Love on the Sound Read online

  Try as he might, he couldn’t quite pinpoint how he’d ended up at this exact spot. Alone on Oscars night, watching the ceremony from home, filming a crappy love story chick flick with a dimwit starlet.

  Ben stepped into the shower and bent his head beneath the hard spray of the dueling showerheads, letting the hot water beat the stress of the day out of his shoulders. He tried to empty his mind of David and Winona’s stupid, tangled dramas and concentrated on breathing in the steam. Only when the hot water and steam combined to make his skin red and breathing clogged, did he turn off the shower and towel himself off. Clad in a pair of boxers and nothing else, he padded downstairs and into the kitchen. He grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge and cracked it open. The house was blaringly quiet.

  He thought of what it had been like four years ago, walking down the carpet dressed in his stylish tux, a hot blonde on his arm, and the promise of the night still ahead of him. Even the loss of the Oscar had only temporarily dimmed his optimism, his certainty that he would one day be standing up on that stage.

  Ben drained the last of his beer and tossed it. What he really wanted to do was get massively fucked up. And that, he reflected as he grabbed his cell phone to dial one of his buddies, was never a problem in Hollywood.

  “Jon, how’s it hanging?” he asked, already heading upstairs to get dressed. “You up for a party?”

  ***

  There was a shrill screaming in his ear, over and over. Ben shot awake, sitting up to feel the room spin wildly around him. He was on the floor. Somewhere. And the sound…Not screaming. His cell. Shit. What the hell time was it?

  “’Lo,” he mumbled.

  “Ben. Where are you?” Kendra’s clear voice cut through the fog but didn’t stop the room from spinning.

  “No idea.” Ben squinted, hoping to bring the room into focus. “Ummmmm…” He drew the word out, liking the way it sounded. “Ummmmmm….”

  “Oh, God. Are you drunk?”

  Ben paused, thought about it. He held out a hand to stop the spinning, but it didn’t work. “Yes.”

  “You need to get your ass down to the studio now. Remember? Today show? Interview?”

  “Oh, no.” Ben gasped, then laughed at his own reaction. It really was pretty funny, seeing as how he didn’t give a shit. “Ohhhhnoooo.” He leaned back onto the floor, the laughter rolling out of him. But wait, wasn’t the interview in the morning? “Time is it?”

  “4:00. Tell me where you are. I’ll come get you.”

  “Oh, no.” This time his dismay was genuine. Kendra was a scary ass driver, as fast and as bitchy in the car as she was out of it.

  “Where are you?” She hissed, and Ben winced. He took a deep breath, tried to pull himself together. Fuck, he’d really drunk a lot. A lot. He didn’t remember much after the fourth bar he and Jon…

  “Jon’s house,” he said, and managed to somehow pull the address out of his fuddled brain.

  “Thank God. I can make it there in ten minutes. Okay.” He could practically hear the wheels turning as she assessed the situation. “Okay. We’re going to make this work. Sober the fuck up.” She hung up on him.

  Ben lay there on his back on the floor, cell phone still in his hand and tried to piece it together. The last bar had closed at 3:00 a.m. So, he’d only been asleep for an hour. Which meant that yes, he was still totally drunk. But, no big deal. He was an actor. He would just act sober. He was an Academy Award nominee. Once a nominee, always a nominee.

  “Okeydokey.” He tried to stand, but the room still wouldn’t stay still. Very tricky. Finally, he got on his hands and knees, which helped. He crawled over to what he thought was the bathroom, peered inside. Yep. Using the doorjamb, he pulled himself upright and staggered inside. The light seared his eyes, and he let out a yelp, nearly losing his balance.

  He splashed water on his face, brushed his teeth. He was unshaven, but that was okay. He combed back his hair. Did he smell like booze? He felt like it was leaking out of his pores, but the folks at home wouldn’t be able to smell him, so he shrugged it off.

  He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other without staggering and made it that way to the door, opening it just as Kendra was marching up the porch steps.

