finds her and carries her off to his dungeon.” Running her fingers through his hair, she leaned down to kiss him. “In my first scene, I get hit by a bus! Isn’t that tremendous? You think it’s an accident, but who’s driving the bus, in disguise?”
“The Haunted Warlord!”
“Yes! Shall I call them back and tell them I’ll do it?”
“Like it’s even a question.”
Mia managed to get a signal on the beach. He lay in her lap, gazing up at her as she spoke to Marty Springer, her agent. When she got off the phone, she was even more excited. She eased out from under him and jumped to her feet. “Apparently, rehearsals are next week and shooting begins the week after, can you believe it? Life is really looking up.”
Giving him her hand, she pulled him into the water.
The early evening was Julian’s favorite time on the beach. The crowds thinned out, the high tide increased the size and frequency of the waves, and the entire half-moon coast from Diamond Head to Kahanamoku shimmered and dazzled like an animated postcard. They dived in, cooled off, slicked back their hair and bobbed in the waves.
“Here’s another kicker,” she said. “Marty said they need an extra to sit and watch me in the first scene as I get whacked, and he suggested you.”
“What? No, not me. I’m not an extra.”
Mia rubbed his hard shoulders with her soft hands. “You’re so extra.” She kissed his chest. “What’s the big deal? You sit at a table like a passer-by, I walk and then BAM! A bus comes out of nowhere, and—”
“No, I get what I’m supposed to do.”
“Come on. I’ll introduce you to Florence, the casting director. You’ll be up and running in no time. And you’ll get to go to wardrobe and pick out your costume. You know how much you like cosplay.” Grinning, she splashed him.
He splashed her back. “A costume for sitting at a table? Isn’t that called wearing clothes?”
“Hardy-har-har. And you’ll get paid. $150 big ones.”
“Well, they named my price.”
She jumped him in the water, trying to knock him under. It was her favorite game, next to him tackling her and actually knocking her under. She flung herself on him, wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, rubbed her cheek against his stubble, kissed his face with her wet lips. In Hawaii, Julian shaved only before dressing for dinner. “Come on, say yes.” She rocked back and forth, trying to unbalance him. “Say yes so they can say of us, look at those two. They’re unstoppable. Everything they do, they do together.”
“How about if we find out what we can actually do by living together,” he said, “and we’ll see about the rest.” Their love affair had been so whirlwind that her stuff was still at her apartment on Lyman. Since they met, they’d been a week apart, a week at the Marmont, a week shuffling from his to hers, a week in Vegas, now a week here. Five weeks and not even a drawer for each other in his place or hers.
“Can you believe we’re married, Jules?” she said. “Sometimes I can’t even.”
“Me neither. But I carried you over the threshold of our Vegas suite, so I know it must be real.”
“Go us, right?”
“Go us,” said Julian.
48
Big Ben
BACK IN L.A., ASHTON THOUGHT IT WAS THE GREATEST THING he’d ever heard, Julian being an extra in a horror movie. Though he wanted to know why Julian couldn’t audition for the part of the haunted warlord.
“Because I already have a day job.”
“Dayjob shmayjob,” said Ashton. “On the one hand Mr. Know-it-All, on the other—HAUNTED WARLORD. Like it’s even a choice, Jules, you lucky bastard.”
While Julian and Mia were in Hawaii, Ashton had ended things with Riley. Julian had a commiserating lunch with her at the Whole Foods café in Beverly Hills after Mia started rehearsals. They chatted about the wedding, the honeymoon, the Haunted Warlord. Toward the end, Riley finally brought up Ashton. “Did you know anything about it?” she asked. She was composed if shell-shocked. “Did you have anything to do with it?”
“Why would I?”
“Because this has you written all over it. First you and Gwen break up, not five minutes later you’re marrying some chick you barely know, and five minutes after that, Ashton is sayonara. It’s not his MO. He is not the type to make a decision like that, he is such a go with the flow guy. That’s one of the things