Just Not Mine (22 page)

“
Right,” Hugh said. “Your costar. Will. He going to do the job for you?”

“Oh, ye
h,” she said. “I wondered, because non-actors are sometimes a little … stiff, but he’s clearly got what it takes to carry the day. He’ll be fine. You all will.”

“Huh,” he said. “He’s looking forward to it, I’ll tell you that. Maybe a bit too much.”

She glanced at him. Was he jealous? That was ridiculous, but … good to know. “You could beat him into submission, take his place,” she offered. “If you’re worried about who I’ll be kissing.”

She got a glance across the car for her pains
before he took the turn onto Vauxhall Road. “Maybe I should.”

“Are you going to have to kiss
somebody, Josie?” Charlie asked, because as always, he’d been paying attention. “On TV?”

“She’s
always
kissing somebody,” Amelia informed him. “All the time. All different guys.”

“You are
?” Charlie sounded doubtful. “Then you should kiss Hugh instead, I think, because you know him better. That would be more comfortable.”

Hugh ignored the suggestion.
“How do you know who Josie’s kissing?” he asked, looking back in the mirror at Amelia.

“Duh,”
she sighed. “Holly?”

“Don’t say ‘Duh,
’” he said, his tone a little sharp. “It’s rude. And if Josie kisses people, it’s because it’s her job. They aren’t ‘guys,’ they’re other actors. It’s not real.”

“Thanks for that,”
Josie told him quietly. “And good job on the other, too.”

He
turned into their street, pulled into the driveway, and she got out, pulled her bag along with her. “Thanks for the day,” she told him again.

“
Is the day over?” He sounded surprised. “Thought I was helping you with your garden. Or were you planning to wait?”

“No, I’m planning to do it. I’m called every day this week, and I won’t get a chance otherwise. But you don’t really have to help. It won’t take that long.”

“Of course I do,” he said. “I promised you I would. Besides, we’ve got Blues pride on the line here. If the boys and I are going to appear on the show with you, we need to make sure you’re rested, looking as beautiful as always. We wouldn’t want people to say that we’d clearly put you off.”

“That’s what makeup’s for,” she said with a laugh. “To make me beautiful when I’m not.”

“You don’t need makeup, Josie,” Charlie said. “You’re always pretty.”

“
That’s about it,” Hugh said. “I stand corrected. But I’ll come help you all the same.”

“I will too,” Charlie said.

“Nah,” Hugh told him. “You and Amelia go have a shower and a rest. I can help Josie.”

He scattered the soil from the heavy bags over the ground she’d prepared, worked with her to rake it in. She tried to think of something to say, but everything seemed too weighted, and she was tired, didn’t feel up to being chipper. No matter what she told herself, being around babies and happy families still took something out of her. So she was quiet, and so was he.

“How’s it gone, with the ad campaign and all?” he finally asked
once they were putting her ferns into the soil. “Saw they took that billboard down.”

It had been declared a nuisance
during the previous week and removed. To full media coverage, of course, the TV cameras lingering one last time on her image as it was stripped away, the cars once again slowing on the motorway to allow the public to watch.

“Yeh,” she said.

“Not quite the result they were looking for, maybe, the company,” he offered.

“Nah. They’re quite happy, even more publicity than they bargained for. Gone over like that in the UK and Aussie too, they said.”

“More work for you, then, maybe.”

“If I want it.”

He was silent a moment more, and she wondered if she should try to explain, but he spoke first. “Not always easy to be out there like that. Or for the people who love you to see you like that, I’m guessing.”

“It’s been an issue, yeh. You judging?” She rocked back on her heels to look at him. “Because I seem to recall a certain advert with you boys in your undies.
Using beautiful bodies to sell products isn’t exactly new, not on either side of the gender aisle.”

“
Sorry,” he said, looking up. “Touched a nerve, I guess. No, I’m not judging. I’d be the last, wouldn’t I? That’s why they wanted us to turn up in our uniforms to do your show, after all. I’m not fooling myself that the ladies will be hoping to see a rugby demonstration, They’re hoping to see Koti take his jersey off.”

“And maybe you too,” she said,
relaxing a little.

“Nah,” he said. “I’ve actually got hair on my chest. Nobody wants to look at that.”

“I looked today,” she said, and neither of them was planting now. “And it’s what I thought the first time I saw you, actually. That I would’ve bet you’d never waxed in your life.”

“You’d have won that bet
, too. Always been horrified at the thought, tell you the truth. Reka’s right, men are babies. Should I, though? Wax the chest, shave the beard? Too hairy for you?”

“No. I told you.” She was back to planting now. “Manly. I think mos
t women would think so.”

“
I don’t care about most women,” he said. “I care about you.”

