One
He met her humour like he’d been waiting to be allowed to. “Right. I’ve missed several memos.”
“More than several,” she said, and felt her throat try to close. She pushed gently past it. “If this goes anywhere—if—you’ll be learning them. Slowly, and under instruction.”
“Understood,” he said. “I… I’m sorry for the gap. I didn’t know there was a memo to receive. That’s not an excuse. It’s a hole. I’m in therapy; I can add family work. I won’t demand a test; I’ll take one if you want one. I won’t push to meet her unless and until you think it’s right, and then it’ll be on your terms, with her having a say. I won’t post. I won’t— You’ll have my PR swap by lunch. She’s good, she’s a mother, and she thinks ‘single sells’ is poison.”
Tess steadied on the table. He had always been like this when he was serious: system-brained, not performative. He dealt in checklists instead of speeches. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. We can start by writing down the ethics we’re already saying out loud. We’ll do a consent plan for Nova the same way we do for set: what her picture looks like, when she can veto, who’s allowed to pick her up. No live geotags. Two family carpets max. If she says no to a camera, it’s a no. And—” She swallowed. “If she wants to call you by your name for a while instead of—”
“Jasper is good,” he said, gentle, eyes bright. “Or Jas. Or ‘the tall one with bad hat choices.’ I’ll take any of those for as long as she needs.”
A wet laugh prickled. “Your hats have been crimes since 2016.”
“True,” he said, and the tender ridiculousness of the tent kept them upright. “What do you need from me after today?”
“Space to not spiral. Someone tried to intercept me with a blind item last night. We’re ignoring it, but if your ex-publicist whispers—”
“She’s gone,” he said. “I’ll instruct my team to keep receipts, but we won’t engage. If you get even a whiff of a pap at her nursery, you call me; we’ll reroute with production security. No long-lens at nursery gates.”
“Copy,” she said, and couldn’t help the echo. “I’ll take every other gate forever.”
He laughed then, quick and bright, and she let herself look at him properly, at the lines new at the corners of his mouth, the steadiness underneath the gloss. He reached into his pocket and winced, then set a small object on the table. “I didn’t bring a present,” he said. “That would be awful. But this fell into my hand at the prop truck and I thought—I don’t know. This is stupid.”
It wasn’t a prop, not really. It was a tiny wooden clapperboard keyring, smooth and harmless. Tess cupped it. Nova would love the click. “It’s not stupid,” she said. “We’ll put it on her school bag, and she’ll make it clap until the dog leaves home.”
The medic poked his head in, eyebrows up. “You two all right?”
“All good,” Tess said, voice casual. “Safety chat.”
“Right,” the medic said, knowing perfectly well what had been risked and agreed. “Well, if you need a quiet corner later, I can police it.”
“Thank you,” Jasper said, and meant it.
They stepped back into the rain and the noise. Suri handed Tess a wipe for her eyes as if it were for makeup. “Wardrobe’s waiting,” she said to Jasper. “And, um, a very calm woman with a leather portfolio.”
“My lawyer,” Jasper murmured, apologetic. “I’ll get the recusals signed and out of your hair.”
“Do that,” Tess said, and let the day move.
Jasper’s trailer smelled like steam and cotton: costume fitting on the rails, Polaroids clipped above a mirror to make quick reference of continuity. He sat, let the wardrobe supervisor fuss with a hem, and watched rain walk itself down the window. Tess’s face kept arriving like a scene he hadn’t finished. The stoic way she’d made jokes so her mouth wouldn’t break. The way she’d said Nova’s name as if it were a lit candle and she was shielding it with both hands.
He didn’t let himself look at the wrong years. He’d been twenty-eight and stupid, and then thirty and stupider, letting other people make simplifications and then congratulating himself for not being online. The first big round of press had come like a wave; he’d let himself be carried, and then he hadn’t known how to stand back up.
“Recusals,” said Celine—his actual lawyer, not a leather portfolio. She was brisk, French Canadian, and had eyes like someone who’d raised teenagers. “I drafted these with HR this morning. You sign here, here, and here; you acknowledge that you will have no input whatsoever into any decisions pertaining to Ms. O’Rourke’s role, compensation, hours, or employment status. You will communicate via the showrunner in all matters except safety, in which case you will take direction from Ms. O’Rourke and the stunt coordinator. You will not—” She glanced up. “—be her boyfriend on this job.”
