Bootycall 2 - J. D. Hawkins Page 0,9
on the bathroom floor. Beyond the police cordon, the flashing red and blue lights. The sight spreads around me, devouring me, pressing the pain and the guilt and the shame into me with a million needles. Pulling my guts out, hammering me into the floor.
He’s dead. Gone. Forever.
And it’s all my fault.
Chapter 4
Gemma
“Smells good, Dad,” I say, leaning over and sniffing at the heavy aroma of barbecuing meat.
“Nearly done. Pass me that sauce please, would you?”
I grab the bottle and hand it to him with a smile before turning back to the onions I’m dicing on the chopping board.
“So how’s work?” he says, as he prods and pushes the burgers and wings around. “You still chasing after that crazy Irishman? You can do better.”
“Dad!” I shriek, feeling my cheeks go red.
“What? You told me yourself that he’s nothing but trouble. There’s plenty of fish.”
I look down at the chopping board and let a few moments pass before raising my head with a smile.
“Actually, he’s…he’s pretty cool.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah,” I say, smiling more at the thought than at my father. “We talked things over and now it’s going pretty well. He’s been behaving perfectly, and honestly…he’s an amazing actor. I mean, really good. People were crying on set today, over his scene. He’s just…so intense. Kind of a crazy genius or something. I’ve never really met anybody like him.”
He pauses a little before answering, and I wonder if he picked up on my unintentionally enthusiastic tone, my gushy babbling.
“So you think this movie’s going to be a hit?”
I nod as I toss some of the onions in a bowl and hand them to him.
“Absolutely.”
“Things are looking up then. I’m glad for you, Gemma. I want you to love your work. And it seems like you haven’t loved it in a while, you know?”
“I know.” He’s right. This is the first project I’ve been excited about in a long time. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Now all you need is to get out there and find yourself a nice young man to share all your abundant joy with,” he says, hiding his smile with a long sip of beer.
“Haha. How about I get out there and find you a nice old lady instead?”
He chuckles softly, and throws the onions onto the grill.
His laugh seems to hang in the air, echoing around in our unspoken thoughts, until the sound of the doorbell breaks our individual reflections.
“I’ll get it,” he says, wiping his hands on his barbecue-spattered jeans.
“No,” I say, quickly putting the knife down. “You keep your eye on those sausages.”
I step past him with a smile and a pat on the shoulder, then make my way towards the door.
My smile drops when I see who’s waiting behind the door, then returns again with more than a little surprise.
“Dylan! What are you doing here?”
It’s been less than a few hours since I saw him at work this morning, but in even that short time I’ve forgotten how damned sexy he is. Maybe it’s seeing him here, on my father’s doorstep, rather than in the weird unreality of the set. His chiseled jawline and animalistic grace stands out enough there; here, in the sleepy suburb that my father lives in, he looks like a space alien from a porn planet. All hard, masculine edges and knowing, penetrating eyes; like every sexual fantasy I’ve ever had distilled into bitable, lickable, suckable form.
“Hey,” he says, and I close my eyes for just a second, in order to savor his accent, before realizing just how crazy I’m being. “You’re still my babysitter, right?”
I shake off the weird question. “Um…yes?”
“I’ve know we both got the afternoon off, but I was pretty bored. I figured part of a babysitter’s duty is to keep things entertaining.”
“So you just decided to visit me while I was having dinner at my father’s house?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
I shoot a suspicious glare at him.
“This is the one time during the shoot where we don’t have to be in each other’s pockets – and you decided to visit me? How did you find out where my dad lives? And how did you know I would be here?”
Dylan smiles.
“I followed you.”
My jaw drops. Dylan chuckles.
“Come on! You just love thinking the worst about me, don’t you? But actually,” he says, fishing in his pockets, “you left your parking pass on set, so I thought I’d drop it off. The production office told me where you live, but I didn’t know this was your dad’s place.”
I take the card from him and find