She felt the shock of it hit
her chest, take her breath, looked up again to find his gaze steady on her, and she stood and gathered up the rubbish, buying herself some time.

“Since you’re here,” she said,
taking the coward’s way out, “want to give me a hand with the vegies? I bought a few more things to put in, since we got a bit enthusiastic with the digging last month, working through my issues.”

“Just show me what
to do,” he said.

She put him on to pla
nting beans while she worked on the kale, and, finally, she spoke, because he deserved more from her than this. “It’s been nearly a month, and that’s a while,” she said. “But it takes a while, doesn’t it.”

“
It does. Getting over a breakup,” he said, understanding her perfectly, she could tell, and she could feel the caution in him.

“
But then,” she said, tipping the tiny seedlings with a careful hand and placing them gently into the holes she’d dug with her trowel, “It’s been nearly three months since Derek and I were together. The one visit I did pay him … all it really did was drive the point home. I see that now, that he’d gone someplace else, in all senses of the word. I spent a lot of time—too much time—wondering if he was with somebody else, too, and then I realized it didn’t matter.”

“So no
t too many tears shed?” he asked, placing the long wooden stakes next to the little plants, using the handle of his own trowel to drive them into the earth.

“Oh, there may have
been one or two,” she admitted. “Angry at him, embarrassed, sorry for myself, facing up to having to start over. All that. May have been more than one or two for a while there. No telling what a person will do in the dead of night.”

“No
thing you let anybody see,” he said. “Never let them see you sweat, eh.”

“I’m guessing you may
know a thing or two about that,” she said without looking at him, patting the earth around her seedlings with gentle fingers.

“Well, sweat, they see
enough of that,” he said. “I guess I should say, never let them see you hurt. And yeh, I do know about that one.”

“And yet,” she
said, her hands still busy, “when I think of the people I know with the most mana, like my Kuia—my grandmother, that is—and my dad. When I think about them, I realize it’s not that they never hurt, or even that they never show it. I think, you know, the strength isn’t in never getting knocked down. It’s in getting up again afterwards.”

He’d finished his own plant
ing, was on his heels, watching her. “And that’s true too,” he said.

“Seeing as you
do it all game long,” she said, “I guess that’s not so very profound after all.”

“No
. It is, because you’re right, that’s the hard bit. When you’ve had a knock or two already, and you’re hurting. When you can’t win, and you know it. When you’re playing for nothing but pride, nothing but that you can’t bear to give up. That’s when it matters most that you get up again. Anyone can be strong when they’re winning, when they’ve got that rush. But being strong when you’re losing, when you’ve lost … that’s the test.”

She looked into his dark eyes, and thought that, yes, he probably knew a thing or two about loss. It w
as easy to forget that when Amelia and Charlie had lost their parents, Hugh had lost his father, and not only that, had lost the life he’d expected to have as surely as she had lost her own. If he seemed to have been having some difficulty adjusting to the change, that was hardly surprising.

“And the relevant point here,
as far as I’m concerned,” he said, the solemn mood gone, replaced by a hint of a smile, “is that you aren’t crying any more over that spilt milk.”

“No,” she said. “I’m not.”

“What good news.” The smile was there for real now, and she smiled back, crouching in the dirt across from him.

She caught
the movement out of the corner of her eye, turned to see Amelia approaching across the grass, and Hugh saw her too.

“It’s dinner time,” Amelia announced, her tone, as usual,
a little accusing.

“Oh. Right. Why don’t you and Charlie get it started, then?” he asked. “Do the salad, at least, turn on the barbecue for me. I’ll come over and do the steaks in a minute.” He looked at Josie. “We’ve got menus on the fridge now. Getting more efficient every day.”

“You are coming, though,” Amelia said.

“Be right there,” he promised. “Soon as I help Josie tidy up.”

Amelia took herself off with a final backward glance, and Josie began gathering and stacking plastic containers as Hugh picked up the tools, scraped the dirt off and bore them off to the shed for her.

“Thanks for the hand
,” she said when they’d dumped the rubbish, were standing at the back gate. “I’ll run a bit of water over that, and I’m all good. And thanks for taking me along today.”

“
Glad to do it,” he said. “On both counts. And, just for the record? I’m looking forward to Wednesday.”

He put a hand on her shoulder, bent down and kissed her cheek, the first time he’d touched her since the breakup.
His beard scratched a bit against her skin, felt so male, and she leant into him and enjoyed it for the split second it lasted.

He dropped his hand, smiled down at her. “
I reckon it’s not such a bad thing I’ll be there, either.”

“No worries,” she
said, reading his thoughts without much difficulty. “Will may enjoy himself, I can’t help that, but I know how to keep it professional. I can keep my distance when I want to, even if I’m not keeping my distance at all.”

