Wanna Tell Me About It? part 2

[pensnest]

After that things seemed to happen incredibly quickly. He got the contract, which he signed. He got the script, which he read, and it filled him with happiness. He loved his scenes, he loved his character, but he also loved the story, the relationship between the two leads, the set-up with their family, the whole dynamic.

He went into the studio to meet with the Wardrobe people, and was seized by a fierce, maternal woman called Aileen, who measured every bit of him that could be measured-well, almost every bit-and then began draping him with shirts and scarves in shades of blue and green.

"Purple!" she announced, suddenly, and, "Peacock!" and there was a whole lot more draping. Adam loved it. They discussed which shades brought out his eyes and what worked with his skin tone and did he like Hawaiian shirts ("Hate them!" "Oh, me too!") and was he going to keep that blue streak in his hair and did she think they'd want him to wear nail polish.

"This was so much fun," Adam said as he was leaving. "I love the peacock theme, you're brilliant." It gave him a great new insight into his character. Chance was a little bit vain, loved showing off in his bright colors. Bars had mirrors, didn't they, so he could preen just a little bit. He really thought that would work. God, he was so excited about this!

Then the Hair and Makeup people, which was just as much fun in a different way, and they talked about brands and styles and they took photos of him in a bunch of different looks, and by the time he got to leave he was on quite a high.

* * *

"You look like a little kid on Christmas. No, wait, you look like you did in that Fourth of July ep we did with all the pyro."

Lance tried to tamp his smile down a notch. He was excited, he couldn't help it. "This is cool, though, right? Our very own show. Today we get to see if our cast really works together. Aren't you excited?"

"Sure," Joey said. "I love it when a script comes alive. It's not exactly doing that until they start filming, though."

"No, but. It's exciting. Hey, Jonathan! Good to see you." Lance shook hands with their director and asked-he couldn't help himself-if there was anything he needed for the prep that he hadn't already gotten, and Jonathan reassured him-again-that everything was fine. Lance didn't want to miss anything. He wanted this to be the best-prepared pilot in the history of television. Or something.

The cast and crew members started arriving a few minutes later and he was kept busy greeting them all and being encouraging. He was delighted to see Gina and Jemarco stroll in together, and Gina pause to straighten Jem's collar. It looked like she was getting into big-sister mode with him already. They'd been great together in the tests, and if that chemistry came across in their scenes it'd go a long way to making this work. Lance greeted them.

"You know, it's really unfair you cast my kid brother so much prettier than me," Gina told him in mock reproach.

Lance laughed. "Sorry about that." He coudn't deny it. Jem, twenty-two but looked nineteen, was part Black, part Asian, with limpid dark eyes, lashes Lance envied, flawless skin and bone structure that would keep him beautiful all his life. He was fresh out of Juilliard and had minimal TV experience, just a couple of walk-ons, but he was smart and learned fast, and their New York casting agent had to been very impressed with what she'd seen of his work. It was a gamble casting someone so new, but Lance had faith that Jem would acquire the skills he needed, and meanwhile his being pretty would carry him over his mistakes. If they got picked up. Mustn't forget that.

"Anyhow, you're gorgeous, girl," Jem was telling Gina. "You got a memorable face."

"He's not wrong," Lance said. Gina was handsome in an off-beat, very Italian way, with her long, serious face and aristocratic nose. She was the most experienced of their regular cast with a number of guest roles under her belt. Lance was amazed nobody else had grabbed her for a series lead, but television was desperately cruel to women and Gina was twenty-four and not a size zero. "Go on inside, Jonathan's here already."

Everybody seemed to turn up at once, after that, and Lance didn't have time to greet them all. Lisa informed him they were all in, so he took his place at the head of the long table and called for everyone to sit down. "Hi, everybody, and welcome back. It's great to see you all again. For those of you who don't remember me, I'm Lance Bass, I'm the Executive Producer, which means if anything goes wrong, it's basically my fault." He paused to grin, and people giggled nervously. "The idea for this afternoon is that you all get to know one another a little bit, and everyone gets to experience the story before we take it all to pieces and put it together again. I think we have all the ingredients for a great show, so right now, I'm going to turn it over to Jonathan, 'cause he's in charge from here on out."

Jonathan said a few words about the story, about the characters, and about how he planned to put everything together, then had everyone around the table introduce themselves. Some of the actors sounded terrified. A lot of them were new at this, they'd made a point of casting unknowns for the younger roles. Then they got into the read through.

After a few minutes Lance let himself relax and just enjoy the story. There were a couple of phrases which seemed a little more stilted out loud than they'd been on the page, and he made occasional notes when anything occurred to him, but mostly, he enjoyed it. His cast was gelling nicely, and everybody seemed to understand what they were doing. Way better than he'd known what he was doing when he got thrown into Synchronicity. God, he'd spent the first season terrified, expecting to be fired any second, and working like crazy to keep up with the other guys who all knew what they were doing and seemed to be able to learn their dialog in five minutes and hit their marks every time. Well, he'd caught on, and his actors would, too.