  “Hey, pretty lady,” he drawled, grinning.

  “Oh, shit. Shit, shit.” She took him in with one glance and clenched her jaw. “This is not going to work. I’ll call the station, tell them you’ve got the flu.”

  Offended, Ben leaned casually against the doorjamb—which also conveniently kept him upright. “You don’t think I can do this? I’m fine.” His last statement was somewhat undercut by the fact that he lost his balance and had to grab onto the door.

  “No.” Kendra shook her head and pulled out her cell. “No way are you going on national television like this.”

  “Yes, I am.” Ben grabbed the cell out of her hand and tossed it behind him, where it let out a very loud clatter. Whoops. He fervently hoped that Jon, not known for his calm and even disposition on his best days, hadn’t woken up. “Let’s go.”

  Kendra squared her slight shoulders and glared up at him. “No. You are not doing this.”

  “I am the boss.” Ben relished the sound of those words. He should say them more often, he decided. But, with more conviction. He concentrated as hard as he could to not slur the words. What was he saying? Oh yeah. “I am the boss.”

  “I am not driving you down there when you are totally drunk.” He had to give her credit; she was not backing down.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. “Then I guess I’ll drive.” He dangled them just out of her reach when she tried to grab them, almost losing his balance as he held them over his head. “Paying your salary,” he reminded her, and watched as her lips thinned until they disappeared. Even though he had no intention of getting behind the wheel, she didn’t know that.

  “Fine.” She clipped out the words. “Boss.” She shoved him aside, retrieved her phone and then marched down the steps, head high.

  “Relax,” Ben followed as quickly as he could. It took him a few tries to open the passenger door, but he finally slid in just as she let off the emergency brake and whipped the car out of the driveway. He hurriedly fumbled for his seatbelt, finally clicking it on, the sight of the houses and trees flashing by him in a blur sobering him a bit.

  Okay. He closed his eyes, summoning up Ben, the handsome, charming, sober movie star. He could do this. He turned in his seat and flashed Kendra his most winning smile. “Being nominated for an Oscar was the highlight of my career so far. To be recognized by my peers was humbling and an honor.”

  Kendra shot him a look out of the corner of her eye.

  “See?” He spread his hands out. “No problem.”

  “Pop a breath mint,” was her only comment as they screeched around the corner into the station parking lot.

  He obeyed, and sighed with relief when the car zoomed into the closest parking spot and shuddered to a stop.

  “Lean on me,” Kendra instructed as he lurched out of the car. “Pretend I’m your latest flavor of the month.”

  Ben laughed, thinking he’d sooner cuddle with a barracuda but stopped when she shot him the evil eye. He slid his arm around her waist and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. Actually, he was pretty impressed with himself, he decided as they walked through the station doors. He’d do the interview. No one would notice anything was wrong. He should have won the fucking Oscar. He was amazing.

  They made their way over to the sound stage, and a production assistant came rushing up, clipping his mike on as they walked the rest of the way. “We’re ready for you now, Mr. Morrison.”

  “And I,” Ben said, unable to stop himself from grinning widely and chuckling a bit, “am ready for you.”

  ***

  Ben came to consciousness slowly, hampered by the dull, constant pounding that had taken up residence in his brain. The room spun around him when he opened his eyes, and he
quickly closed them again. Even closed, his eyes ached and burned. He rolled over onto his side, and inhaled the smell of the sheets, reached out and felt the nightstand. He was home.

  He opened his eyes a crack and attempted to sit up. A wave of nausea attacked him, and he rushed to his feet. He barely made it to the bathroom before he threw up. Unfortunately, he noticed, as he gasped for breath and leaned back against the wall, it landed all over the toilet seat and around it, but not in it. The sight of it made his stomach roil, and he threw up again, this time managing to aim into the toilet.

  He staggered into the shower, and turned on the spray, realizing belatedly that his clothes were still on. Cursing, he struggled to peel them off and left them in a heap at the end of the tub. The hot spray rained over his face, and he opened up his mouth, rinsing out the acid taste. His nausea ebbed, and he slid down to the floor of the tub and just sat there a while, letting the pounding water wash over him until he felt able to climb out.

