The DILF (18+ Only) [COMPLETED]

10: In Which He's A-OK With Being Z-List [DEVIN'S POV]

10: In Which He's A-OK With Being Z-List [Devin's POV]

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I should've checked Caller ID.

"Dev, man? Dev? You there?" Marty was saying into my ear. I got the feeling he'd repeated himself about fifty times already.

I groaned, rolling over onto my side to glance at the digital clock on my nightstand. Four o'clock in the goddamn morning and Martin Spitz was calling me. I didn't care which time zone he was working with but he was messing with my sleep; sleep I hadn't been getting until recently.

I told him this.

"The script. I need an answer, Dev," was his pitiful excuse for an apology.

"What part of no way in hell don't you understand?" I told him, sitting up and groggily rubbing my eyes. "You want me to send you an e-mail? Maybe a BBM?"

"No need to sound so...spoilt."

"Spoilt?" I barked, suddenly wide awake. If I could, I would've reached into my phone and wrung Martin Spitz's scrawny neck like a wet dishcloth. "I'm not ready for your bullshit, Mart. Not now, and probably not ever."

He changed tack. "And your daughter? How d'you think you're gonna support her, Dev, when you're not doing jack shit?"

"I'm not going to star in some shit production by some shit director on some shit high horse," I said through clenched teeth. "That world, Mart? That world is toxic and I was lucky enough to get out. I don't want to go back for this. For anything."

"Shit production? Did you read the goddamn thing? This is gold!" When Marty started a spiel, there was no stopping him. "Jensen Markham? That's the director. Really sentimental fella. Get him behind a camera, you've got bleeding hearts and an Oscar. You hear me, Dev? Got – not nominated."

Mart seemed to take it personally that Adrien Brody had gotten my alleged Oscar all those years ago. I hadn't even been nominated that year, the year after Ivan's death.

"Forget it. I wouldn't care if it was Spielberg himself asking me to come back," I told him. "I have more important things to focus on. Like Ophelia."

"Dev, come on," Marty whined into my ear, sounding like a bitch in heat. "Natalya's her mom. Pack her off to her. Girls need their moms, y'know? Do you enjoy being a Z-list actor, Dev? Would your daughter want a has-been for a daddy?"

"What the fuck's your problem?"

"I was watching E!'s Where Are They Now? the other day, Dev. You haven't done a movie in a decade! They think you OD'd. Even if they knew the truth about –"

"I'm ending this discussion, Martin. You of all people know my history. Don't call me again." I cut off yet another classic Spitz gripe and turned my phone off, dropping it onto my nightstand.

Speaking to Marty never failed to send me into a dark place. I was the first to admit that I had issues and those issues were better off being dealt with alone. It wasn't just that Marty reminded me of the fast pace of Hollywood and all that it entailed; it was the fact that he was a constant reminder of who I had once been.

The Devin of the past would've done this godforsaken movie – and, in his spare time, would have done strip clubs, booze and any woman with a pulse and real breasts. I continued to tell myself that it had nothing to do with the fact that the script could've been my biography – but the truth was that that was one of the biggest reasons I wasn't going to do it.