If they got picked up. If they got picked up.

Jonathan didn't let "Chance" sing his song during the scene, because there was dialog over a lot of it, but at the end he asked Adam to sing them out, and after he finished everyone whooped and cheered, not just because Adam did a great job with it but also, Lance thought, because they were really happy with what they'd all done.

He was happy with it, too.

* * *

"After the read-through we had drinks and nibbles and time to mingle," Adam explained. "It was really nice. I never went to a read-through before, I don't know if they usually do that but obviously they wouldn't invite the extras anyhow. It was cool meeting the other actors, they seem like a great bunch. And the writers, and some of the crew, even. There was a camera guy I got talking to, he said it was cool getting to hear the whole script before shooting started, mostly they just get their set-ups for each scene and don't get to make sense of it until the show is aired. And he said he didn't watch shows he'd worked on, most of the time."

Danielle nodded encouragingly, as a good friend should, and Adam obligingly told her about the other actors, about the story of the pilot, and about his shooting schedule. What he did not tell her was the way his belly had tightened up when had Lance Bass walked into the room and introduced himself as the Executive Producer. Or the way Adam had kept a wary eye on Lance during the socializing, and contrived not to be in any group Lance looked like getting close to, and said cheerful goodbyes to Jonathan and Gina and Melinda and got himself out of there before the Executive Producer could find a chance to talk to him.

Adam didn't think he'd be able to talk to Lance Bass until he'd managed to find a way to apologize for the stupid things he'd said at the club… and there was no way he could do that in front of other people, and he couldn't figure out a way to even bring it up that didn't sound like he was trying to make himself seem special. And until-unless-he could apologize he was stuck with this niggling fear that maybe he shouldn't have got this role, that someone was going to take him aside and say, sorry, we don't think you're a good fit, we brought somebody else in.

It didn't happen, though. He recorded the song with JC (who turned from a sweetheart into a holy terror with a relentless ear for detail) producing him, and got his scenes done, and even though he was bewildered at first and didn't really have a clue what he was doing, he listened to every word of advice and managed to get it right enough to please Jonathan. It was Paul, who played Gina's dad, Jem's foster-father, who gave Adam the best advice. "You've done theater, haven't you, kid," he said, while they waited for some set changes. "You're still doing theater acting."

"Musical theater. But I thought there was only acting acting," Adam said, humbly. If he'd known he would be here one day, maybe he wouldn't have dropped out of acting school. Nah, who was he kidding.

Paul looked at him kindly, his face so familiar from decades of character roles. "You've learned to radiate your emotions so they hit the back of the balcony," he said. "If you were in a tiny, experimental piece with an audience of twenty people crammed into the back room of some bar, you'd have to play it smaller."

Adam thought about it. "I never really did that kind of thing," he said, ruefully. He'd have loved to do a weird modern play but he'd never been cast in one. "When I worked on cruise ships the rooms were small, but it was big, showy material."

"Now you have a camera up in your face, you have to learn to keep the emotion inside your skin instead of sending it out. Try to keep everything right there under the surface, so the camera can see it but it doesn't, hmm, shout out."

He'd watched Paul very carefully during their next scene, trying to understand how it was done, and apparently just watching had been what Jonathan wanted, and the advice had really helped. He was going to learn so much from this.

He really, really wanted the show to be picked up.

* * *

Adam was expecting the call, but he wasn't expecting it to be Lance Bass who called.

"I have good news and bad news," Lance said.

Adam's stomach lurched. He knew. Good news, the show's been picked up. Bad news, we're dropping you.

"Yeah, bad news is, NBC passed on the show. Good news is, TNT picked us up."

It took a moment to sink in. "We-we got picked up? The show's happening?"

"Hell, yeah!"

"I-wow. That's fantastic."

"But..?"

"Is there a but?" Adam said, bracing himself.

"No, only you sounded like you have reservations."

"I thought, uh, I thought. You were dropping me."

"What? God, no, why would you think that?"

"I thought, I mean, you weren't at my audition, and I…" Now that he was saying it out loud it sounded really stupid.

"Okay, this is just actor paranoia, right? I know, massive insecurity, it goes with the job. I did see your audition, I watched it on the video feed. I already knew I wanted you for the part, we were just looking for any reason why we couldn't cast you."

"I-really?"

"Trust me, I'm the show runner. If I didn't want you on the show, you wouldn't be on the show. I admit, I did have some doubts. I kind of had an idea you were a jerk. But, everyone I talked to said you were a sweetheart and great to work with, so," Lance paused, and there was a wry note in his voice when he continued, "I'm guessing you're only a jerk to ex-teenage television stars who got lucky, right?"

