Chapter 18: Chapter 18

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He wore pajamas now. At first, Jessi thought it was a prank or something.

"Sleepin' in here tonight," Darren said while she hesitated whether he was actually going to sleep in his trailer tonight.

It prompted her to begin her last task for the day so the guy could rest up now. Never mind that she had to render another half hour of overtime tonight. She couldn't let the actor go to bed with his itchy hair extensions. They might irritate his scalp all night.

"Are they too tight?" she asked once Darren sat in the makeup chair. The stench of cigarette smoke in his breath bothered her somewhat, but it wasn't like she could complain to him about it.

"Yeah. A bit. We gonna take 'em all off now?" The guy itched his recently trimmed beard as he stared back at his reflection in the vanity mirror. He looked as photogenic as Jenson, but in close-up shots, Darren appeared more mysterious, thanks to his long-hair-plus-dark-beard look adding points to his debonair appeal.

"Yep. Just to make sure your scalp won't get irritated," she replied before putting on her face mask. The sneezing just started again. Allergic rhinitis almost always bothered her every time there was a lot of dust and pollutants around her, or every time she lacked proper sleep.

It was quite windy all evening on the set.

"Is it worse now?" She stood behind the makeup chair while Darren itched his scalp, the part right above his nape.

The dark brown extensions reached his broad shoulders, and, earlier, he had been scratching his head in between takes. "Bit worse. Yeah." Darren made a face and reclined in the makeup chair.

"Sorry. This might take half an hour. That okay?" She began removing the rest of his bonded extensions, waiting for him to say yes.

"Do what you gotta do." Darren sighed but gave her a crooked grin. "Why you wearin' a face mask, by the way?"

"Allergies." She glanced at him while her hands got busy with the bonds on his soft, wavy, and naturally dark hair. "And it's flu season. Remember?" she added.

"Ah... Yeah. Almost forgot."

"You allergic to anything?"

"Just mercury, and silver." Darren got busy on his phone now. He was reading something on his mostly black screen. It didn't look like a work email, though.

Must be his lines tomorrow. "Silver?" she muttered. Why would he be allergic to silver?

"Pure silver. But deathly allergic to mercury. So I don't eat fish. Except when I'm feeling adventurous." He glanced at her through their reflection and then gave her a little wink.

She snickered, thinking it was just a joke. Weird how he's deathly allergic to mercury and silver... Was it something genetic? "So, do you have an EpiPen with you all the time?"

"For what?" Darren's brows furrowed.

"In case you get a bad allergic reaction, like anaphylactic shock." Jessi went on with getting the hair extensions off his head while Darren scrolled through some photos on his phone.

"Nope. But I take some pills every day." He stopped scrolling to stare at a photo of a young blonde woman. It was a dim, slightly grainy selfie, but the young woman's photogenic features could be seen clearly. Before Jessi could lean closer to get a better look, Darren already deleted the image.

Although it intrigued her a little, she kept her mouth shut. Her workmates had been gossiping about him earlier. They said Darren kissed a girl named "Ramona" at an after-party here in LA.

But Jessi didn't want to bring it up, even though she was here all alone with Darren. It was none of her beeswax; she wouldn't dip her hand in the rumor mill just because everyone else did.

Then a knock on the trailer door caught their attention. She paused to look to her left. The door just opened.

Jenson walked right in with a medium-sized paper bag. He smiled at her for a second, then focused his attention on Darren. "And here we see the domesticated sugar-dependent creature in their natural habitat..."

"You're still here?" Darren regarded his late-night visitor, his brows creasing at Jenson's presence. "What's that?"

Jenson rolled his eyes. "Your favorite. What else..."

"Wee!" Darren grabbed the paper bag but stayed in the makeup chair. When he saw that it was from his favorite milkshake place, he squealed in obvious delight. "Yeah! I missed this!"

His childlike reaction made Jessi giggle. She kept still beside Darren while Jenson got nearer.

Jenson stood on the other side of the makeup chair, his smirk growing as he watched Darren stab the top of the milkshake cup with the black straw.

"Ugh! It's just so good!" Darren moaned and fist-bumped Jenson without looking up at the guy. "Go home, dude. Charm's waitin' up for you again."

Charm? As in Jenson's fiancée?

"You're welcome," Jenson murmured with a frown before turning around to head out.

"Go make up and make out. You're always  home late." Darren scoffed and kept sipping on his freshly bought milkshake.

"Yeah, yeah..." Jenson sighed. "Be earlier on set tomorrow. Jessiah's gonna have to redo your extensions. Don't make her wait again."

"Copy, boss." Darren paused savoring his midnight treat and mock-saluted his friend before Jenson stepped out of the trailer. Darren snickered while his straw stayed right beside his grinning mouth.

