Sheridan (KSI #7)

1

"Are you sure about this, Shay?"

Jeff Dobbs, her agent, sat staring at her like she'd lost her mind. She'd told him three weeks ago to stop trying to renegotiate her contract with the current soap opera she was on. She'd worked her entire life on her acting career and had been adamant with him when she came to New York after her divorce to jump right back into the soap opera world. Now, she wanted out of that world.

"I'm tired, Jeff. I don't want to work twelve and fourteen hour days five to six days a week. I love acting. I do, but this grueling pace is wearing me down. I had to beg the producers to be able to go to my father's bypass surgery, and they'd only give me the one day I already had off. I can't keep doing that."

He sighed. "What are you going to do, then?"

She shrugged. She wasn't sure herself. She had her passion project, but she had to come up with a business plan and try to find funding that didn't make her beholden to shareholders.

"Are you giving up acting altogether?"

She couldn't help but laugh at the alarm in his voice.

"No. Keep your britches out of that twist."

"Huh?"

Another laugh slipped out. Jeff forgot she grew up in rural Virginia and some of those old backwoods colloquial sayings slipped out randomly.

"It means calm down. I'm not quitting acting. I'm just asking you to try to find me something that isn't going to require ninety-eight percent of my time. I want to be able to visit my family, to spend time with my boyfriend, to do things I want to do. I don't want to be chained to a set."

"Thank God," he said, finally relaxing. "You have a talent I've rarely seen in actors. I've always said wasting it on a soap opera was a crime."

"There's nothing wrong with soaps. They entertain millions of people."

"I never said there was anything wrong with them," he huffed. "Only that your talent was wasted there. You're very good, Shay, and you deserve to move on to bigger and better things."

"As long as those things don't require me to work twenty-four-seven, I'll seriously look at what you find me."

"What are you looking to do? Movies, TV series...theater?"

"I've always loved the theater, but I know it's rare to find something I'd actually want to do. Eventually, I want to open my own theater company for at-risk kids, but I need a lot more money to do that."

"I'm sure I could find investors..."

She cut him off before he could get the sentence out. "No. I don't want to deal with investors who will look at the bottom line. It'll be run by me, and me only, despite how much money I lose because it's to help children, not to pad my bank account."

"Understood." He nodded, his artfully styled brown hair not daring to move an inch. How much product did he have in it? It was a question Shayna pondered every time she saw him. Jeff was in his thirties and quite handsome. She'd never seen him in any sort of romantic light, though. He was her agent who looked out for her investments because her bottom line was also his bottom line. She counted Jeff as a friend, but she understood their business relationship as well. And he was happily married with children. She'd never been a homewrecker, and she wasn't about to start any time soon.

"Maybe a TV series based here in New York? My dad is still recovering from a triple bypass surgery, so I don't want to have to run all over kingdom come shooting a movie at various locations. I want to be home for a little while in case he needs me."