“Want a glass this time?” Harley asks.
“Fine. Make me use my manners and shit.”
By the time we land at a private airfield outside Vegas, I’m a little tipsy and buzzing happily. We go straight from the plane and are ushered through the private terminal and into an awaiting stretch Hummer.
I stare at Harley, like, really?
“I figured we’d do this trip in style,” Harley says.
“Mmhmm, style. This would have nothing to do with drawing attention to the three members of Eleven hanging out so the tabloids catch wind of a reunion and having the fans beg for it until we all relent?”
“I am a pillar of innocence,” Harley says.
I have to admit, his passion for us getting back together is alluring. He doesn’t need the publicity like the rest of us, so I don’t get the impression he’s using us for a PR grab. He genuinely wants it to happen.
“Where to now? Driving to the middle of nowhere?” I ask.
“Yep. Then we’re gonna kidnap him from the set and go to a late dinner at the Catalina Casino.”
“Wait, does he know we’re coming?”
Harley grins. That motherfucker.
“You’re having fun with this, aren’t you?” I turn to Brix. “Isn’t this the type of thing you’re supposed to rein in?”
“Hell no,” Brix says immediately. “I’m assuming you know how he is when he gets something in his head.”
“Definitely.”
“Oh, look! Minibar.” Harley pulls out a bottle of champagne and hands it to me. “Keep drinking. If you have liquid in your mouth, you can’t talk about me like I’m not here.”
“I’m not really a wine kind of person.” I pop the cork anyway and take a sip straight from the bottle. “On second thought. This isn’t too bad.”
“All the whiskey probably helps,” Brix mutters.
Harley and I drink, we ask the driver for some music, and when an Eleven song comes on, we can’t help laughing and reminiscing.
“Remember when Blake’s clumsy ass fell off the stage because he was too busy trying to read a fan’s sign and kind of just kept walking to get closer?” I howl.
“Hey, how many times have you fallen over in public?” Harley argues.
“I never fell off the stage. And mine was never from being clumsy. It was pure drunkenness.”
We bring up story after story from our touring days, but I’m conscious of bringing up Mason. I’ve always been scared to talk about him to anyone because I’m paranoid about people seeing right through me.
The drive out to the desert feels way shorter than it should.
When we pull up to a gated area, Harley stands and pops his head through the sunroof. “Harley Valentine to see Blake Monroe.”
Unsurprisingly, we’re let right on set. Oh, to have the powerful name of Harley Valentine. Not that my own name doesn’t come with perks. Denver Smith will get me into clubs and some paparazzi interested, but it doesn’t have the same pull as Harley’s. The name I grew up with—Denny Mariano—will get me nowhere. No one even knows it. Unlike Harley, where a quick Google search will tell you he changed his name, the label wanted to bury my past. Well, more specifically, my birth parents’ past. When the guys from Eleven call me Denny, people think it’s a nickname. It’s not.
The driver pulls the monstrosity of this tank up to a row of trailers much like they have on the set of Fandom.
A production assistant approaches with his finger to his headset. “Come this way. We’ll take you to where you can watch. We’re almost wrapped for the day.”
I’m delightfully wobbly as we follow the dude to a fake eight-story building with scaffolding all around it. The whole set is lit up with industrial lights, and it’s hard to make out what it’s going to look like postproduction. Are we supposed to be in a city? Is that a high-rise? Or is it supposed to look like a construction site?
“They only have one take of the action sequence, so we need quiet on the set,” the PA tells us. He ushers us closer to some more crew who are watching. There are screens showing multiple camera angles, and Blake stands on top of the building wearing all black, a bulletproof vest, and holding what looks like an assault rifle. Coby Godspeed, eat your heart out.
I’ve lost count of how many movies they’ve shoved together in this franchise in two and a half years. He’s so busy filming them back-to-back, he might be making Coby Godspeed films forever.
We all watch on in fascination as there’s some cheesy dialogue about the building about to blow, and then in the next second, Blake turns and runs for the ledge, but before he can leap over it, the director calls, “Cut.”
“Well, that was anticlimactic,” I say.
They reset for the next shot, only this time, it’s without the dialogue. Blake is in a harness, and he runs at the wall, but this time, he keeps going.
I gasp as his figure flies over the top of the building, free-falling a few stories in seconds.
Blake grabs onto a ledge and dangles there for a moment, but then an explosion shakes the ground and the building above, and he drops again to the next ledge.
I go to open my mouth to ask when Blake got such good upper-body strength when I remember I’m supposed to keep quiet. I don’t really feel like donating money toward reshoots.
The top of the building is on fire, and another explosion rocks through the crumbling building, this time on the other side.
There’s a quiet snicker beside me, and I turn to find Brix trying not to laugh. I don’t know what he finds funny.
Then with agility I didn’t know Blake had, he turns and lets go completely, diving onto the awaiting inflatable pillow underneath.
“Cut,” the director says again.
“Whoa,” Harley says.
“No shit,” I agree.
Brix scoffs. “So unrealistic.”
Ah, guess I now know what he found so funny.
A voice comes from behind us. “What the fuck are you two doing out here?”
We turn to come face-to-face with Blake. He’s still in his Coby getup, but— “Uh …” I glance toward where the guy I thought was Blake climbs off the safety thing and then back at Real Blake. “Harley, are we drunker than we thought? There are two Blakes.”
“Stunt double,” Blake says. “You really think they let me do any of the fun stuff around here?”
His blond hair is all wet and slicked back in that Coby Godspeed way, and his smile still brings the same comfortable warmth it always has. When it comes to our manufactured personalities, I’m the nice one, Harley’s the star, and Blake’s the quietly charismatic one. Which is why I was surprised when he’d landed a role as this big, super badass on film because it can’t be further from who he is in real life. I guess he’s a good actor because he can pull it off.
“Blake!” Harley exclaims. “We missed you.”
Blake looks at me as Harley wraps him in a hug. “I’m going to answer your question with I think Harley is drunker than you thought. What are you doing here?”
Harley pulls back and pouts. “You’ve been avoiding my calls.”
“I’ve been working.”
“He’s trying to get Eleven back together,” I say. “I’m still a firm no. But he tricked me onto the plane here by saying we were going to dinner with you. And that you knew.”