Jessi stood behind the guy now, minding the small smile Jenson gave her before he disappeared from their view. It definitely felt like everything was back to normal now. No more fighting and drama. Cute how the two behaved like real brothers off-screen.

Although a part of her doubted Jenson's sincerity a little, she didn't have to show it. Right this moment, she just felt utter relief that the two were actually getting along now as if nothing happened. "I gather he already apologized? Properly?" she mumbled when she resumed her task at hand of removing the rest of the old hair extensions.

They were barely 12 hours old, though. "Yeah. Sure." Darren grinned as he sat still in the makeup chair with his left hand clasping his beloved milkshake. "He won't explicitly say it to my face, but, yeah. All good now."

"I see." Jenson preferred to apologize through his actions, she supposed.

"Joss isn't big on words. Most of the time."

"You call him Joss, too?"

"Yeah. Short for Jenson The Boss. Jenson Ross." Darren put down the milkshake and let out a groan. His long-lashed eyes shut tight while he made a face and coughed loudly. Brain freeze, it seemed. "His real last name's Roiz, though." He coughed again.

"Roiz?" Jessi repeated, frowning a little. Oh... Right. Jenson was not American by birth, according to her last in-depth research online.

"Yeah. He never uses it."

"He likes his screen name better?"

"For security reasons or whatever," Darren mumbled while scrolling through his phone.

She resumed removing the bonds left on the bottom part of his hair, still glad that he and Jenson had patched things up that quick and that easily. It seemed they always treated each other like a brother, while dealing with the typical sibling rivalry ever since they started working together.

Alright. She got the message. She should keep her mouth shut about their hiccup earlier. For now, she wouldn't tell anyone about the physical altercation Darren said he instigated. Also, she did promise Jenson not to tell anyone about what happened. For now. Despite the gravity of what he did to Darren, at the end of the day, Jenson was still one of her bosses. Darren treated him the same even after what happened.

"All done." She tapped Darren's shoulder when she finally finished removing the last of the extensions. It took almost half an hour. Now she was good to go home. At last. Jessi suppressed a yawn and backed off to let Darren get off the chair easily.

"Thank you, lovely." Darren grabbed his milkshake again after giving her a teeth-bearing smile. "You gonna drive home?"

"No. I'll just take a cab if Nikki already left." She took her phone out of her pocket to check for new messages.

"Ah." Darren walked off to get something out of the freezer. Then he took one purple tablet from a bottle of pills and washed it down with more milkshake.

"What's that for?"

"Huh?" Darren turned to face her. "Oh. This? Just...something for my joints," he murmured before he put the bottle of pills back in the compact freezer. "Just to prep. For action scenes. Stunts and all that."

"Does it need to stay refrigerated all the time?"

"Not really. But it does get hot in this thing come lunchtime." Darren glanced around the corners of his trailer. The ceiling lights weren't that bright. They cast shadows on his angular face, highlighting his darker eye bags in some angles.

"Hey. Tomorrow morning, after you get ready, could you use some cold eye patches? I mean, do you have some in here?"

"Yeah." Darren nodded faintly. "There's half a boxful left in that drawer, I think." He sipped on his milkshake again.

"Okay. Gotta get home now. Thanks."

"Don't worry," the guy said with a smirk as she stepped towards the door. "I'm not gonna stay up super late, Mom."

She snickered. "G'night."

"Goodnight. And be here first thing. I'll get ya the coffee-flavored milkshake."

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11:28PM

Jenson unbuckled his seatbelt and turned the engine off with his other hand, his mind still busy replaying what happened the entire day.

The scenes in that trailer and what he did to Darren were still fresh on his mind. Despite his efforts to put it past him, the vivid memories distracted him during the entire time they were shooting. But thankfully, he got through all the work he needed to get done despite a couple retakes.

It was his fault he went all berserk on Darren like that. He forgot to take his wolfsbane meds last night. No drug intake the previous day equals looser grip on his temper. It had always been like that.

It was one of the things he and Charmaine fought over the past years. Not that she thought him losing his temper was a threat to her safety or anything. Hopefully, she never thought of him that way.

As he sat still in the driver's seat facing his dark dashboard, Jenson stared at the garage door. Was Charm asleep now? Probably still on her computer, working overtime. Did she want to have sex tonight? He kind of did. They hadn't been intimate in almost a week. They hadn't talked for two days now. Not real conversations, at least.

Work and priorities had been keeping her too busy for him and vice versa. Their intimacy had dwindled ever since they got engaged. For some odd reason. Their careers was one thing. He wasn't going to complain, though. He didn't want another late-night fight. He just felt...distracted. Really distracted.