“Noted,” he said. “Respectfully.”
“Respectfully,” she echoed, very dry. “I’ve also asked PR to line up a crisis plan that doesn’t use children as shields. You will not be walking any carpets with a toddler on your hip.”
“No,” he said, fierce. “We won’t.”
Celine nodded, satisfied, and handed him a second stack. “Therapist list. I’ve already checked their conflicts and availability. If you want family work, there’s a man in Monkstown who took my husband from ‘emotionally constipated’ to ‘moderately literate,’ which is a miracle on the scale of Lourdes.”
He took the list like a man starving takes bread. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. And Jasper?” Her voice softened. “Don’t perform your remorse at her. She knows. She also knows the difference between the man and the machine around him. Keep the paperwork clean, the hours sane, and your mouth shut in the places where it won’t help.”
“Copy,” he said, and found he meant it. He signed what needed signing, texted what needed texting, and sent a two-line email to his new publicist: We’re not doing ‘single sells’. Child stays private unless and until Tess says otherwise. Please send me a list of everything you won’t do, so we can tape it to the wall.
He sat then, hoodie back on, the quiet between scenes long enough for hearing to return. He let himself imagine a four-year-old who liked stickers and slate clappers. He imagined not the press images—God, not those—but the small ones: a hand on a banister, the sleepy weight of a head in the crook of an elbow at a matinee. He kept his mouth shut about that too, tucked it into the place where he kept line readings and remembered to bring pastries.
When they called him back to Stage B, the intimacy floor had been converted into a classroom in miniature: a whiteboard with “CONSENT CHOREO” written across it, arrows, stick figures high-fiving. Tess stood with a group of actors and the show’s HR lead, going through a simple teach-in for the crew who would be present for closed-set days. Someone filmed with a camera the size of a lunchbox, discreet and silent.
“We’re making a ninety-second explainer,” she said to him when he stepped close. “Crew-facing, not public—unless we decide later that it’ll do more good out there than not. No children. No confessional. Just ‘Here is how we behave on a day like this.’ Okay?”
“Okay,” he said. “Tell me where to stand.”
She put him beside the first AD, like she didn’t want him out front. He liked it more than he should’ve. The script was clean: Slate says ‘closed set’. If you’re not on the list, you’re not in the room. Actors call ‘hold’ if something feels off. We listen to the smallest voice. Tess pointed at the words with a capped marker; Suri anchored the end with a joke that made the camera op snort. When they wrapped the take, Tess collected consent forms like a dragon counts coins. He liked watching her count.
By lunch, his phone had two messages he cared about. The first was from PR: Swapping to M— confirmed. Draft crisis plan attached. The second—like a gift slid under a door—was from an unknown number that identified itself with brisk economy. This is Tess. If you’re free at six, you can come by for twenty minutes. You will be introduced as “Jas”. No cameras, no gifts. Bring your voice and your listening face. If she says no, you go.
He breathed, just once, so he wouldn’t text back a paragraph. Received. I’ll be on time. Listening face packed.
Suri delivered him a fresh lollipop with his tea, as if the world had decided that penance was sugar. “Don’t make her hold the door,” she said without malice.
“I won’t,” he said.
Tess hoovered the carpet that didn’t need hoovering because nerves are ridiculous and domestic detail is one way of telling your hands what to do. Nova’s school bag hung on its hook, already wearing the tiny clapperboard like a medal. Nova herself was building a city of cushions on the living-room floor while the dog pretended to be beleaguered by the honour of being a mountain.
“We’ve a visitor at six,” Tess said, keeping it conversational. “Name’s Jas. He works where Mummy works. He’ll say hello for a few minutes. If you don’t want to do hello, you can wave from the hallway or go to your room and I’ll say hello for both of us. You get to choose, because your yes and no are both important.”
Nova, who at four had the most decisive eyebrows in Ireland, frowned at the cushion city as if weighing municipal policy. “Is he tall?”
“He is.”
“Does he like stickers?”
“I think he will, if you decide to give him one.”
Nova considered the stickers she was hoarding for a rainy day and found the day rainy enough. “Okay,” she said. “He can have the star with the smile face. Not the gold one. The gold one is for me because I ate carrots. I ate two.”