“And you’ll be wanting to.”

“Yeh. I will. And if I can’t manage it after all, well, I
will
have you there, won’t I?”

“You will,” he promised
. “See you then.”

He let himself out the gate, and she went to the standpipe and unwound the hose from its reel, began to
spray her newly planted vegies, and let herself look forward to it too.

To
Wednesday.

Hugh turned up at the
Courtney Place
studios in Henderson three days later feeling a good deal more excited by the assignment than he had been when he’d received it.

He had his lines memorized. Not much to learn, after all
, no more than Koti had. Mostly, he was required, in his one brief scene, to stand around in his uniform looking seriously concerned about what seemed to him like a run-of-the-mill shoulder injury. And to look a bit gobsmacked by Josie, which wouldn’t require any acting at all.

He saw Koti and Will getting out of Koti’s car, went over to join them, and they walked in together.
A cheerful young assistant with a swinging blonde ponytail was waiting in the reception area to greet them. She led them down a broad passage and into a big room featuring swivel chairs and one long wall of mirror like a hair salon, along with a table and chairs where a few people were sitting playing cards—people Hugh recognized as cast members, incongruous in casual clothes combined with heavy TV makeup. They looked up from their game, gave a wave to the three of them, standing in their Blues warmups over the uniforms that still seemed stupid to Hugh.

And then he
forgot about the other cast members, because Josie had come into the room, and she was dressed in a flouncy little yellow skirt and scoop-necked white T-shirt that had Will paying attention.

“You’re already made up,” Hugh said unnecessarily
after she’d greeted each of them with a firmly offered handshake clearly meant to show that whatever happened here today, it wasn’t to be construed as real.

“Been working all day,” she
said.

“When do you start?” Will asked her. “I heard acting was mostly standing around, a few minutes in front of the cameras.”

“Not soaps,” she told him. “We film fast, and we start early. I report to my dressing room at seven, finish around six most days that I’m called, and in bed by nine. It’s a glamorous life, and that’s the truth.”

“Sounds about like being a footy player,” Will said.

“Except with less beer,” Hugh said.

“Oh,”
she said, smiling at him, “I haven’t noticed so very much beer.”

“On my best behavior for you,
aren’t I,” he said, smiling back.

One of the makeup artists caught the assistant’s eye,
the blonde—Erica—stepped forward, and Josie looked away from Hugh and back at Will.

Erica
told Will, “As you’ve got the biggest part, we want to get you started straight away.”

“Gregor,” the makeup artist said, shaking Will’s hand and gesturing him toward a chair
in front of the mirror. “You’ve got your shirt off for this, right?”

“That’s what they tell me,” Will said cheerfully.

“Well,” Gregor said, “we won’t need to spray you down, because you’re a good color already. But you,” he told Hugh, “we’ll do you.”

“Me?” H
ugh asked, taken aback. “What do you mean? I’m not going to have my shirt off.”

“No, but the camera will spend some good time on all of you in
your short shorts,” Gregor said. “And these two are perfect as they are, but you need a bit of color on your legs. We’ll do your arms as well, get the girls excited.” He nodded at a clearly subordinate associate, and she held up a spray can, pointed Hugh over to a separate area where a tarp was laid out on the floor ready for him.

“
Got to get you up to standard, mate,” Koti said, “if you’re not going to break the camera.” He and Will laughed, and Hugh let the girl lead him off, started stripping off the warmups.

“All the way to the undies, please
. Don’t want any pasty white thigh showing,” she said briskly, and he rolled his eyes and complied, grateful that he’d worn the black ones and wasn’t going to disgrace himself.

She
had him with his arms out by his sides, turning in a circle as she chatted and sprayed like he was a horse she was getting ready for the show ring, and he could see the others laughing at him still. And he could see that Josie wasn’t watching him, undies or no.

He heard
her saying to Will, “Once you get that done, we’ll run through our lines a few times, then the director will block it out. You’ll be in bed, just have to turn your head and so forth, maybe do a bit of grabbing with the good arm.”

“We aim t
o satisfy,” Will said.

“See you back there, then,” she said, “and we’ll give it a go.”

She turned to leave, and Hugh saw Will watching in the mirror as she twitched off in that little skirt. And despite her words, despite his own, he burned.

It was boring, after that, until it wasn’t. Hugh’s and Koti’s brief scene had been filmed, Koti, of course, lighting up the screen with his hundred-kilowatt smile, and Hugh managing his own four short lines without any difficulty at all, not that anyone would be looking at him. And then more waiting around until, at last, he and Koti were standing and watching the filming of Will and Josie’s scene from behind the cameras.