Magnus' cryptic advice kept echoing in his head all day. Especially after that four minutes he'd spent alone with Jessi in his trailer. Jenson sighed to himself. He wasn't the type to get fazed over anything, or instantly buckle under pressure. But those four minutes he'd been alone with Jessiah...

Dammit. He should stop thinking of her. He really should. But his brain wouldn't let him, for some asinine reason. Even her scent was stuck on his skin. In fact he had to literally scrub it off of him twice before he stepped inside his car.

Just in case Charm wanted to get intimate tonight. "Shit." Jenson let out a sigh and bumped his forehead onto the steering wheel. He could vividly recall the startled look on Jessi's pretty face when he touched her. That moment when he grabbed her wrist just to stop her from walking out on him after he apologized. Multiple times.

To his relief, Jessi had kept quiet about the incident with Darren in his trailer.

Jenson frowned. She did say she wouldn't tell on him, but of course it didn't guarantee that she'd keep it a secret for a long time. He barely knew her. He couldn't fully trust her yet. Which meant, he had to keep her close from now on, make her believe he meant no harm and wasn't someone who enjoyed hurting people.

Befriending her would be easy since she seemed like a nice, reliable, responsible, and a highly sensible person, but he wasn't Darren. That was Darren's forte: getting along with strangers and making them feel like they were already friends right after the first ten minutes.

She was gutsy, too. Jenson couldn't help but grin at the fact. As far as he recalled, she seriously stood up to him when he tried to confront her to discuss what happened, and in private.

His nerves were acting up the entire time he was having the talk with her, but he smelled mostly shock, confusion, and only a bit of fear from her reaction. She also seemed to be telling the truth when she said she wasn't judging him for what he did to Darren.

If it were someone else from the crew, he and Darren would've spent most of the day at the nearest precinct. Such a hassle on everyone's part. To their relief, Jessi didn't mention a thing to anyone. Yet. She just seemed like a total pacifist when she insisted that he should apologize to Darren ASAP. So he did. Her guts somewhat surprised him, still. He could tell she also worried her job would be jeopardized if he and Darren didn't get along. Just a hardworking young woman trying her best to make ends meet.

Jenson forced himself to bear that in mind. He had been digging up more details on her background to make sure she wasn't a spy and didn't have any dirt on him and Darren. So far, he was 90 percent sure she was clean.

With a short sigh, he stepped out of the driver's seat with his phone in his hand. He just got a new phone call from Magnus. But Magnus dropped the call before he could answer it during the drive.

What did he want this time?

Curious, Jenson called him back as he stood beside the driver's side in his dim-lit garage, alone and enjoying the total silence.

Magnus answered after the second ring. "You find her yet?"

Oh. Of course. His pending new task: find the guy's half-sister. Jenson held in a sigh and ignored the mild throbbing in his skull. He should pop a pill now. "Not yet. But I'm checking medical schools in New York right now. Her old agents don't know where she's living at the moment."

"When can you find her exact address?"

"Not sure. But I'm waiting for the guy's updates," Jenson replied, referring to his hacker contact. "He found two of her old phone numbers but she's been changing her contact numbers a lot the past two years. Deactivated her social media, too. Didn't even register the last number under her name."

"Yeah. I got some ideas why." Magnus let out a sigh on the other end. "Anyway, keep me posted. Ilya wants to see her soon."

"Yeah. Sure. I'll look harder."

"How's Darren? He called Evie again a couple hours ago."

"Fine. We had a little...hiccup earlier. He tried to piss me off till I just...lost it. Sorry."

"You hit him? In the face?" Magnus muttered. He must be worried Darren would sport a brand new shiner on set tomorrow.

"No." Jenson faked a chuckle. "Just choke-slammed him on the floor. Shit." He scratched his forehead as his brain replayed the memory in vivid detail.

"But no one saw you?"

"Just one of the makeup staff. But I talked to her. Convinced her to keep quiet. All good now," he said reassuringly. "And he gave me the girl's other phone. I let him keep the bracelet. He really wants to keep it. Begged me all afternoon."

"Wipe it clean." Magnus sighed again. "Melt it if you have to." He fell silent for a moment, then spoke in his usual monotone again. "Ilya wants to see his daughter soon, before he dies in the hospital."

"He's dying?" Jenson gainsaid. An alpha vampirar, dying in the hospital? Strange. He'd never heard of an alpha, a pureblood vampirar at that, seeking medical attention in such a public manner. Or perhaps he just didn't know a lot of pureblood vampires in this lifetime. He knew some things about their hereditary liver disease, though.

"He thinks so. Just find her," was all Magnus said before he hung up.

"Right."

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