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heygerald · 6 months ago

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Falling Without A Harness - Chapter 1

AU where Tom Ryder is still an asshole, just not a psychotic one. This is the story of how he's first introduced to Colt's sister, Parker. Let's just say that neither party was all that impressed.

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Tom Ryder was hot.

The ads plastered on bus terminals and billboards, with all of their post-photoshoot/pre-production editing and touch-ups, weren't shit compared to the real thing.

The real thing, standing fifty feet across from her having just finished talking through his upcoming scene with the production team was tall and hunky and had gel wet tufts of blonde hair perfectly strung across his forehead. He walked—swaggered—with a sureness that was hard to find nowadays; made all the more impressive when he was swarmed by makeup artists touching up the foundation on his cheeks without stumbling once.

The outfit didn't help either. She hadn't seen Colt yet, but she was confident that her brother wouldn't be caught dead wearing tight, white pants that clung to his every curve, indent, and muscle like Ryder was. He wore them slung low on his hips, perfectly hard abs trailing down towards the sliver of white skin peeking out from beneath an underwear brand she would never be able to afford. Some sort of aloofness—or, perhaps, a love for his own toned body—had his shirt strung over his shoulder as if it were a mere accessory and not something to cover his chest.

Even his eyes were bright, star-inducing, and captivating in the way romance novels often described Fabio.

And... god damn.

Parker had to remind herself to swallow, breathe, and close her mouth before the proverbial flies started swan diving inside.

She liked to think of herself as both professional and not a total creep. She didn't have a problem keeping her eyes to herself at the gym, at the park, at the pool. Blonde men weren't even her type. Actors much less so.

A movie star? The movie star? Please.

Parker would relentlessly tease her brother when he would get all flustered staring at the poster of Cindy Crawford on the wall of his childhood bedroom. She was just a woman, after all.

But now...

Christ, how was it so hot at six am?

She brushed some hair off of her forehead while fiddling with the flimsy label on her water bottle; trying, and failing to pretend that she hadn't just been ogling the lead actor like a starving dog staring at a hambone. People milled around her as she breathed, Venti offering a wave as she hurried off to her next location.

But then there was a wayward bee she had to swat away, pulling her gaze right back up to where it had been, and this time she found that he was the one staring at her.

Static hummed in the back of her mind; no thoughts.

Just Tom Ryder.

Tom Ryder looking delectable in his lack of clothing.

Tom Ryder gazing at her with eyes so blue she suspected he had to be wearing some sort of fake contacts.

Tom Ryder who now was opening his mouth, showing off the teeniest glimpse of dimples, a row of pearly white teeth (where those real?), clearing his throat to say—

"I've been waiting on my coffee for ten minutes now. What the hell is the hold-up?"

Static.

"Huh?" she asked dumbly.

He rolled his eyes, squaring his shoulders at her as he slumped inelegantly into what had previously been her seat.

"My usual. Flat white, nonfat milk, three shots of espresso, with no foam. Extra hot, of course," he recited in a deadpan. It wasn't a polite sort of thing, though, and as she continued to stare at him Parker watched as he swatted away the same bee that had been bothering her with a huff.

As if—how dare a bee bother someone like me!

"Um," she started. Then, when she realized that she wasn't speaking real words, Parker quickly tuned her brain back to a channel that wasn't just static. This channel concentrated around the disbelief at his attitude. "Excuse me?"

He was on his phone now—she wasn't sure where he had conjured it from considering how desperately tight his pants where—and without even looking up he scoffed. "I have a scene in twenty, and I need to have time between drinking my coffee and acting so I'm not all jittery. Honestly, it's not that hard."

Parker blinked at him, then in the general area around them. For a moment she expected a bunch of cameras to be shoved in her face—ha ha! you've been punk'd!—but no one popped out of any bushes. In fact, it seemed that the moment Ryder approached her the surrounding vicinity had emptied.

A pair of assistants across the way caught her eye, immediately went pale in the face, and quickly ducked in the opposite direction as if they had forgotten some important task.

She didn't know what to say, or how to say it, and so Parker just settled with an emphatic scoff. "No."

To that, Tom paused in his texting, and glanced up at her. This time, he was the one that looked bewildered. "What?"

"I said, no," she repeated a bit firmer this time. It felt a bit like sailing, though, and now that she had some wind beneath her sails she found her thoughts functioning once more. "Find someone else to get your cappuccino. Or, better yet, do it yourself."

His eyebrows furrowed crossly. "It was a flat white."

"Fucking great," she snarked, throwing her arms up at him because she didn't quite know what else to do. "There's a Starbucks right over there."

Tom's entire face scrunched up. Ironically, it wasn't an attractive look on him, and suddenly Parker was wondering if all the photo editing was necessary if that's what he normally looked like.

Arrogance was not a good look on anyone. No matter how tight the pants.

"It's your job."

"It's absolutely not," she snapped. He responded by straightening in his (her) seat, phone cast aside, but she cut him off before he could say anything else as equally ridiculous. "And, for the record, if someone ever talked to me like that at my real job, I would quit on the spot."

His features slackened in response.

Parker half wondered if he was hearing static now.