  His headache still roared, but he felt slightly more functional. Popping three aspirin, he stood there, water dripping off of him, and groaned at the mess around the toilet.

  Steeling himself, he wiped up the mess, gagging a few times and then hopped back into the shower for a few seconds just to rid himself of the smell. Finally, wrapped in a towel, he made his way on weak legs down to the kitchen and grabbed an ice cold Coke from the fridge. The sugar and caffeine felt like heaven as it went down his throat, and his stomach settled a bit.

  His cell phone and keys were on the counter, and the light on his cell blinked, indicating he had a voicemail. Ben squinted at the clock over the oven. 4:25. From the looks of the light outside the window, it was afternoon. Had he slept all day? He’d been pretty wasted, but usually he didn’t sleep straight through the afternoon. Ben frowned and tried to sort through the fog in his brain. Hadn’t he already been up today? And, somewhere else?

  He took another sip of soda and picked up his cell phone. It would come back to him.

  “You have 20 new messages,” his voicemail informed him.

  Holy shit. Suddenly, it occurred to him that he hadn’t heard from either Lucas or Steve in a few weeks. Shit, shit, shit. He clutched his phone with hands that suddenly trembled. Twenty voicemails never meant good news. Twenty voicemails meant one of your best friends was lying in a coma somewhere, or worse.

  “Ben. I’m trying to stay calm here, but holy shit. Turn your TV on. Oh, my God. What the fuck? What the fuck? How did this happen? Call me. Now.” It was Mike, his voice rising to a level of fury that Ben had never heard.

  He frowned as he deleted the message. The next one was from his publicist.

  “Are you sober yet? You need to make a statement to the press. But, for God’s sake, don’t do it before you talk to me. And by the way, you need to fire Kendra’s ass. What was she thinking? I would have bodily restrained you before I let you go on the air like that.”

  Huh. Ben deleted the message. What the hell were they talking about? He hadn’t been on the air—the phone slipped out of his hand and onto the counter. Fuck.

  It came back to him now, with brutal clarity. The interview. The bright lights. The cameras all pointed at him. The overly caffeinated hostess. He snatched up the phone and frantically clicked through the rest of his messages. Three more from Mike, each culminating in a rising tone of hysteria. One from Kendra, threatening to quit if he didn’t make his publicist get off her case. Fourteen from various reporters, asking him to comment on the “incident” on the Today show.

  Ben set down his phone and buried his head in his hands. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as he remembered? He hurried into the living room and turned on the 50” LCD screen. Flipping channels, he stopped when he got to CNN, where two talking heads debated about the latest immigration proposal. Well, it couldn’t be that bad, right? He checked the crawl, relieved when he didn’t see his name scroll by.

  He sat down on the couch, and propped his feet up on the coffee table. A sickening feeling gnawed at his stomach—and he was proved right after less than five minutes, when they switched to the entertainment section of the news broadcast.

  “Former Oscar nominee Ben Morrison’s bizarre appearance on the Today show has Hollywood buzzing that this once up and coming actor may be all washed up,” the anchor intoned.

  The screen cut to the clip from the Today interview. The blonde anchor visibly recoiled from Ben as he leaned towards her over the coffee table in between them.

  “I bleeping LOVED being nominated for an Oscar,” he said, throwing his hands up in the air. “I even, I even edited out the curse words for you, Pam. You are so bleeping welcome.”

  The anchor looked at her notes, obviously at a loss. “So how did being nominated change your life?”

  “It totally changed it, it totally did. Wait, wait, let me show you how I felt.”

  Ben cringed as he watched his on-screen self climb up onto the coffee table, almost topple over and then begin to belt out, very loudly, and very off-key, “Climb Every Mountain,” from the Sound of Music. He knew what was coming next, but still, he couldn’t stop himself from watching.