“You ate half a carrot and negotiated aggressively,” Tess said, kissing the top of her daughter’s head. “Which is still a skill.”
At ten to six, she put the dog in the kitchen with a chew and opened the window a crack to make the house smell like itself. At one minute to, a knock she recognised from a thousand scenes—and none—tapped the door. She felt the urge to perform for the corridor, then told it to sit.
“Hi,” he said when she opened up, his hat in his hands like he’d listened to the hat critique and was trying to reform. He smelled like rain and theatre dust and cinnamon. “I brought nothing. Is that correct?”
“Correct,” she said, stepping aside. “Shoes off, and leave the name at the mat. You’re Jas here.”
“Copy,” he said, quiet and bright-eyed. He took his shoes off like he understood floors, set them neatly, and followed her into the living room with his shoulders down. Nova looked up from her cushion city with the frank appraisal of a small queen.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m building a new couch for the dog because the dog stole my couch. Who are you?”
“I’m Jas,” he said, not going low, not going high, staying in the soft middle where a small person didn’t have to reach. “I work with your mum. I like your city.”
“It’s not a city. It’s a plan,” Nova said, which was absolutely Tess’s child. “Do you like stickers?”
“I do.”
“You can have the smile star,” Nova said, magnanimous, and peeled it with her tongue stuck out for precision. She pressed it to his jumper just above his heart. He touched it like it had weight. “Not the gold one,” Nova told him. “That’s mine.”
“That seems correct,” he said, solemnly. “Gold is very hard to carry.”
“Do you have ear defenders?” Nova asked, because priorities. “For loud days.”
“I do now,” he said, and pulled a pair from his backpack—the smallest, softest kind, still in the packet. He put them on his own head and looked ridiculous and lovely. Nova laughed, high and delighted.
“You look like a space man,” she said. “Say ‘over’.”
“Over,” he said obediently, and Tess watched something unclench in her chest and do the mad thing of cracking open wider at the same time.
“Would you like to sit?” she asked, doing the hospitality script because it helped. “Tea? Water?”
“Water,” he said. “Please.” He sat on the floor without being asked, cross-legged on the rug, so he wasn’t taller than anyone. He didn’t ask for photos, didn’t look at his phone, didn’t perform at the windows. He listened to Nova talk about carrots and municipal couch planning and the emotional life of the dog. When Nova wanted to show him the tiny clapperboard on her bag, he went to look like he was honoured to be invited into the hall of treasures. “That’s the prettiest clapperboard I’ve ever seen,” he said, which was objectively nonsense, and she loved him for it.
“Do you know how to clap?” Nova demanded, brandishing the keyring.
“I might need teaching,” he said, and let her take his hand and show him where to put his fingers and how to make the tiny click. “You clapped the universe, kid,” he said when she beamed, and Nova’s face did a thing that Tess would think about later when she had the private cry she was due.
At twenty minutes, he glanced at the clock and stood. “I promised I’d leave when the timer said,” he said. He looked at Nova. “May I come again another day if your mum says yes and you say yes?”
“Yes,” Nova said, then hedged with the gravity of a judge. “But not if you bring a camera.”
“I won’t bring a camera,” he said. “And I won’t let anyone else bring one either.”
She weighed him with her eyebrows and found him acceptable. “You can come on Tuesday. Tuesday is stickers and pasta.”
“I’m writing that down,” he said, miming pen on palm. “Stickers and pasta. Thank you for letting me visit your plan.”
She nodded, as if she’d arranged it all herself, which she had. He turned to Tess at the door, his eyes at the place between her eyebrows, where being seen didn’t sting. “Text me if you need anything tonight,” he said. “If you don’t want to, don’t. I’ll see you at work. I’ll bring a better hat. That felt important.”
“It is,” she said, and didn’t realise she’d stepped into his gravity until her hand found his sleeve for one grateful squeeze. “Thank you for not—”
“Grandstanding?” he offered.
“Exactly.”
He stepped back into the soft rain with his shoes in his hand and his shoulders squared like someone had adjusted his frame. Tess shut the door and leaned her forehead to the wood like a cliche she would bully herself about later. The dog head-butted her knee. Nova bellowed from the cushions, “Mummy, Tuesday is pasta,” as if the constitution had been amended. Tess laughed, sharp and bright, and went to lay the table.
