Enquiring Minds Want to Know
Like many stars of the Birthright cast, Anna had chosen to live semi-permanently in the posh world of Las Vegas hotels. Searchlight didn’t have anything suitable, and Anna wasn’t about to buy anything in the desert. Her real home was actually in Oklahoma. It was her parents’ farmhouse. She owned it now, along with everything else they had to their names.

The hotel she chose was the Four Seasons, on the upper floors of Mandalay Bay. There was no casino below it, and that led to a calmer atmosphere. Despite years spent in Los Angeles trying to make it as an actress, she was still a rural girl at heart.

Anna got away from the Birthright convention around five and headed home. By the time she showered, put on comfortable clothes, and room service brought her dinner, it was seven. Her window shades were open to the sky, which faded blue into black earlier all the time.

She ran a comb through her hair and watched the traffic from a wingback chair. Up here, it was just a series of red and white lights. Anna’s toes dug into the thick carpet.

Orrin felt like he was in a bad spy movie. He'd shown up outside of Anna's hotel just after six, then asked the concierge if 'Miss Finn' was alone. He'd finally taken the elevator, his posture hunched and a pair of sunglasses on against possibly being recognized. The magazine containing the story about his co-star's pictures was rolled up in his back pocket.

He cast a look up and down the hall before knocking, wondering if he wasn't throwing himself across a sacrificial altar. If the blonde was going to get wrapped up in some kind of scandal, staying away might be better for his career. Then again, the thought that some...cretin had had their grubby hands all over Anna didn't sit well with him. He was just egotistical enough to know that he'd been rocking her world lately.

Orrin adjusted his shades, rapped on the door in a businesslike fashion. He could make himself a nuisance if he had to.

Anna looked up. The dinner cart had only been there for ten minutes or so, its wealth of baked chicken, roasted vegetables, and fresh fruit only partly eaten by the actress. She liked to pick at her food. That way, she didn’t feel so gluttonous when she ate it all. “I’m not finished eating! Come back, please!”

She put her comb on the nightstand and watched the shadow of feed under her door. They didn’t seem in a hurry to leave. With all the claustrophobia of the convention barely behind her, she’d rather not deal with a server hoping for an autograph tonight.

“Seriously!” she added for emphasis. Anna eyed the slide-lock. Perhaps she should’ve engaged that, as well. Right now, she wanted to crack open a bottle of champagne, drink it straight from the net and getting rip-roaring drunk. Orrin hadn’t said more than two words to her all day. A fan that asked them to pose together ended up stuffed between them in the picture while an onlooker snapped it. Only fifty or so people asked her about the ‘affair’ with Mickey right in front of Orrin.

Outside in the hall, Orrin said something vile under his breath, squinting at the door as if he were trying to see through it. Was she in there with that asshole? She'd better not be. He rubbed his hands together, then dragged one through his hair. The picture of frustration. He did another check of his surroundings, found himself alone, then took hold of the door handle and twisted.

"Sorry if I'm interrupting an assignation," he said sarcastically, stopping a foot or so away from the dinner cart to jam both hands into his pockets. His expression was set, mulish. "But I'd really like to have a word with you now, please. If it's not too much trouble."

The actor removed his hands from his pockets, glanced around, stuffed them back out of sight. "Is he here?" he asked, his voice quieter, deceptively even. "Has he got his camera with him? Because I'd really like to take it from him and insert it up his..."

“Orr-in!”

Anna got up and stomped her foot. Apparently that particular habit belonged to the actress and not the character. She remained by her wingback chair, with its safe distance from where Mr. Jealous Lover stood, and curled her fingers around the heavy comb she’d earlier set down.

“You scared the shit outta me! I thought you were some pervy waiter breaking in.” She huffed and threw the comb at him, a flimsy gesture in her nightclothes. “Of course he’s not in here, he never was in here! But feel free to check the stupid shower stall if it’ll help ya sleep at night.” The haughty tone made her feel justified in her precarious situation. If Anna were the type to be honest with herself, she’d recognize that Orrin had a reason to be concerned.

Still. She didn’t like how he just assumed she was sleazy. No benefit of the doubt here. Anna wondered where he got off, acting like she was a girl to hide one minute, and then getting all offended that she might’ve slept around in the next.

The comb smacked Orrin in the chest and dropped to the floor. His shoulders bunched, and he worked the tension out a fraction at the time, breathing through his nose. "A little warning would have been nice, hmm?" he said, taking another step closer. He wanted to kick the dinner cart over or something, and his foot scraped against the carpet as if he were a bull that was about to charge.