  Sure enough, only a few lines in, he lost his balance and stumbled off the coffee table. There he was on his hands and knees on national television. And then, then, he rolled over onto his back and began to laugh.

  “Watch next year for my nomination for my performance in Endless Promise,” he said. “That bleeping…”

  This time, they had to bleep him out for real.

  “…train wreck of a movie. Pam?” He eyed the anchor from his position on the floor, the camera mercilessly zooming in on his red-eyed, slack-jawed face. “Did that answer your question?”

  The screen cut back to the CNN reporter, who was, holy shit, standing outside the gates of his house. “A representative from the Today show declined to comment, but an anonymous source stated that Morrison was clearly intoxicated and had to be carried off the set. One inside source on the set of Endless Promise noted that Morrison has taken to drinking in his trailer between takes. No word yet from his representative as to whether rehab will be the next step for this once promising actor. Industry insiders speculate that this could very well be the end of Morrison’s career, which has been besieged by a string of less than promising box office returns of late.”

  Ben leapt up and raced to the back of the house to the laundry room, which also housed the screens from his security cameras. Sure enough, a crowd of reporters lurked at the gate by his driveway. The call box for the gate entrance was broken, which was why he hadn’t heard anyone buzzing.

  He slumped against the washing machine. He was so screwed. Utterly and totally screwed. When he heard his cell ringing, he sighed and walked with leaden steps into the kitchen. He checked the caller id. Lucas.

  “Holy shit, bro. Are you okay?” his friend greeted him.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” Ben rubbed his forehead. Surprise, his headache had not abated. “I take it you saw the interview.”

  “Are you familiar with this new fangled thing called the Internet?” Lucas asked. “Of course I’ve seen it. It’s the number one video on YouTube.”

  “Great, that’s just great.”

  “Seriously, man. What the fuck is going on with you?”

  “It’s no big deal. I got really drunk last night—”

  “No shit? I couldn’t tell,” interrupted Lucas.

  “It’s blown all out of proportion,” Ben insisted. “It’ll blow over by tomorrow.” His phone beeped, and he quickly glanced at the screen. “Look, Lucas, that’s my agent on the other line. I’m fine, okay? Don’t worry about me. I’ll call you later.”

  He hung up before his friend could object.

  “Mike.” Ben winced and held the phone away from his ear as his agent let loose with a stream of expletives at top volume. When Mike finally paused, Ben could hear his harsh breathing on the other end of the line as he tried to calm himself.

  “What the fuck is going on?�
�� Mike finally asked.

  “Look, I had some drinks last night.” Ben wandered back into the living room and muted the TV. “We partied a little too hard. I forgot about the interview, and I made an ass out of myself. End of story.”

  “No, goddammit, that is not the end of the story! You made an ass out of yourself on national television in front of millions of viewers. You sang a song from frickin’ Sound of Music—badly. And, you insulted the integrity of your current project.”

  Ben plopped down on the couch and rolled his eyes. “Give me a break. That movie has no integrity. It’s a cash cow formula role that I could phone in with my eyes closed.”

  “Well, you aren’t going to have to phone it in any longer. They’ve fired you.” Mike’s voice echoed across the line, flat and final.

  “What?” Ben sat up straight. “Just because of one drunken—”

  “You called the movie a fucking train wreck!” Mike exploded. “Those were your exact words. People on the set say you drink between takes, that you’re an alcoholic. They need that kind of publicity like a hole in the head.”

  “I’m not an alcoholic, for Christ’s sake,” muttered Ben.

  Mike sighed. “I know. But, the public doesn’t. You need to do some serious damage control here. Denying that you’re an alcoholic isn’t going to help.”

  “What do you want me to do, go into rehab for a drinking problem that I don’t have?” demanded Ben.

  “It sure as hell wouldn’t hurt your image. You go for two weeks, come back a changed and reformed man.”

  “That’s bullshit.” Ben flipped to another channel on the TV and winced when the footage of his drunken coffee table dance began playing. Again.