"Oh, God," Adam said. "I am so, so sorry about that." What a relief to have an opening at last. "I was-God, I was an idiot and you're right, I was a real jerk."

"Don't worry about it."

"Thank you. I didn't even mean it-I was just really disappointed. We knew you were in the house and I wanted to impress you only I saw that you left half-way through the first number."

Lance laughed. "Eh, it's fine. I don't take that stuff personally."

"I just want you to know I didn't mean it, any of it."

"Forget it, it's okay."

"No, but I was so rude, and what I said-"

"Seriously, forget it. Man, next thing you'll be telling me you were a huge Synchronicity fan, and I'm pretty sure you were the coolest guy in high school and that wasn't exactly our demographic so you'll just sound like an ass-kisser."

"Er. Mmm." Wrong on every count, Adam thought, except maybe about wanting to kiss Lance's ass, which could be fun, but it didn't seem like the time to say so. "Well, thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. I love the part, and I am so glad the show got picked up. I think it's going to be great."

"Yeah, me too. At least, I hope it's going to be great, I have so many ideas, and now we're with TNT we should get to make most of them. I am so stoked about this show, I never got to run a project of my own before and we are going to have such a good time." Lance chuckled. He had a very sexy laugh, all deep and warm and-"Did you mean to say that out loud?"

"…not really," Adam said.

Lance laughed again. Still sexy. "Okay, then. I have a few more calls to make, 'cause this is the fun part of being the boss, so-you'll be getting your shooting schedule soon, but we need you to spend some time with JC before we start filming so he can get some work done on the songs."

"Awesome," Adam said, and wrote down the details with a shaking hand.

After getting on the phone to everyone he could think of who would shriek with delight when he told them the great news, Adam was about to shower, dress in his finest and head out to meet the gang when he got another call, this time from JC. Lance had told him Adam performed in a club, and he wanted to come and see the band.

So Adam told him when they were next performing, and gave him the address, and warned him to be ready to come right up on stage with them, and JC laughed and said he'd be up for that, and by the time Adam closed his cell and collapsed onto his bed, he felt as if he could fly.

"How is my life so awesome?" he asked the ceiling. "Seriously, how so fucking awesome?"

* * *

"I don't want you to expect-I mean, I'm only going to be onscreen for, like, two seconds," Adam warned.

His friends looked up at him from the couch and floor, then went back to their conversations. There were seven people in his tiny studio apartment, making enough noise for twenty. Two bottles of cold champagne were sited strategically at either end of the couch, but Cass wouldn't let anyone open them until after the big moment. Although if they carried on like this they weren't even going to hear it…

"Just get down here," Brad ordered, moving an inch sideways and patting the scant space between himself and Danielle. Adam checked his watch. Seven minutes, according to Lisa's list. He squeezed onto the couch and spread his arms over their shoulders. "Who has the remote? Let's have the sound up."

It didn't make a lot of difference-with this lot in the room, the conversation covered the sounds from the television. Adam hoped nobody else could hear how loudly his heart was beating. Any minute now he would be on television for the first time. Being an extra didn't count-not an extra who might, possibly, have been visible during that scene in the club, and even if he was nobody knew his name. But the very first airing of the Family Business trailer was due in the very next commercial break.

He hoped Lisa's list of transmission times was right. He hoped there hadn't been a last-minute change he hadn't heard about. He hoped, most fervently, that the little moments he had in the trailer had not been cut out. It wasn't his show, it was Gina and Jem's show, he was just the bartender, but it was a big deal for him, a really big deal, and-

The final theme music came on, and Brad shushed everyone authoritatively. They waited in breathless silence until-there it was. There he was, actually on TV and looking pretty good in his peacock shirt, and there was a cheer from everyone that drowned out the last few seconds of the trailer, and someone popped open a bottle of champagne and everyone kissed Adam and the volume in the room about trebled. Whew! The big moment was over, and he hadn't been cut out of the trailer or anything, and it looked so good, and-yeah, he thought, actor paranoia just like Lance had said, but he'd had too many chances that had fizzled out into nothing to be able to take this one for granted.

"We have to do this again when they show the first episode," Danielle said excitedly.

"Tuesday night, that's a great time slot," Alisan chimed in. "It seems like they're going to give your show a real chance to make it."

"That boy with the eyelashes, oh, my God," Danielle said. "He's the most beautiful thing I ever saw."

"Hey!" said Brad.

"Well, he doesn't have ridiculous facial hair," she retorted. "And his eyelashes, I swear, they're going to have a fan club all on their own." She had a point, Adam thought. Jem was going to be a big hit with the viewers, he was sure of it. And Brad's artistically carved beard was just silly.

"I suppose," Brad allowed, generously, "he is pretty. Too pretty to be straight. Tell me he's not straight."

"I haven't asked," Adam said. "But he is."

"Really?" They spoke together, but while Brad was cynical, Danielle sounded pleased.