"Far be it from me to tell you who you should and shouldn't cavort with," he continued dramatically, yanking the crumpled magazine out of his pocket and waving it around. Had he made a mistake in not going public with their relationship? He shook his head stubbornly. Even if he hadn't that didn't justify this.

His shoe dragged across the carpet again, and he threw the magazine at the wall in a forceful arc. "You know, if you had an issue with something, you could have said," he intoned. "I would rather have heard it from you than some post-adolescent who read about it in the fucking Enquirer!"

Anna thought, exactly! Far be it from him! If Orrin had manned up and asked her to be his real girlfriend, maybe he’d have some say-so in who she... cavorted with. Of course, Anna never outright asked him to go public. No way. It would’ve come off like a crazy-girl ultimatum.

Speaking of crazy, like she’d touch Mickey Rubles with a ten-foot pole.

Anna stomped around the foot of the bed and got her wild arm gestures on. “Oh! So you believe everything people read in the Enquirer now?! What are you, retarded? I didn’t sleep with Mickey. He’s the freakin’ scum of the earth! It‘s just the pictures, that’s all.”

Belatedly it occurred to her to keep her voice down, in case a neighbor knew who lived there.

Orrin scowled, not realizing he was looming over Anna's shorter frame until he was actually doing it. "Right," he said sharply, looking down into her brown eyes. "I'm the one who's retarded. You're the one letting some...slime ball take naked pictures of you, and I'm the one who's retarded."

Their voices were rising at the same level, and if the situation didn't get defused soon they were going to have even more press to deal with. Orrin wasn't sure he gave a damn. Still, he couldn't help but think she looked really sexy when she got mad like this.

"When?" he asked her, trying to modulate his tone. "When did it happen? Did he ask you for money, is that it?"

“Uh!” A frustrated noise came out of her throat. “No, there wasn’t any money!” Anna put her hands on her hips. If she couldn’t add height to her frame, at least she could give herself some width. Illogically it made her feel less like a kid in front of him, despite the childish pose. “Look, he didn’t even take the pictures. I took ‘em. It was two months ago and I was gonna give ‘em to you, I swear.”

Anna got flushed around her neck when she thought about telling the rest of it. It was humiliating, him knowing she was almost a failure. But if she ever wanted Orrin to get in bed with her again, she’d better come clean. So she went on, “Right around then, Marge from the writing team pulled me into a conference. She said... she said Max thought the fans would get bored with regular-old-waitress Hannah and the special effects to do her nature stuff were too expensive. The network was talking about cutting budget anyway, so they were thinking on sidelining me, making me into a guest star until they came up with something better. So I went and begged Mickey to come up with a better idea, so they wouldn’t axe me.”

Anna shrugged. “He wanted to have sex with me. I didn’t want to, so I asked if he’d settle for naked pictures.”

He listened, his expression still set, shoulders still taut with annoyance. "Son of a bitch," he finally said when Anna had fallen silent, then pushed his fingers through his hair again. "So he never touched you?" he questioned, and why did that make him feel so much better? He rubbed his jaw, then folded his arms.

"You could have said." His voice was much quieter now, and he was still looming, but at over six feet tall he couldn't help but loom. "That he was bothering you. You could have told..." Me. "...somebody. You've got a lot of friends on-set, someone would have thrown a fit on your behalf."

The carpet was thick beneath his thin-soled leather shoes, and he looked down at it, breaking the stare. "I thought it was because you were pissed off," he said, treading much more lightly now. "Because of...well..."

Anna sat on the edge of the mattress. “Because we’re not skipping down the red carpet hand-in-hand, and because it’s--” she put up quote fingers, ”--sexier when nobody knows?” She rolled her eyes.

There was some truth in the Orrin’s idea that the secrecy made her antsy, but it was a little of her doing, too. Anna knew Orrin probably had reasons for not calling her his girlfriend and going public with it, hurtful reasons it was better if he didn’t say out loud. And hey, she had a few reasons of her own why life with Orrin the Boyfriend might be a pain, including his whole ‘Me Aristocrat, You Commoner’ male diva routine. And he needed a haircut.

“Forget it. I just didn’t want to get fired, is all. Now I feel like a total prostitute.” Anna crossed her legs and arms.



[Thread: Open to Orrin & Anna]