There was the sound of a bullhorn on the far side of the parking lot, and a whole train of people slowly started swarming the area as whatever scene they were filming ended. A pair of stuntmen ambled by, followed by some camera crew, and on the far edge of everything she saw a familiar head of hair step out of a truck.

Familiar as it was identical to the man sitting in front of her.

Not having anything else to say and not trusting herself not to get escorted off the premises for verbally berating the star actor, Parker just snatched her jacket out from behind him with a pointed glare before heading towards where she had last spotted Colt.

It took a bit of effort to dodge all of the people, equipment, and vehicles.

"Uh, hey!" he called after her. Just the sound of his voice seemed to scare some nearby crew into pretending they were busy, and Parker bit the inside of her cheek when she heard his sneakers scrambling after her. "Who do you think you are?"

"Who do you think you are?" she scoffed.

He appeared at her elbow, ducking at the last minute to avoid walking directly into a wooden panel that was being hefted by two burly men. "I'm Tom Ryder."

Bleh.

Parker almost gagged. "Jesus Christ. You can't be serious?"

"Are you—? Of course I'm serious. I am Tom Ryder!"

"That was a rhetorical question," she deadpanned. Something red and embarrassed colored his cheeks. Parker may have taken sympathy on him if he didn't immediately power through the feeling to glare at her. "Just because you're Tom Ryder doesn't mean you get to be an ass to people. Employees or not."

They paused in their argument as a full length mirror was carted in front of them, and with the tug of an elbow she didn't have a choice but to face him.

"I'm not an asshole," he stressed. Though, his tone and glare counteracted the statement no matter how much emphasis he put into it.

Parker rolled her eyes, pleased when the mirror moved past, and elected not to respond at all as she continued on her way. He followed with another, sharper scoff.

"I'm not!"

"No, you're just waiting on your cappuccino, right?" she retorted before squeezing between two tightly parked trailers.

"It was a flat white!" he called after her.

Parker waved a hand flippantly over her shoulder, happy that she had finally managed to shake him, before she was popping out on the opposite side. It was much less crowded here. Just a few assistants, some guys with sound equipment, and her brother chatting a little bit too closely with a pretty blonde woman.

When they didn't notice her approach she had to clear her throat.

The pair jumped apart. The woman, with a red blush on her cheeks, smoothed out her hair with a nervous smile. Colt, on the other hand, greeted Parker with his stereotypical 'no-thoughts-behind-those-eyes' grin.

"Hey, there you are. I was worried you got lost or something."

"Once or twice, but Venti was nice enough to keep me company while we waited for you to come back. Here's your phone," she handed over the device with a half-hearted tut. "Next time don't leave it at home when you have to be on set at a quarter to dawn."

Colt faked a wince. "Sorry. Thanks for bringing it."

Parker waved him off. It wasn't the first time that her brother had forgotten something important, and it certainly wouldn't be the last time. The woman he had been canoodling with was far more interesting a subject this early in the day.

"Hi," she said, sticking her hand out. "I'm Parker."

The blonde responded with a warm smile and a firm hand shake.

Pretty, she thought. Then with a glance at her brother the snarky voice added, too pretty for this idiot.

"Jody. You're Colt's sister?"

"Ah, that's what Mom and Dad told her," Colt joked, leaning towards Jody to add in a stage whisper. "Truthfully, they found her in a parking lot. Just crying in a cardboard box, covered in shit. Tragic, you know. But what can you do? The orphanage wasn't accepting anymore walk-ins so they just had to keep her."

Parker smacked him on the back of the head while Jody laughed.

"Hey, take it easy, Park. I think I still have a concussion from this morning's barrel roll," he whined while subtly rubbing a sore spot on his neck. He was covered in sand and fake glass, and Jody took a moment to brush it out of his hair. He was utterly pleased to have her touching him. Suddenly, the wounded look didn't feel so genuine. "My insurance doesn't cover domestic violence, you know."

"Does it cover domestic kissing?" she asked with a devious waggle of the eyebrows.

Jody immediately turned pink.

"You can leave now, Park," Colt deadpanned. He waved his phone at her pointedly. "Thanks for the delivery and everything, uh, see you at Christmas, have fun with whatever it is you spend your days doing—"

Parker swatted his hands away as he tried to usher her in the direction she had come. He whined at that as well—blowing air on his bruised and bloodied knuckles—while she slipped under his elbow to shoulder right up next to Jody.

"Want to get drinks?" she asked.

Jody blinked. First at Parker, then to Colt. "Er... right now?"

"After your shift. I have an over abundance of limes and mint at the moment thanks to my roommate. I could make us some mojitos. Share some childhood stories about Colt, maybe show you some high school yearbook pictures. He had a bowl cut until his twenties, you know."

"No, no, no," Colt intervened with a nervous chuckle. His bruised knuckles didn't seem to mind manhandling her by the neck as he tugged her away from Jody. "That's not—bowl cuts were cool here in America, but, uh... You don't need to talk to her, okay. Just ignore her, Jody. There's no need to take pity on her just because she was abandoned in a Walmart parking lot."