"And he's going to be tripping over groupies any second," Adam predicted, grinning. "If the reaction of the women on the set is anything to go by."

"And the women in this very apartment, apparently," said Brad, but he allowed Alisan to pour him some more champagne anyway. "I suppose we can look forward to you getting a whole lot more action too, once you're rich and famous."

Adam stuck his tongue out, while Danielle and Alisan combined to defend his honor, which was sweet of them. "Actually," he found himself saying, "there's someone, uh, someone in the production company I'm… well, he's interesting."

This grabbed everyone's attention. Tommy loudly disavowed any intention of listening to details of Adam's big gay crush, but the general consensus was that this was to be explored. Adam noted that Tommy seemed to be listening anyway. Hah. There was a lot of demand for details, which Adam promptly made up. He had no intention of revealing that his high school crush, of all things, was still in force, so he based most of his description on Anthony Giordano instead. As he'd expected, this meant intense discussion, and a mixture of opinions on whether it was wise to date somebody at work-particularly when Adam rashly confirmed that Anthony had been present at his audition.

"You don't want people to say you only got the job because he wanted to fuck you," Tommy stated.

"Like anyone would think that!" Danielle was noisily indignant at the suggestion. "You only have to hear Adam sing to know he deserves his big break!"

"Oh, because truth is what matters!" Brad said. "People in the entertainment industry live for gossip. Besides, it's more competitive than the Olympics. If they can find something to tear someone down with, that's what will happen."

"I think Brad has a point," Cassidy said, quietly. "Be careful, Adam. Don't be in a hurry to start anything. There's plenty of men around who don't have any influence over whether you get work or not, you'd be way better off with one of them. Besides, what happens if you hook up with the guy and it doesn't work out? Could he get you fired?"

Anthony couldn't, but Lance could. "I don't think he'd do that," Adam said, and it sounded kinda feeble even to his own ears. "I don't think he's, uh, vindictive." After all, Lance hired him in spite of-everything-Lance was a decent person.

"You never can tell," Brad said, darkly. "You should probably stay clear, at least for a while."

"Yeah," said Alisan. "When you've established yourself, when you can point to the audience and say, you can't fire me, they won't like it, you can take risks. Right now, it's not worth it."

"Right," Brad said. "You have a real job and a regular paycheck. You can get sex anywhere."

Yeah, Adam thought, but he could not get Lance Bass anywhere. And Lance Bass would be more than just sex. He was, he was… he was Adam's boss, and they were right, it was a bad idea for all kinds of reasons. Adam would have to keep telling himself that.

* * *

Lance was incredibly busy. He had so much to get together, organizing the finances and the staff and the sets, working on the story ideas with Joey and the writers, checking budgets and scheduling with the production team, liaising with the network, and in his not-copious spare time, thinking up ideas for publicity. He loved his life! He had great people working for him, and stories to tell, and the TNT executives had been really positive about the pilot and their pitch for the series-plus they'd backed it up with a great time slot. Now, his team just had to make the best possible show they could and hope the audiences loved it, too.

It was always weird being back in the rhythm of shooting a television series, after all these years, but being in a completely different role. Joey was already nagging him to make an appearance, and he might do that, as much as anything to get it over with because it was inevitably going to happen. Him, and Joey, and JC, and Chris, too, if he could drag Chris away from Orlando. Justin, of course, wouldn't be on the show in their first season, but if they got renewed, if they were a success, Lance had high hopes that they'd get Justin to guest in their second year. That'd be a ratings winner.

Meanwhile, his hand-picked stars were doing great. Jem and Gina had such a fabulous onscreen relationship, it was as though they'd known each other all their lives. Lance had stopped worrying about whether Jem's lack of television experience was going to matter-the kid was born to it. Gina was living up to everything they'd expected of her, and the early publicity she was doing was going over very well with the audience that mattered. Michela, playing Carla, had startled everyone with the instant chemistry between her and Mark-the-foxy-Fedex-guy in the first of their new episodes. That was a storyline that was going to have to go somewhere, and Lance kept jotting down notes on the possibilities, much to Joey's annoyance.

And Adam was also working out just great. JC was enchanted with his amazing, endless voice. He'd watched Adam's band's performance and ever since had been badgering Lance to get a proper band onto the show so that they could have Adam strut through something more dynamic than the piano-accompanied ballads he'd started out with. They'd revamped the bar set to include a stage, and the fourth new episode would see the Adam singing Born to be Wild. That week's foster-sister had been switched from would-be comedian to would-be guitarist weeks ago, and "Thessaly's band" was probably going to make a few more appearances in the weeks to come-one of the many advantages of a set-up that involved a huge family of sometime foster kids, they always had a reason to come and see Mama and Papa Manetti. 'C was talking to some outside songwriters, too, trying to persuade them they wanted to write for this guy. And after talking to the TNT executives, Lance had decided to increase Adam's prominence in the trailers, and Adam had shot some close-ups of his "Wanna tell me about it" line just this week.