Will was in a hospital bed
cranked up high, his shoulder in a sling, a single white bandage stretched across his broad brown chest. Just putting the bandage on had taken forever, because they’d wanted to make sure they had obscured as little as possible of the tattoo decorating his left arm and shoulder.

“That’s money in the bank,” the director,
Mike, had said with satisfaction. But at last, the thing was on, Will and Josie had rehearsed the scene what seemed to Hugh like an unnecessary number of times, and they were filming.

Josie
came into the room, jerked her head at the door, and the nurse, the blonde Hugh now knew was, in real life, named Valerie, and very pretty indeed—opened her mouth, closed it again, lifted her chin and stalked out of the room, rebellion written in every line of her tidy little figure. Josie—Dr. Parker—smiled with satisfaction, walked to the foot of Will’s bed with the grace of a panther, picked up his chart in a manicured hand, and came around to his bedside, flipping pages.

She sat on the chair beside his bed
, opposite the bandaged shoulder and IV bottle, crossed one elegant leg in its sheer black stocking over the other, the tight red dress beneath the open white lab coat riding up a truly incredible distance at the motion, and Will’s eyes followed it, as they were meant to do. Not much acting at all required there, because she was swinging that leg a bit now, one black stiletto was dangling, somehow, off her toe, and she was pursing her red-painted lips and sucking on the end of a pen in a performance that would have had Hugh’s blood pressure spiking to dangerous levels if she’d ever come near him in a vulnerable state.

“How are you feeling this
morning, Will?” she asked him after she’d finished her little oral demonstration.

“
Not too bad,” he said, attempting to shove himself up in the bed a bit more and stifling the subsequent wince in manly fashion.

“Oh, no,” she said, “we don’t want you doing that.” She leant across him, reached for the remote that operated the bed, pressed the button, and his upper half rose a few centimeters, even closer to the breasts that she’d displayed so tantalizingly close to his face.

She settled herself back in her chair again, taking her time. “Anything you want to ask me?” she purred. “Any questions I can … help you with?”

“What time do you get off work?” he asked with a laugh.

“Now,” she said, that crossed leg swinging again, that shoe dangling, “that kind of talk will get you put in the naughty corner, and you don’t want that. We surgeons have special ways of dealing with naughty patients.”

She picked up his good hand, held it in one of her own, wrapped her fingers around his wrist. “Your pulse is racing,” she told him. “
Jeopardizing your recovery, undoing all my brilliant work. You’re getting me angry, and you don’t want me angry.”

She leant over him again, propped herself on one elegant hand, her chest very nearly
touching his own. And then she brushed her parted lips over his ear, one long, slow journey up, then down again, before murmuring, “You don’t want to know what might happen then. You wouldn’t want to hear about the kinds of things I can do to very … bad … boys.”

His hand came up,
dropped to the sheet again, his face showed equal parts arousal and confusion, and again, Hugh didn’t think he was doing as much acting as he might have been.

And then the door opened
and the nurse was back, and Josie was standing, imperious and forbidding, handing the chart to her like a mistress tossing her coat to a servant. She offered Will one more cool, meaningful smile, slunk her way to the door with that predatory glide, and he watched her go.

“All right?” the nurse asked him, all concern, and he smiled at her, looking a bit shaky.

“Yeh,” he said. “Phew. Is she always like that?”

“Oh,” she said, her lip curling, “Our Dr. Eva is one of a kind.”

And that was it. Done.

Erica took them all back to get their makeup off, and Hugh could sense the relief in all of them, even though their gladness at being finished couldn’t hold a candle to his own.

“Never had a surgeon do that to me,” Koti mused as
a wardrobe mistress unwrapped Will’s bandaging, while the makeup artist—Gregor—wiped Hugh’s face down. “I’d remember that, anesthesia or no. Now I don’t think it was enough that I wasn’t the patient. I’m thinking having Kate watch this show at all is going to put ideas into her head.”

“And that would be,” Hugh pointed out, “why they call it entertainment.”

“Yeh,” Will said. “Entertained me, all right. The rehearsal was good enough, but she took it up a notch there. Had me sweating. This girl’s single, right?” he demanded of Hugh. “And your neighbor? And somehow available all the same, because you’ve failed one too many concussion tests?”

“No,” Hugh
found himself saying. “Not.”

“Not?” Will asked, brows raised. “Not, you hope? Or not, she
actually isn’t?”

“
Not,” Hugh said. “Full stop. Find somebody else.” He climbed out of the chair to face Will, and he wasn’t joking, and Koti studied the two of them for a moment, then jerked his head at Will.

“Get the makeup off,
cuz,” he told him.

Will gave Hugh one last look. “Not,” he sighed, and did as Koti had asked. “Got it.
”