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“How did you forget about the referendum?” Callum asked Jamie, clearly aghast. The two of them had finished a scene and were waiting while the crew set up the next shot.
Jamie was torn between trying not to die of embarrassment and wondering how his twenty-four-year-old life had come to this. He was sitting on the set of a film — in which he was starring — and next to him was movie star and heartthrob-to-middle-aged-women-everywhere, Callum Griffith-Davies. Their seats were tucked to one side of the set, out of the way of the bustling technicians and production assistants who scurried about doing the heavy lifting of making movie magic.
Embarrassment won out. Jamie moaned and sank his fingers into the hair his agent liked to call auburn but in reality was simply a plain brown.
“I’ve been kind of busy,” he said with a little tug of frustration. There was never enough privacy on film sets, but Jamie could not contain his emotions. Not about the vote, not about his own sense of haplessness, and, possibly, not even about his fairly awkward crush on Callum.
Jamie was two years out of drama school and starring in his first feature film. His co-stars were actors so famous he hadn't been sure they were real people until he’d met them. Callum, who was the most famous of the lot, was calm, well put-together, and aggressively genial in addition to being unfairly attractive. The look Callum was giving Jamie suggested he would never forget about something as important as the Irish marriage referendum.
“Don’t yell at me, okay? My mum already took care of that.” Jamie meant it as a joke but hunched his shoulders in shame nonetheless.
“Your mother yelled at you?” Callum stretched his arm across the back of Jamie’s chair. A casual gesture, surely, and one of fondness between work colleagues who liked each other, but it was the sort of thing he did constantly. Jamie felt off balance in the face of it. Having a crush from afar was one thing. Having a crush on someone who touched with easy fondness was utter misery.
Jamie nodded morosely. “She called and asked when I was coming home. Said that if she’s going to be perfectly okay with her equal opportunity son that she loses ridiculous amounts of sleep over, I am going to do my civic duty.”
“Can’t you catch a flight up Thursday night?”
“Nope. I’m working that day like everyone else here.” Jamie gestured at the dozens of crew members. “There’s no way I’m going be able to get home. What if it loses by just one vote?”
“It’s supposed to pass, you know. Comfortably.” Callum was relaxed, nearly disinterested, which only piqued Jamie’s interest further. He could make out the faintest hint of gray coming in at the roots of Callum’s otherwise light brown hair and loved that proof that the older man was human after all. Not only did he age like anyone else, he was vain enough to hide the fact.
Callum’s mobile rang in his shirt pocket, and he fumbled to silence it. Nearby, a tech flicked a key light on. Jamie watched as the illumination caught Callum’s profile and brought out the rich hazel color of his eyes. He really was magnificent, leonine almost. He’d fascinated Jamie from their first meeting. Jamie had been hard pressed to look away since.
Aware that he’d gone too long without saying anything, Jamie struggled to recapture the thread of their conversation. “If everyone who isn’t awful turns up to vote,” he said. “But if you’re not awful and you’ve any sense, you’ve left Ireland, and you’re not going back. I mean, I’ve got mates flying back in from Canada, and I can’t manage it from England. I have bollocksed this up. Royally and in a fashion unbecoming to my people.”
“How long are the polls open?” Callum asked, ignoring the fact that Jamie was nearly babbling.
Jamie shrugged. “’Til ten?”
“When do they open?”
“Not sure. Seven, I think. Why?”
Callum looked like he was considering something. His mobile rang again, and yet again he silenced it. He fixed Jamie with a keen eye.
“Who else on the crew is Irish, needs to get back, and hasn’t figured it out yet?”
“It’s not like we have a club,” Jamie said. “But, okay.” He ticked names off on his fingers. “Kate, from crafty. Mike, he’s a P.A. And Angela, I think, but she’s got a plan. I mean there are others, too, but seriously, it’s not like I have a list. I’d have to ask around.”
“Can you get them all together?”
“It’d take a while, but could do.”
Jamie had no idea what Callum was up to. He was about to ask when the man’s mobile rang a third time. Callum dug it out of his pocket, glanced at the screen, and then turned to look apologetically at him.
“Do you mind if I take this? Apparently, my wife is trying very hard to get in touch with me.”
Jamie waved him off. “Yeah, it’s fine.” On this set Callum was always the most important person in the room. If his wife was calling, he hardly needed Jamie’s permission to cut short their conversation.
While Callum took the call in a somewhat private corner of the set, Jamie made himself look at the floor, the cameras, the ceiling — anything other than the indecent lines of Callum’s shoulders. Staring at him was absolutely, positively not appropriate. Callum was his coworker. His A-list, decent, kind, and happily married coworker.
Jamie had never met Callum’s wife, Nerea, but he’d seen pictures of her here and there in the media. She was Spanish and as beautiful and as uninterested in the camera as Jamie expected of celebrity wives. She and Callum had three daughters, all of whom were older than Jamie. Not that Jamie spent excessive amounts of time looking up the details of Callum’s personal life on the internet. Really, he didn’t. Well, not anymore. But a year ago Jamie had just been a fan, and Callum had been one of those actors whose charming family holiday photos tended to turn up in Hello magazine.
Jamie pulled out his own mobile to text his mum so he wouldn’t be tempted to eavesdrop. Although any attempt to do so was rendered difficult by Callum conducting his side of the conversation entirely in Spanish. And wasn’t that completely, unfairly hot? Some days Jamie felt like he could barely manage English. The idea of being fluent in a second language was beyond him.
Hey. Maybe you won’t have to disown me. I might have a plan. He typed slowly and with great concentration. It was hard to focus. Aside from the general bustle of set, Callum seemed very excited about something.
Eventually Callum finished his call and returned. He beamed at Jamie, at the passing crew members, at the world at large, and said, “My daughter’s having a baby.”
“Oh my God!” Jamie was delighted for him. “Congratulations! How’s she doing?”
“She’s well,” Callum said, bouncing on his toes. Even with his broad six-foot-two frame he looked appealingly boyish.
“Is she telling people yet?” Jamie asked. “I mean, beside you and her mum and your random nosy co-stars?”
“Yes.” Callum frowned slightly in puzzlement. “Why?”
“So I can tell people.”
“Why would you want to do that?” Callum seemed mystified.
“Because a nice thing happened at work today? That has nothing to do with my inability to get myself home on my own?” Jamie grinned. “Also, you totally just lost your sex symbol status...granddad.”
Callum stared at him. For a moment, Jamie was terrified he had overstepped, but then the other man threw back his head and roared with laughter.