Lance had had had a bit of inspiration on the publicity front, too. He'd better head over to the set and tell his singing bartender about it.

Lance stuck his head into the makeup trailer just as Katya was putting the last touches to Adam's pretty, pretty eyes. "Hi-got a moment?"

"Sure, come on in. At least, I can listen, I don't think Katya's going to let me talk."

"Damn right," she said, cheerfully.

Lance came inside and perched himself against the far shelf. "I need you to do an extra publicity gig," he said, "but I wasn't sure about your schedule with the band. Do you perform Mondays?"

"Not usually," Adam said, but Katya glared and he stilled.

"The seventeenth. Radio show, starting at ten pm. Don't worry about replying, I'll just tell you." It was always best to work around his people, if he could, and anyway, Adam's makeup had to be done-no sense interrupting the process and making him late. "I don't know if you listen to Manic FM, but they have a regular call-in slot Monday nights where people send in their problems and listeners call with suggestions. Well, since Joey actually conceived your character as a problem page guru who gets to provide alcohol as well as advice, I thought it'd be good publicity for you to go in and answer problems. They get celebrity guests in sometimes."

"Cool," Adam said.

"You'll be available? You'll have to let him answer this one, babe."

"Yeah, no problem. I'll tell the guys I'm not available to rehearse on the seventeenth."

"Okay, then. I'll get out of your way." Lance dropped his hand onto Adam's shoulder for a moment, then left.

As he was on his way towards today's set, Lance noticed a familiar figure a little way ahead of him. "Hey! Jesse! Wait up."

Jesse turned around and smiled. Yeah, he was still cute, but Lance realized with relief that he wasn't feeling any pangs, not anymore. "Hi, babe. How are you?"

"I'm great, really great. Actually, I'm really nervous. You do know this is my first speaking part?"

"Everyone has to start somewhere," Lance said, with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "You'll be fine."

"It was so great of you to-thank you for this, seriously."

"Hey, 'Cute Guy in Blue T-shirt', it had your name on it. I mean, it's not much, but it's a start."

Jesse grinned. "I'll try not to let you down. Uh, am I going in the right direction? I'm supposed to be on the bar set? I don't want to be late."

"You're fine, Adam's not out of makeup yet. Come on, I'll walk with you." He took Jesse along to the set, introduced him to the director, and gave him a hug before heading back to his office. Yeah, Jesse was basically a sweetheart, it hadn't really been his fault he couldn't stick it out with Lance for the long haul. If Lance had had the courage to come out back then, maybe things would have been different. But a gay guy on a major teen-focused television series had seemed like a step too far, at the time.

His feelings then had given him the tiny seed of the idea that had grown into his very own series, had grown into Family Business, and he wasn't going to waste any time regretting things he'd had good reasons for not doing, back then. Right here, right now, everything was running incredibly smoothly. Until part-way through shooting the fifth episode (they were going to run the pilot as season opener, after a couple of re-shot scenes and a slight re-edit), Lance got a phone call that sent chills down his spine.

* * *

"So it's still a great job?" Danielle asked, accepting another vodka cocktail.

"It is, it really is. I love it," Adam said, and slid back onto the couch next to her. "I swear, I've learned more about acting since I got this gig than every other job combined. Plus, working with JC is amazing, he's incredibly supportive and he keeps pushing for me to do more. Last week, they brought in a band, and I got more scenes than usual, too, because the band was part of the A-plot."

"But mostly you get to work one or two days a week?" Brad said. "I could go for that."

"Well, sure, but you know, I have to learn my dialog and prep my song, and record it before we shoot the scene, so it's not that light. I'm usually only on set one or two days per episode, though. Plus I've been doing publicity, mostly radio stuff with JC, promoting the new music."

"I like a job that leaves you time to stay up past midnight with your friends."

"Jealous much?"

"Oh, hell, yes, I'm jealous! It sounds perfect."

"It almost is. Except I don't get to see a lot of the other regulars. In the pilot we had scenes together, where I-Chance, my character-told them to do what they wanted to do and see if they could make a living at it. But since then, my stuff's been with guest stars, which means I miss out on some of the fun. I hear a lot about what Jem and Michela get up to on set. Sounds like they have a lot of laughs, especially when we have Paul in as well-not that they aren't professional, but, you know. There was this one time, Gina admitted to liking Peeps-"

"Peeps are the devil!" Brad and Danielle chimed in together.

"She knows that, now," Adam said, grinning. "Jem put Peeps all over her trailer, in her shoes, in her coat pocket, her hairbrush, everywhere. And apparently, they were shooting on the office set and he hid them there, too, and at the end of the take she had a whole handful of them, and she threw them at him. Jem told me it was the take they used, but I'm not sure if that's true."

"It doesn't sound true," Brad observed.

