“Is that his name? Talk about on the nose. You know, if you flip the script this is a story about a broken system of law enforcement that abandons an officer disabled in the line of duty. Maybe he wanted to draw attention to the crumbling infrastructure of the LAPD.”
“Josh. Howard murders a bunch of people.”
“Yeah. That’s not cool.”
She tossed a pillow at him. “Pay attention.”
The rest of the movie passed in companionable silence. At the climax, Clara tried to wipe her leaking eyes without drawing attention to herself.
“Are you crying at Speed?” Josh sounded both amazed and appalled.
“Keanu is so sweet here.” Clara hiccuped. “He knows they might die and he sits on the floor with Sandra Bullock and holds her. He doesn’t try to grab her boob or kiss her. He wraps her in his arms, providing a shallow sense of safety. Isn’t that what all of us want deep down? Someone to hold us at the end of the line?”
“Are we watching the same movie here? I feel like you’re getting a much deeper read from Keanu’s potato face than I am.”
“Potato . . . face?”
Josh shrugged. “My mom used to say Keanu’s face looks as blank as a peeled potato.”
Clara grinned into her palm.
“Besides,” Josh said. “This isn’t even the end. What about happily ever after?”
“What about it?” Clara turned off the TV as the end credits began.
“Well, they don’t last. Jack and Annie.”
“Sure, they do.” She straightened the pillows on the couch.
“They don’t. There’s a sequel and Keanu’s not even in it. Sandra Bullock gets with some other cop.”
Walking into the bathroom to brush her teeth, Clara left the door open so she could respond. “I don’t acknowledge that.”
Josh followed her, accepting when she offered him the toothpaste and preparing his own brush. “What do you mean? The sequel exists. It’s not open to debate.”
Clara moved her toothbrush to rest inside her cheek. “If I never watch it, then it never happened.”
“Is that right?”
She nodded around her busy bristles.
“You invent an alternate reality. Figures,” Josh mumbled around his own minty mouthful.
After a full two minutes, Clara rinsed her brush. “Art belongs to the audience, not the artist. I would think you’d know that by now.”
Josh shook his head. “The more I learn about you the less I understand.”
“I’ve always wanted to be an enigma.” Clara smiled over her shoulder as she exited the bathroom.
chapter fourteen
JOSH HAD TO decide whether he wanted to spend the rest of his life resenting people like Clara for their money and their brains and their success, or if he wanted to remove his career from cruise control. A call from Bennie a few days later dialed up the deadline on his decision. Black Hat wasn’t taking no for an answer.
The big dogs had invited him to visit their headquarters to discuss his contract demands in person. They didn’t want to wait almost another year for more Josh Darling content. He decided to gamble. What did he have to lose?
“Now that’s a lot of chrome.” Josh whistled under his breath as he entered the reception area of a nondescript office building in Burbank. He’d heard there was a lot of money in porn. Turned out, it had all ended up here.
He checked in with a receptionist who made him spell his last name twice and checked his ID before ushering him to an uncomfortable metallic chair to wait.
Despite Clara’s idealistic outcry to reform an industry she knew next to nothing about, Josh had no plans to ride in, Indiana Jones style, and call out this corporate fortress. Even if he wanted to, and maybe part of him did, he wasn’t that guy. He didn’t have the same luxury of opportunity that Clara enjoyed. If anything, their heated discussion a few nights ago about the power structure of porn had made him realize that he’d never get anywhere if he didn’t play nice with the people in charge. He had to decide between swimming with the sharks or becoming their chum.
The man he’d come to see today, H. D. Pruitt, could change Josh’s life with a snap of his fingers.
He figured he might as well get a look at the guy.
“Josh Darling?” A short, tan man in a very well-tailored suit carried himself with an air of defiance as he stepped into reception.
Josh recognized H. D. Pruitt from his headshot on the company website. Last night he’d taken a leaf out of Clara’s book, staying up late to do his homework. He’d learned that Pruitt had started building an empire a handful of years before Josh signed his contract. A venture capitalist turned entrepreneur, Pruitt had made a lot of money selling search data before he’d decided to bring his talents to the adult entertainment industry.
His company had gobbled up a bunch of mom-and-pop studios out of the gate, and nowadays you couldn’t swing a dick in porn without hitting something owned or operated by Black Hat. According to his bio, Pruitt “lived for pushing boundaries” and “going beyond what’s polite.”
In Josh’s social circles, the man had a reputation for chasing every depraved fantasy the Internet could think up. Until today, Josh had avoided Pruitt like the plague. He’d never had any interest in playing corporate games. But he couldn’t get that position paper from Toni Granger out of his head. Couldn’t stop hearing Clara’s indignant voice as she recounted the injustice of a system he lived in every day.
Josh tugged down the sleeves of his own navy sports coat. “That’s me.” He followed Pruitt into his corner office.
“You’re a tough man to get hold of.” Pruitt’s chair sat a few extra inches above the one relegated for visitors, so its petite owner could stare down at his guests.
Josh pulled out the cushy leather armchair across from the imposing dark wood desk.
“Believe me, it’s only because I’m wildly irresponsible.” Josh pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “You wouldn’t believe how many of these things I burn through.”
Pruitt steepled his fingers and gave Josh a once-over. “You’re even taller than you look on film.”
Josh hunched down in an effort to take up less space. In his experience, short men tended to resent his height. As if Josh were trying to one-up them simply by existing. “That’s probably because in the movies I’m usually lying down.”
Pruitt didn’t smile.
Tough crowd.