing head shake.

  That got to Daisy. Because if she was honest, Alexa hadn’t remotely misread the situation. But she’d obviously still ended up feeling a little stupid about it.

  ‘You don’t need to apologise.’

  ‘I think I do. Because it’s made things a little awkward since, hasn’t it?’

  Daisy gave a wan smile. ‘Maybe a bit. Yes.’

  The silence resumed. Forty seconds into it, Daisy cracked.

  ‘You didn’t get anything wrong. That scene… Yeah, there was more to it than trying to get Ryan’s attention. I suppose I was really trying to get yours.’

  Alexa looked at Daisy intently and Daisy found herself pushing on, words coming out her mouth she hadn’t even allowed herself to think before now.

  ‘I really wanted to kiss you, if I’m honest. But that’s why I had to leave. My life’s quite complicated, you see. Not that I’m assuming anything about your intentions, but I didn’t think I should let anything happen because these things, they start with a kiss and then it goes further and then you don’t know where you are anymore and I…

  Daisy stopped, breathless. She didn’t dare look at Alexa. But then Alexa’s hand was on hers and she couldn’t help but meet her eye.

  ‘Why is your life so complicated?’ Alexa asked gently. Daisy hadn’t been expecting that question. Amid the crazy words that had fallen out her mouth, she hadn’t thought Alexa would latch onto that.

  But Alexa was asking. And Daisy found that she was tired of pretending to be someone she wasn’t. She wanted to let Alexa know what her life really was. Who she was.

  ‘I’ve got a son. He’s twelve. His name’s Jake. He likes playing on his Xbox, anything where you murder zombies.’

  ‘Twelve? So you had him when you were…’

  ‘Seventeen, yes. I got pregnant by mistake with my teenage boyfriend before I figured out that I didn’t actually like boys all that much. I’m twenty-nine now, by the way. I think Ryan assumes I’m younger, but I’m not.’ Alexa didn’t immediately say anything to that, so out came more. ‘I also live with my mum. She moved in a few years ago to help with the bills while I went to drama school. So yeah, I’m a single parent knocking thirty, who lives with her mum.’

  Alexa started to laugh. ‘Wow.’

  Daisy began to laugh too. ‘Pretty sexy, eh?’ she said, purely in jest.

  ‘Yes, actually’ Alexa said.

  Daisy stopped laughing.

  ‘I presume you told me all that because you thought I’d be put off. Well, I’m not put off. So there’ Alexa said defiantly. ‘After you’ve finished your overpriced dinner, do you want to come back to my place?

  Daisy knew then that there was no turning back. She couldn’t keep trying to push this thing down. She wanted Alexa. That was no shock. The surprise was that it was going to happen. And it was going to happen tonight.

  ‘I’d have to call my mum. Let her know I’ll be home later than I said’ Daisy sputtered.

  Alexa picked up her wine glass. ‘Then call her’ she said and took a sip.

  Forty minutes later, Daisy was back where she started, in Alexa’s flat. But it looked different now. The crew had put Alexa’s real furniture back. It looked a lot better.

  As they walked down the hallway, Daisy flashed back to earlier that day. What had happened in the scene was about to be replayed. But no one had a camera to hide behind, no director to call cut. It was the real deal.

  ‘I think I’ve got some wine, it won’t be quite as fancy as the stuff we just had but it's wet and it has a fourteen percent proof’ Alexa said.

  Daisy nodded as she walked into the living room. Alexa went into the kitchen and Daisy sat down to wait. It was less than a minute that she sat alone in Alexa’s flat but it was enough to start thinking fearful, anxious thoughts. Maybe this is a mistake. Maybe I should just make an excuse and go.

  And then Alexa walked back in holding two glasses in one hand, a bottle in the other. Daisy’s fear went quiet at the sight of her. It was the way she walked into a room, not just this room, any room. She had a way of doing it that made it seem like the rest of humanity’s way of moving from place to place was still in its infancy. Alexa could have given a Ted Talk on room entry, she was that spectacular at it. Daisy thought she must have been a hell of a model, back in the day.

  She sat down next to Daisy and put the glasses down, filling them. ‘Tell me more about your son. It’s Jake, isn’t it?’

  That had not been the route Daisy had imagined Alexa might go now that she was actively trying to seduce her. She couldn’t seem to predict her behaviour at all. It was fantastic.

  ‘He’s self-conscious about absolutely everything.’

  ‘Right, twelve. I remember that’ Alexa said with a smile. ‘You couldn’t pay me to be that age again.’

  Daisy laughed softly. ‘Sometimes I think it’s even harder for him, being a boy, with all his boy… problems, surrounded by women.’

  ‘I bet it is. I’m sure that lock will go on the door any day now.’

  Daisy grimaced. ‘I’m not ready to think of him like that. I look at him and I still see the toddler that can’t figure out what I’ve done with his nose.’

  Alexa smiled. ‘What about his Dad?’

  ‘Freaked out when I told him, washed his hands of the situation. I thought by now he might have gotten back in touch, but I guess he’s got his own life now. Perhaps a son on the cusp of puberty doesn’t fit in with it.’

  ‘But you didn’t sue him for
child maintenance or anything?’

  ‘It wasn’t worth it at first, he was as broke as me, and then a few years later, I’d figured out how to do without his contribution so I left things as they were. The only thing I ever wanted was for him to be Jake’s dad and if he can’t manage that, I don’t have any other use for him’ Daisy said philosophically. ‘That’s enough about me, anyway. Let’s talk about you.’

  ‘Not a lot to say. I work out with my trainer, I go to work, I sleep. And the next day, I do it all again.’