"No… but Gina is an incredible actor. She corpses like the rest of us, sometimes, but she can keep a straight face through all kinds of stuff. Oh, like, there's a family photo on the wall, and one time, someone substituted in a picture of a gorilla family. She didn't miss a beat. Gina's adorable. And Monday, I get to work with her again."

"Is she the secretary or the-"

"No, she's the lead, Michela's the secretary. Well, not secretary, the… the office admin person. Carla. Secretary sounds like steno and typing and guarding the boss's door, and her character's more about charming the mailman and organizing stuff and fighting with the hot delivery guy. Gina's Ace, the big sister who does the computer stuff and the puzzles."

"I can't wait to see you on TV for real," Danielle said. "How long is it till they air the first episode? We're going to have the greatest watch party known to man."

"I'm not sure. Not for weeks yet. It's kind of a crazy schedule. Honestly, I'm not sure what day of the week it is sometimes. It's mostly a six-day shoot, so nothing ever happens on the same day as last week."

His phone rang, and everyone startled. Doubtfully, Adam picked it up and checked the number on the screen. Lance Bass? Calling at-he checked his watch-almost one in the morning? What the hell?

He'd better answer. "Er, hello?"

"Hey, Adam, it's Lance Bass. Look, I'm sorry to call so late, we have an emergency. I need you to come into the studio tomorrow. Are you ready to do your scene?"

"I, yes, sure." Never had he been so glad to have gotten into the habit of working on his lines as soon as he saw the script. "I was supposed to be recording the song tomorrow afternoon, is that still happening?"

"Yeah, absolutely. But we have to do some rescheduling, and you're the easiest to rearrange."

"What happened?"

"Jem had an accident. He's in the hospital."

"Oh, my God. Is he-is he going to be okay?"

"He's all banged up, he broke his leg and fractured a couple ribs."

"Shit."

"No kidding. He'll be fine, but it's going to take a while. Okay, I have more calls to make, so I'll see you tomorrow morning. Usual call time."

Adam closed his phone very slowly.

"What happened? Bad news?" Danielle asked.

"Guys, you're gonna have to leave. I'm working tomorrow morning. Emergency reschedule. I need to put in some time on the script before I turn in."

"So, what happened?" Brad said, more pointedly.

"Oh, God. One of our leads is in the hospital. Sounds like he won't be back for-" How long did it take for a broken leg to heal? "For a while."

"Crap," said Brad. "So what happens to the show?"

"Poor guy," said Danielle at the same time. "Is he ill? Is he going to be okay? Wait, is it that cute one with the eyelashes?"

"Yeah, that's the one," Adam said. He was so grateful to her for focusing him back where he ought to be focused-on Jem, who was the real sufferer in this situation. "He broke his leg."

"So he's not going to be back in action for… well, I don't know, a month? Two months? Six months?" Brad said, sounding properly alarmed. "It's not like you can disguise a broken leg. What happens to the show if one of the leads is out?"

"I don't know," Adam said. "I really don't know."

After twenty minutes convincing himself he did know his lines, Adam forced himself into bed and lay staring at darkness, wondering when he might be able to get to sleep. What was going to happen? What did you do when one of the leads was injured? Would they be able to postpone everything until Jem was better? Would they re-cast and start again from the beginning? Adam didn't much like that idea, besides, it didn't seem plausible the company would just junk the pilot and the four episodes they'd already shot. The money involved would be ridiculous.

Or… or would it be canceled? Did TV companies care if someone broke his leg, or did they just care about filling their airtime?

Shit. Shit. He'd never get another break like this one. If Family Business was canceled, that was Adam's television career down the drain. Oh, god, was he a completely evil person for thinking about his career when Jem was in the hospital?

It took an extreme effort of will to force his gloomy thoughts out of his mind, concentrate on being calm and settle down to sleep.

* * *

Joey and Lisa waylaid Adam as he left the makeup trailer and escorted him onto the bar set, where Gina was already waiting. They hugged, and she managed a wan smile.

"How is he? Is there any more news?" she asked Joey.

"Lance should be here soon, he'll tell us if there are any developments."

"What happened, do we know? Was he in his car?" Adam asked.

"He stepped out to get a latte and some moron hit him on the crosswalk," Lisa said. She didn't look as though she'd had any sleep at all-which she probably hadn't, Adam realized. Probably nobody on the production side got any sleep last night. "Here. Script revisions."

"Uh. Wow," Adam said, taking the pale green pages.

"We're rewriting the story so we can use the broken leg," Joey said. He looked a bit haggard, too. "Jem's going to be in a cast for a while, there's no sense trying to pretend around it so we'll use it in the show, but it means Ace will have to do a lot of the action we originally gave Mickey, which'll change your scene together… totally. Sorry about that."

