Just as the bright promise of Southern California sunshine had lured Louis from London's drizzle, Fitz had lured him from a junior executive position in an accounting firm with promises of Hollywood adventures. He'd come full circle, back to a world of columns and ledgers, but he didn't mind- he'd always enjoyed arranging figures in orderly rows. And the fact that those figures represented movie production details had a certain appeal of its own.
"I suppose I should be grateful you're learning to manage your time more efficiently."
"I have to, now that you're not doing it for me."
"I offered to find a replacement, didn't I?" Louis nudged aside a discarded sock.
"what?"
"A replacement."
"For you?" Fitz smiled over the top of the shower door and scrubbed shampoo into wet blond hair.
"If you're going to quit again. can you wait until I'm dry?"
"Never mind." Attempting a conversation with someone whose head was currently stuck beneath a water spigot was a pointless exercise.
A know sounded at the outer office door moments before a pretty young wardrobe assistant let herself into the reception area. "Hey. Louis."
"Good evening, Heather. I assume you're here to collect Mr. Johnson's things." He gathered a pile of black and white formal wear and deposited it in outstretched arms. "I believe this is all of it."
"'All if it."' She smiled as she repeated her words.
"I just love that English accent."
She stood in place near the bathroom door. methodically checking each article. Behind them, the sound of water were splattering against the shower tile explained he obvious attempt to delay her departure.
Most women would engage in similar ploys to catch a glimpse of one of people's sexiest men alive wearing little more than those famous dimples.
Louis moves back to his desk and frowned at the contract lying in an open folder.
"Louis?" asked Heather.
"Hmm?" He glanced over his shoulder. distracted.
"Is something missing?"
"No, nothing." She dropped the clothes beside Fitz's duffel and stepped closer. "I was just wondering...are you doing anything tomorrow night?"
Tomorrow night. Friday. Louis rearranged the fit of his glasses over his nose, reexaming his conclusions and readjusting his expectations. Not Fitz, then. And Heather...
she'd always seemed to be well organized and levelheaded. Very neatly serene and Louis considered serenity an extremely desirable trait in any woman. He'd also found her physically attractive, in the general and abstract manner he regarded casual female acquaintances who weren't appallingly otherwise. Now he turned 4th o take a closer look.
"Louis," Fitz called from the next room.
"Tomorrow night?" asked Louis.
The shower door clicked open. "Are you still there?" asked Fitz.
"Yes," said Heather. Her smile warmed, hinting at a number of possibilities for an extremely pleasant evening.
The phone on the desk trilled.
"Excuse me," said Louis as Fitz stalked into the room with a long white towel wrapped around his waist. He reached behind him and grabbed the phone. "Louis Elliott speaking."
"Tell Johnson he's a dead man," shouted Joan Greenberg in Louis's ear. Greenberg, Fitz's agent and partner in his film production company, was never serene. "Got that, Elliott? A dead man."
"You can tell him yourself," said Louis, pulling the phone a few inches from his head to prevent damage to his hearing. "He's standing right here, dripping on my carpet."
Fitz snatched his duffel from the sofa and headed back to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.
Heather's smile widened.
"I'm not going to waste my breath," said Greenberg. "I'm through talking to that lying piece of----"
"Joan." Louis pulled off his glasses and polished them with the clean cloth he kept for that purpose in his top desk drawer. "Did you. by any chance, have another purpose in mind for this call?"
"Don't give me any of that snotty Brit attitude," said Greenberg before launching into one of his trademark obscenity laden tantrums.
Louis resettled his glasses and Angled his hip against the desk. He set the receiver down beside him, where he could monitor Greenberg's spewing from a more comfortable distance. "Tomorrow night?"he asked again.
"Yeah." Heather leaned towards him and teased a bright red nail along the edge of his shirt front. "You seem like busy guy. The kind of guy who might appreciate a quiet, home-cooked meal."
"Elliott? Elliott!" screamed a faintly static Greenberg.
"Excuse me, Heather." Louis picked up the phone "Yes?"
"I want Nora's signature on that contract, and I want it now. Right now. Got that?" Greenberg voice quivered with more venom than usual. "You tell Fitz he'd better come through on this, or I'm out. I meant this time."
Louis seized Heather's hand as it crept towards his collar and brought her fingertips to his lips. Her fingers were smooth and smelled agreeably of rose-scented soap. "You have every right to be angry, Joan," he said in his soothing, reasonable voice. "This delay has been intolerable."
Greenberg hesitated as though he hadn't expected agreement on the matter. "You're damn right it has."
"I'll see to it myself that Fitz understands the level of your frustration." He curled Heather's fingers in his and tipped up her palm to brush his mouth over her warm, delicate wrist.
"You do that." Joan huffed and puffed some more. and then there was a moment of ominous silence.
"What do you mean, 'the level of my frustration'? Is that some kind of shrink b.s.? You trying to handle me, Elliott?"
"Is it working?"
Greenberg snorted a humorless laugh. "You couldn't handle a corpse of Valium."
"I wonder, Joan, why would a corpse need valium" Louis knew if he met the agents bluster with calm logic, he'd soon tire of the one-sided row.
Fitz cracked open the bathroom door and peeked through the slit. "Is that Greenberg?"
Louis offered him the phone, and the door snapped shut.
"What was that?" asked Greenberg.
"And why would I want to handle a corpse?" asked Louis.