Chapter 202) Due Course

“Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.”

– George Hegel

Del Sol Valley
Film Studios

Rubbing his hands across his face with barely controllable frustration, which immediately summoned the make-up artist to powder him down again, Blake submitted to his fate with a deep sigh and held still while his face was touched up.

He was at work. Work was great, he still loved acting, his current role was one that many young actors would kill for. Blake portrayed a womanizing bad boy, who, naturally, eventually would see the light and fall for the female protagonist after a few wrong turns. The list of his ‘conquests’ along the way consisted of the crème de la crème of Del Sol Valley’s hottest up and coming young actresses, whom Blake now got paid for to smooch on and pseudo-fondle on camera, while having to remember some lines in between hot on-camera romance scenes.

That was all well and great, but one of those actresses had to be replaced after a botched cosmetic surgery procedure took her out of commission for the foreseeable future. Coincidentally she was replaced with none other than his ex Milena Sheridan. Mila. Who was currently sitting right behind him getting ready for the scene, making him nervous, and judging by how many times she dropped her eyeliners and make up brushes, she felt the same way about being near him. Every now and then their eyes would meet in the mirrors, since they had their backs to one another, and when that happened, both quickly looked the other way.

Mila still got under his skin like no other, he hadn’t been the one who broke them up. She had wanted her freedom, told him he smothered her and many more things, to which he had replied with some below the belt ammunition of his own things went from bad to worse, both too proud to kiss up and somehow that was just the end for them.

Today they would be reshooting the scenes Blake had already finished with the girl Mila now replaced. Blake was nervous. Normally he had no problem getting into character and detaching from the real Blake, but this was Mila. Impossible. He was going to be Blake kissing Mila, not whatever characters they portrayed. And Blake had no real concept how he really felt about that. For starters, excited, but also incredibly awkward and everything in between.

At first the shoot went well. Both of them behaved very professional despite their relatively young years, Blake was 24, Mila 21. But so far the scenes had consisted of talking from a distance, and just some hot glances, preparing the audience for what lay ahead while slowly, but surely, increasing the sexual tension on camera towards the inevitable kiss between the bad boy (Blake) and yet another hapless maiden (Mila).

And then the kissing scene. The kiss was gonna be real in order to look real and as soon as his lips touched hers, he lost control.

“What is he doing?! That’s not the script! STICK TO THE SCRIPT! HEY, CAMERON, did your braces get stuck together or what is the damn problem!? Goddamn it … CUT! CUT CUT CUT! Fucking CUT!” the director yelled.

Lights turned on, commotion happened around them, but Mila had melted into the kiss and both were far from done, while the director yelled and screamed on the floor. Finally the man had enough, called a break and told Blake and Mile to get this out of their system so they could be professional again.

“I miss you!” Blake told Mila, breathless from the intense kissing, while ignoring all around them.

“I missed you too. Oh Blake … I am so sorry. I thought you hated me now.” Mila replied quickly before raining tiny kisses all over Blake’s face.

“I could never hate you, but I am so freaking confused. Why exactly did we even break up?”

“Honestly, I don’t even remember. All I remember is how much I miss you and how miserably I am without you. I love you, Blake!”

“I love you too, Mila!”

The break was now up, everyone went into position, they were on again, after another layer of powder for both, when the make up artist swept in like a bird and disappeared again.

“Aaaaaand ACTION!” the director yelled.

Blake and Mila went about the scene as scripted, until they got to the kissing scene. Once more, they lost control and touch with reality.

“Ah – NOT AGAIN! CUT CUT CUT! CAMERON, SHERIDAN – you are trying my patience!” the director yelled.

“What in the motherfluffing world is wrong with them?!” he mumbled quieter as all the cameras were readjusted to start over yet again, when someone next to him answered his rhetoric question.

“They’re in love. Obviously. And they just remembered that … awww.” she sighed, completely unfazed by the angry snort she received for her comment, while her facial expression signaled she was off into romance heaven.

“Who the hell are you?! Oh hell – we’re gonna have to replace you too! You can’t be Blake’s character’s hot love interest looking like THAT! When did that happen!?” the director barked as he turned to her, staring at her almost to due date baby bump.

“Excuse me? I am not an actress, I am Blake Cameron’s sister, pretty obvious, he and I are almost twinning here. Do you have a problem with pregnant women?!” Celeste hissed at the man.

“No, just their hormonal rages. Fine, as long as you are not one of the actresses, I am good with it. What the heck’s wrong with you now?” ranted the director when Celeste suddenly pulled a face, moaned and stared at the floor.

“My water just broke! OMG – so those weren’t fake contractions! OMG! BLAKE! BLAAAAAAAAAAAAKE! I need my brother! PLEASE!”

“Oh for fuck’s sake! I give up!” he grabbed his megaphone and yelled “CAMERON, get over here PRONTO and deal with this mess. Everyone else – pack up your crap and get the heck out of here, be back bright eyed bushy tailed same time tomorrow. But tomorrow, we are going to friggin’ shoot this movie. I want everyone at 100%! You are costing me thousands every minute we are NOT shooting a film here!”