"Unless you can learn your lines miraculously fast, you may be improvising a bit," said a new voice. It was Agnes, the director, who hugged them both briefly. "I understand Joey and Lance were working on the script all night."

"My boss, the insomniac," Joey said. "Lance and me, we figured out the basics last night, got the stories integrated. We're turning it into a two-parter," he explained, mostly to Adam, it looked like, "and we have to use only the characters we'd already planned on using for this episode and the next one, because we have the actors lined up, and all the same sets and locations. Yeah," he nodded, and he really did look haggard, "quite a challenge. I got the team onto it first thing, but all we have right now is your scene together, plus there's the music. So, you're up. JC's coming in later this morning."

"He is? I thought morning was mostly theoretical for JC," Adam said.

Joey grinned. "True, but Lance can be very persuasive. He knows where the bodies are buried."

"Well, I sure hope he knows where next week's director buried the bodies," Agnes said. "If this is going to be a two-parter, we absolutely have to get together and work things out, and he hasn't answered any of Melinda's messages yet."

"Good morning, everybody," said Lance, looking a bit rumpled but bright-eyed and surprisingly cheerful for someone whose show was on the brink of disaster. There was the obligatory round of hugs, and he forestalled the questions. "Before you ask, Jem's basically okay, he had a good night once they set his leg and gave him the tasty drugs. Best thing we can do for him is get the rewrites done and reassure him he still has a job."

"Did you see him this morning?" Gina asked.

"I took his mom to the hospital, her flight from Honolulu got in just before six."

Gina looked surprised. "You picked her up yourself?" Executive producers didn't usually do chauffeur duty, Adam supposed.

Lance shrugged. "Had nothing better to do. Joey went to sleep on me, the wimp, and there was nobody left on the call list who I could usefully speak to at that time of day."

"Hey, I'm an old man now, I need my rest," Joey said. "We should leave these guys to get on with their work. I need to see how my team are doing, and Lisa needs to organize a donut run or there'll be a mutiny."

Agnes put a hand on Lance's arm. "You need to get hold of your episode six director. We have got to co-ordinate on this now that it's going to be a two parter, especially if we're going to defer the Mickey scenes into late next week."

"Yeah, about that. Prep's going to be insane, with the rewrites, but I was wondering if you could stay for the whole thing? You're scheduled to do another ep with us late in the season, if he's available to swap, would you be willing to go with that?"

"Oh, God," she said, running a hand through her short brown hair. "I'd love to, but it's going to be nine parts inspiration and not enough time for the perspiration part."

"I'll take that, if you can do it," Lance replied instantly.

"If Mike Hollis is willing to trade, then yes," she said. "You're going to owe me the biggest favor." Lance grinned, and offered his hand to shake on it. "Go on, then, go do your job and let me do mine."

"About that," Lance said, "I had a thought in the car coming over. I think Chance should teach Ace how to flirt. After she tries to sweet-talk the first guy and gets blown off, Joe, you know the scene? Right after that."

"Oh, man," said Joey. "You mean we have to write another new scene for these two to shoot before lunch? I knew I should have run away to sea."

"Um," Adam said, "could we maybe… improv that? I mean… would it help?"

"It wouldn't take any longer than learning lines," Gina said.

Agnes got a faraway look in her eyes. "And we could, yes, I think, yes, we film it all in tight close up, get as much coverage as we can…. Okay, guys. You two go through your new script for the first scene together while I have a talk with the DP."

That first scene was at least half improvised, given the newness of the script, and it seemed to work okay. And the flirting scene would turn out to be one of the best parts of the episode, once the cuts from what felt like a thousand tiny takes had been pieced together into a frantic montage. Adam found he was basing a lot of Chance's flirting advice on things he'd seen Brad doing-there was a surprising amount of Brad in Chance, he hoped it wouldn't be too obvious when the show started airing, or Brad would be unbearable-and Gina had such a firm handle on her character that they were able to make it funny, frustrating and poignant by turns. It was really enjoyable, once he got over his worries about improvising. Best of all, they were done in time for lunch, so Gina went off to the hospital to cheer up Jem with news of how things were going, and Adam found himself eating his salad along with JC and Lance, who were looking through JC's workbook and frowning over each of the songs.

"We're going to need a different kind of song for the first half of the two-parter," Lance explained. "You Ruined Me is perfect for the overall theme, we'll keep it for the end of the second half, but we need something different than what JC had for next week to use in part one, something frantic, something about how people rush around and how hard it is to connect, for the end of part one when Ace is trying to get the information out of everyone while Mickey's stuck in the hospital."

"I don't have anything like that," JC said, mournfully. "When it was Mickey charming his way through the city, the feel was totally different. And anyway, the song wasn't going to be about that stuff then."

"We'll just have to use someone else's song, like last week," Lance said. "We always did plan on having a few numbers that you didn't write, 'C."

"Sure," said JC, frowning, "but there was a good scripted reason for using a cover song last week. I feel like I'm letting you down on this one."

