Free Secrets of My Hollywood Life #2: On Location by Jen Calonita Page B

out of the ivory plastic blinds of my trailer. It's parked on the backlot at Wagman Brothers Studios, where we're shooting on the soundstage today. I'm looking for Liz, who is on her way back from craft services with our lunch.
    "That's disgusting!" Austin groans, although his laughter says otherwise.
    Hearing his voice is like drinking peppermint tea from Elixir &Tonics (my favorite tea shop in LA.)--I can liter ally feel my stress level dropping. We've been shooting nine days now, and I'm talking about long days. Last night I left the set at one AM and was due back at seven thirty. "Thankfully it was fake," I giggle. "They made it out of brown paint, ce real, and rubber cement."
    "Are you serious?" Austin stops laughing. "That's pretty cool."
    "Yep. Just one of the fascinating movie factoids I can tell you, Meyers. I'm saving the rest for when you visit," I joke, even though the situation is serious. I've put off telling Austin about Drew till we could talk in person, but I've only seen him once in the past two weeks when he was in the middle of his team's lacrosse finals, which they lost. Not ex actly the best place for a tête-à-tête.
    "Sorry" Austin suddenly sounds beat. "Between all those practices Coach Connors scheduled to get ready for the fi nals and having to finish my Civil War term paper, I haven't had a minute to breathe. School may be out, but the team has had to do all these newspaper interviews about Clark making it to their first-ever lacrosse finals, and then I've had lacrosse camp with the kids every day and it's just been chaos.
    "You're a celebrity," I tease. "I saw the big picture of you in the Santa Rosita Ledger. " I sent Liz out to get me a copy.
    "I look ridiculous," Austin mumbles. "I don't know why they ran such a big picture of a sweaty me and such a small shot of the team. The article was about the team!"
    "Welcome to my world. If you're cute, you sell news papers." We both laugh. "I wish I could have been at the game," I add wistfully.
    "Come on now, you had to work," Austin points out.
    "I know." Sigh. Things are going so well between us. But I can't avoid the Drew conversation any longer. "There's something I've been meaning to talk to you about and I was trying to avoid doing it over the phone, but we've both been so busy and..."
    "Are you okay?" I can hear the concern in his voice and my heart melts. "Is it Sky? You haven't said much about what's going on at that movie set."
    I bite my lip. "I haven't wanted to burden you," I admit.
    "Burden me?" Austin laughs. "That's what boyfriends are for, or didn't anyone tell you that? I think about what you're doing all the time. It would be nice to know--hint, hint--what's going on."
    "Let's just say Hutch could give your Coach Connor a run for his money in the power trip department," I sigh. "But I can complain about that later. This is more important. It's about Drew." I catch Nadine look up from her spot on the couch in the living room. She's wearing her usual set en semble of a fitted tee, jeans, and running shoes. She quickly goes back to reading e-mails on her BlackBerry.
    There's a long silence. "What about him?" Austin asks finally.
    "I wasn't completely upfront about why he was acting so weird at the Xbox party," I explain nervously. "The truth is...Drew and I went out a few times." I wince, waiting for his reaction. "It was before I even met you," I babble, trying to fill the uncomfortable silence. "I just didn't know how to tell you that I was spending the summer working with my moronic ex."
    Austin groans. "So now instead of thinking of you all day, I'm going to be thinking about what you're doing with Drew."
    "I can't stand the guy," I insist. "You have nothing to worry about."
    "I wish you would have told me," Austin says. He sounds annoyed, but not angry "It's not like you don't know all about my ex."
    When I think of him and loathsome Lori, I want to vomit. I guess I see his point. "I promise I'll be more open," I vow, knowing that