That afternoon Celeste gave birth to a healthy baby boy named Vaughn (Collins).

So now Celeste was a mother and her brother Blake had a girlfriend again.

Del Sol Valley
Cameron Mansion

“Mom, dad … I would like to ask Mila to move in with me.” Blake stated, met by a snorted laugh by his father.

“Oh, you got your own place? Congrats, how exciting. When can we come by and drop off your shit? A small family could move into your closet you metro-sexual.” Blaine commented dead-serious.

“Hilarious, dad. Of course I am talking about her moving in here.” Blake explained the obvious.

“Of course you are, you mooch. Come one, come all, into Noah’s Ark, aka. Cameron Mansion. Let’s fill the shed up to the rafters, daddy Blaine will feed and board them all. Mother Teresa had nothing on me.”

“Come on now dad. We have plenty of room. You won’t even know she’s here. She’ll sleep in my room, obviously.”

“Aww, bummer. I was already mapping out me in the middle and your mother on one, and Mila on the other side of the bed. There goes my harem dreams again …”

“Hey you! Nah-uh! Blaine .. don’t make me spank you!” Scarlett finally joined in.

“Spank! Spank! Spank!” cried out an excited Caitlin, giggling, clapping her hands.

“What did I ever do to you ungrateful little brat. Although, a little spanking by my hot wife in the right context – hell yeah! Sign me up!” Blaine chuckled, then mimicked Caitlin’s clapping of hands, who stopped to mull something over.

“Mommy, what is bwat?” Caitlin asked her mom, while shooting suspicious glances at her daddy. Even she had already figured out not to take Blaine all too seriously.

“Ah, nothing baby. Daddy is tired and said he wants to go to bed.” Scarlett evaded the answer.

“Oh yeah, daddy would very much like to go to bed with mommy! Blake, you are on toddler duty!”

“Dream on!” Scarlett shot Blaine the certain glare.

“Aww. Sad face. Mean wifey!” Blaine smirked at Scarlett.

“You’ll think mean wifey. If you hadn’t been so good with my brother recently, you would be in deep … ahem … the dog house now.” she retorted.

“DOGGY! I want DOGGY!” Caitlin exclaimed.

“No baby, we cannot have a doggy.”

“Whyyyyyyyy!?” the two year old pouted.

“Because we are all too busy cleaning up YOUR shit all the time, you poopenator, can’t handle cleaning up after a poopie puppy, too!” Chase said as he entered the room.

“POOPIE PUPPY POOPIE POOOOOOOPIEEEEEE!” parroted Caitlin.

“Chase Cameron! Watch what you are saying around your little sister. And you knock it off, Missy!” warned Scarlett, addressing her youngest child with the last part.

“HA-HA, someone else is in trouble!” Blaine gleefully blurted out.

“You are ALL in trouble! Chase, you are on notice, no more blacklisted words around your sister or your precious computer may accidentally fall in the pool, Blaine you and your gutter mind & mouth are impossible, Caitlin is going to go nappy to get all the silly ideas out of her mind and you Blake, I cannot believe you! You literally just got back with Mila and now you want to move in with her the next day? No!”

“But mom, I missed her, and she me!”

“Well, Blake, I miss being able to eat, but you don’t see me moving in with a filled picnic basket, do you?! So you are getting another chance, I am happy for you, honest I am, but she dumped you for smothering her, and your first reaction after winning her back is wanting to smother her by being on top of her 24/7?!”

“HA – Who has the gutter mind now?!” Blaine piped up.

“Still YOU, Blaine! I am going to go spend some time with some REAL adults who know how to adult! I can feel my IQ dropping dozens of points each time any one you here opens their mouths. I will be back later. Try not to cause too much inferno, or if, please make sure it’s reversible.”

A black cloud remained in Scarlett’s wake.

San MyShuno
Senator Suites Penthouse

Seconds later she entered her daughter and son-in-law’s penthouse after Vivien had opened the door for her, when it became painfully clear she had walked right into an argument.

“Mom, tell this moronic man over there that when his wife presents herself to him in a sexy new negligee, it should mean he is done working for the night! We’re barely married a year and he already doesn’t find me more attractive than his law cases and laptop!”

“Oh, we’re involving your mother in this nonsense from last night now too? Fine then, Scarlett, would you please tell your daughter that I can hardly tell the judge I didn’t have time to prepare for a case because my wife needed me to put out the night before! Besides, it was pretty dark in the room, I didn’t even notice her tits were almost hanging out until she was all up in my business screaming at me. I am not an owl with night vision!” Liam defended himself.

Vivien and Liam fighting wasn’t unusual. Unusual would be if they didn’t. Both of them possessed strong, fiery personalities with a low BS threshold, and had squabbles, bickered and downright fought with each other ever since they were kids, yet they were always thick as thieves if anyone tried to interfere.

But Scarlett really wasn’t in the mood to hear about her daughter’s boobs or bedroom affairs with her son-in-law. YIKES!

“Oh HELL NO! Nope!” Scarlett said then vanished into a black cloud.

Her next stop was Vatore Castle.