"You'd only be doing that if you didn't help get something recorded," Lance said, briskly. "So come on, get that music-encyclopedia brain of yours online and find something for Adam to sing."

"What do you have in mind?" Adam asked.

"That's the problem," said JC. "We don't."

"If you know of anything," Lance said, "anything that might work? We could use some ideas."

With those amazing green eyes turned to him so hopefully, Adam really, really wanted to be the one to save the day with a miraculous idea. "Well," he said, cautiously, "there is a song that sounds like it'd fit, but it's, uh, from a musical." He sang a few lines. "Another hundred people just got off of the train, And came up through the ground, While another hundred people just got off of the bus And are looking around… I don't know it properly, but it's definitely about people rushing around, and making connections. It's from Company, I remember it from high school. I know it's not the usual vibe for this show."

"YouTube," said Lance, and picked up his laptop from the chair beside him. Moments later the three of them were listening to Pamela Myers sing, and nodding, and smiling.

"God," said Lance, "that's perfect. I could kiss you."

"Feel free!" Adam was, maybe, a little giddy from the breathless morning he'd had.

Lance didn't kiss him. He just smirked, and said, "I'll talk to Agnes," snatched up his laptop and bounded off.

"Come on," JC said. "We need to get to the studio and record this stuff. He can kiss you later."

Adam had already been working on You Ruined Me, but this new one was a tough song to sing, so many words tumbling over themselves to fill each line of music and no time to breathe between them. But, it worked, and once Adam was confident he knew how to sing it, he found he adored the song. Real diva stuff. Cam, who seemed to be getting the regular gig as both his offscreen accompanist and the bar's resident pianist, was delighted with the challenge of the rippling score. By the time Lance and Agnes arrived they could give a creditable performance, and Adam knew from the way Agnes' face went blank that she was envisioning how it would fit into the show. He finished singing, she smiled, and Lance raised both thumbs in triumphant approval, high-fived Adam, and disappeared off to do the next thing.

"I think Lance runs on rocket fuel," Adam said, after they'd gone.

"Yeah," said JC. "He likes a challenge. He gets bored when things are easy."

"Things seem to be pretty interesting right now."

"Lance will deal. Joey's the one I feel sorry for," said JC. "The writers had so much material all prepped and done, and now they're going to have to re-work everything to incorporate Jem's injuries. And Lance is going to be throwing more ideas at them all the time, because he does that. And the characters will change from what they thought they were writing."

Lance was pretty amazing, Adam thought. He'd kept things under control today, and last night, and somehow everyone had faith that with him in charge this was going to work out. He didn't think JC wanted to know his thoughts, though, so he just said, "No wonder Joey wants us bubble-wrapped."

He was absolutely exhausted by the time they'd shot his musical numbers. He handed over his costume and sank onto the nearest chair. Thank God it was Friday and he could sleep in tomorrow.

A brief touch on the shoulder. It was Lance. "I just wanted to say, you did a great job today. Thank you."

Adam summoned up a smile. "It's been quite an experience. Is-is it going to be okay? I mean, do you really think you'll be able to keep the show going?"

"I think so." Lance pulled up a little stool opposite him, and patted him on the knee as he sat down. "We got a couple extra days out of the network, we'll need to give Agnes some more time, since she doesn't have a working script yet. Agnes is a star, seriously, she's amazing. Thank God it happened this week, with her in as director."

"And Jem will be able to do some filming next week?"

"Poor kid. I sent Katya from makeup over to the hospital to take pictures of him while the bruises are spectacular." He paused. "Does that make me a bad person?"

Adam laughed and shook his head. "Probably. I don't know. Did he mind?"

"He's going to be desperate to make it up to us when he gets back on set. I'll have to make sure we get a really interesting Mickey episode for when he's up to full strength again. Also, we should pull something, some kind of practical joke that'll make him feel like he's not being handled with kid gloves all the time. We have to make sure he knows he's still part of the team. But I think this may be good for the show, you know? It gives the rest of the ensemble a chance to do a bit more, and it's really going to bring more depth to the characters. And everyone's being so great about this-Elena's coming in for a day with Jem, she wasn't booked but she agreed to do it because we really need Momma Manetti to show up at the hospital."

"I guess people pull together when there's a disaster."

"Yeah, the writing team won't be getting a lot of rest this weekend. We'll have the revised script and schedule couriered out as soon as possible. You'll probably have a couple more scenes to shoot next week, but you should have time to prepare for them. You got a lot thrown at you today."

"It was good, though. I mean. The improv stuff with Gina was amazing. I love that woman."

"Yeah, get in line!" Lance got to his feet. "Get some rest over the weekend. There'll be a lot to do next week." He bent, and to Adam's astonishment kissed him firmly on the lips, said, "Seriously, good work today," and made his exit.

All in all, a kind of amazing day.

* * *