The showrunner’s PR consultant had a haircut that could cut glass and a way of smiling that looked like she was trying on teeth. She strode into the production meeting the next morning with a slate of “family-forward opportunities” so polished it squeaked. Jasper watched her lay out a schedule that treated people like props and children like hashtags and felt his jaw remember its hinge.
“Two carpets max,” Tess said, cool as a surgical theatre. “Daytime charity screening and the premiere photocall. Ninety seconds of photos each, exit routes pre-cleared, no live geotags, child veto in effect. We will say the line: ‘We keep the private bits private.’ That’s the deal.”
The consultant’s smile tried several angles and picked one that thought it was charming. “Audiences are wild for family. Especially after—” She air-quoted delicately. “—the reveal.”
“There isn’t a reveal,” Jasper said, calm as the inside of a church. “There’s a family. The only reveal will be whatever this show has in the third act.”
“Of course,” the consultant said, her pupils doing fast maths. “Still, a curated glimpse humanises—”
“Actors,” Tess said, “are humans already. We’re not curating a child. We’re making a television show under a union contract. PR can tell the story of the work or it can step out of the way.”
HR coughed, which in HR meant applause. Jasper watched Tess’s hands, steady on her notebook, and kept his mouth shut because she had the floor and because she was saying everything he wanted said without flinching. He said his piece when it was time. “For the record, I’m recused from any decisions touching Ms. O’Rourke’s employment,” he said, and slid the signed paper across the table like a card that beat the hand. “I’m speaking here as an actor and as an executive producer on deliverables. The deliverable we want is art that doesn’t require the compromise of anyone’s kid.”
The consultant adjusted a ring that probably had a backstory long enough to fill a memoir and said, “Of course. We’re all aligned on safety.”
Suri’s expression suggested she was considering a second career as a lie detector. “Brilliant,” she chirped. “We’ll need your team to sign the consent policy. It’s on the sticky board by the kettle. No stickies, no plan.”
The woman actually wrote her name down. That would’ve been funny if Tess’s forearms hadn’t been buzzing with temper. Jasper caught her eye and shook his head infinitesimally: don’t spend yourself here. He was right. There were better places to win.
Before lunch, they filmed the crew-facing explainer: high-fives, call-and-response, a crisp list of who to go to and when, the phrase “No is a complete sentence” spoken in three accents so it would land in more ears. The camera crew asked if they could cut a public version for socials once legal cleared it. Tess didn’t say yes—didn’t say no. She felt the ground, cautious. “Not this week,” she said. “We’ll discuss once we’ve banked a few clean days.”
Clean days came like rain on glass, streaking, surprising. Scenes that were all talk, lightning-fast, two actors at a kitchen table weaponising tea bags. Jasper was stupid-good with his hands, which was intimacy-adjacent even when the scene was just him making a sandwich look like a sonnet. He moved with the quiet confidence of someone who’d learned where he ended. It made everyone else bigger. It made Tess’s lungs hurt.
Nova’s voice memos arrived between set-ups like a series of tiny radio plays. “Mummy, my sticker plan worked,” she announced one afternoon, an orchestra of traffic in the background. “Also the dog ate my carrot and I let him because he was hungry. Tell Jas he can have a gold star if he eats a courgette.” Tess played it too often and told herself it was because she needed the laugh and not because the sound of joy, when shared, had a way of making your sternum unclench.
“Tell Nova I ate two courgettes,” Jasper replied in a voice note later, sounding like he knew exactly who the audience was. “And I didn’t even make a face. Does that earn me two gold stars or one gold and one silver? This is a negotiation.”
“Silver,” Nova decreed at home that evening after much deliberation, “because you didn’t eat the seeds.”
On Friday, the tabloid stringer tried to make himself part of the set furniture, all friendly grin and expensive raincoat. He loitered at the unit base gate with the careful plausibility of a man who knew the law and liked dancing on it. Suri clocked him, flicked a glance to Tess, and executed a paper-fence manoeuvre so elegant it should’ve been given a spot in the schedule: a polite laminated sign, a security guard with the stance of a rugby forward, a cone placed in exactly the spot where a long lens wanted to stand. The man smiled like he liked puzzles and moved along.