Writers Tennis Part 4

(Nagi)

Angela sipped from a mug of coffee one of the bustling personal assistants had brought over from catering. If she closed her eyes, she could see them - bodies strewn across the floor, life spilling out of them while the suspect got away. She supposed it was some sort of pathetic irony of life that she’d left the Bureau one of the top commended agents and ended up as...an actress. A fast-rising Hollywood starlet, or so her agent liked to gleefully tell her over the phone after he’d read through the press reviews for the day. Angela looked down at the prop gun they’d given her - it was too light, too plastic to be real - and decided that the next time she took on a project it would be a romantic comedy. She was a good actress, she knew that, but then that was what came of being an undercover agent.

Nervous footsteps interrupted her musings, and she looked up. Her co-star, a lovely-faced British tween star whose handlers thought they could break him out of a stereotype by putting a gun in his hands, hovered in front of her, looking nervous.

“I’m not sure why I’m doing this,” he confessed. His voice was lighter, sweeter when he dropped his American accent. Angela would have killed to get a boy like him to look at her back when he was in high school. “It’s just - I don’t even like guns, and I’m always afraid I look like a fool when I’m holding one.”

This Angela was comfortable with. She straightened up and offered her mock-Desert Eagle. “I’m sure the principles of actual shooting will help with pretending to shoot,” she said.

Kenneth eyed the gun warily. “They tried to teach me how to shoot, before filming began. And they made me go to the gym and do all sorts of other horrible things to look - look right for the part. I used to play at Stratford. I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

Angela smiled gently and told herself that he was just like a nervous trainee instead of an international heartthrob. “It’s pretty simple,” she said. He took the gun. Angela moved to stand behind him. “Keep both hands on it, and remember, squeeze, don’t pull. Keep both eyes open, too. It’s pretty simple - sight, steady, and follow through.”

“If you say so...” He fired.