"Oh, it's Walmart now, is it?" she chirped while struggling in his hold. Jody bit her lip to hold in her laugh. "Last time it was Target. The time before that it was a Ralph Lauren."

"It's going to be a retirement home if you don't—"

"I love mojitos," Jody chimed in much to Parker's delight.

She grinned while Colt pinched the bridge of his nose in defeat.

"You really don't have to," he tried.

"I want to."

"Are you sure? Like sure sure. Because she was arrested once for stalking, you know. And lying. She's a big ole liar, this one."

"Oh," Jody giggled with a sparkle in her eye, "I'm very sure."

"Because—"

Colt and Jody's joking was cut off when Tom Ryder—gone, but not forgotten—appeared with a huff. He still didn't have his coffee, and it looked like the lack of caffeine wasn't helping his mood in the slightest. At the very least he was now wearing his shirt. "Is she bothering you, too? Do I need to call security?"

The three froze.

Colt swung his head between Ryder and his sister (who he now had in a head lock) while his eyes grew to cartoonish proportions.

"She bothered you?" he asked in a high-pitched voice. Parker pinched the sensitive spot on his hip when he squeezed her with his elbow, and Tom's eyebrows drifted all the way up his forehead when Colt let out an embarrassingly girlish squeal. Her brother did his best to save face by clearing his throat. "I, uh, I thought I told you not to talk to anyone, Park? Or bother anyone? Or do anything other than sit and wait for me!"

"I was waiting for you."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing!"

"Oh, nothing. That's rich," he hissed down at her before planting a big smile on his face. As if he wasn't currently talking around the woman he had in a chokehold. "Sorry, Tom. She was just dropping something off for me. I told her to mind her own business, but she's never been all that good at doing what she was told. I'm pretty sure she should be in a med ward right now. Insomnia, pill addiction, the works. Nothing she says should be taken for granted. You know, one time she broke into a—"

"Okay, that's it," she sighed.

Then promptly elbowed her brother in the balls. Colt didn't have any air in his lungs to squeal, but they all watched him pitch forward with a noise that sounded suspiciously close to a gag.

She shot him a purely unimpressed look before straightening up, fixing her hair, and announcing, "I wasn't bothering him. I was minding my own business. He was bothering me."

Tom's jaw slackened in disbelief. "You called me an asshole!"

"You were being an asshole!"

"I'm Tom Ryder. I'm allowed to be an asshole if I want!"

Parker smirked. "Oh, so you admit it then. You were being an asshole."

He stuttered, unsure of how to respond to that, while Colt propped a finger in the air between them. He was still bent over in pain, breathing through his nose, as he added in a breathy voice, "you can be an asshole if you want."

The placation did nothing, and Tom's eyes bugged wide in disbelief as he shouted, "I wasn't being an asshole!"

The crewmen milling about all paused to glance at Tom; an assistant started yelling into her headset in the interim. Embarrassed, Tom took a few deep breaths while running a hand through his hair. Parker hated how easily his locks fell into perfect curls on his forehead. Effortless.

Hot.

Ugh! She really hated men.

There was a noise halfway between a giggle and a cough, and Parker peeked over her shoulder to find Jody smothering her amusement at the situation behind her hand. Her eyes still sparkled, though, and Parker was sure right then and there that she would get along just fine with Colt's new lady friend.

When Tom glanced at her, however, she pretended to swat away a bug with an innocent wide-eyed look.

"Sorry," she cleared her throat as professionally as she could manage. "There was a... fly."

Colt found his voice—and breath by then—and as he straightened to his full height he put on his best serious looking face. "Listen, man, I'm sorry about my sister. She's not even supposed to be here. I just forgot something at home and—"

"She's your sister?"

Colt hemmed and hawed. "Well, you know, not technically. There was this whole box-at-a-Walmart type situation but—we don't have to get into it," he waved a hand flippantly when he caught the bewildered furrow of Tom's eyebrows. "She was just about to leave. You'll never have to see her again. Who knows? Maybe she'll die of loneliness or something. Crazier things have happened."

Parker rolled her eyes at her brother's blatant ass kissing. It was pathetic, and a little bit embarrassing.

"I didn't know you had a sister," Tom said as he stared at her. There was a new light in his eyes; enlightened, maybe. Suspicious, definitely. Parker crossed her arms with a petulant huff through her nose. "I thought you were, like, an orphan."

"Why would you...?" Colt started, before shaking away the thought. "Nope. I got parents. And a sister. Obviously. A sister that was just about to leave. Right, Parker?"

She definitely could have hung around a little longer if she felt like being a right pain in the ass, but it wasn't even seven am, she had yet to eat breakfast, and she was getting a headache from being around someone that was so incredibly hot yet so incredibly awful. It was like her brain didn't know how to compute every time she looked at him.

Parker conceded with a sigh. "Yeah, I was just leaving."

"See?" he smiled. "She was just leaving."

She ignored her brother's pestering to smile at Jody. "It was nice meeting you. You can get my number from Colt, and I'll text you my address."

Despite the attention of Tom and Colt, Jody managed a genuine smile. "Brills. I'll see you later then. Assuming you don't die of loneliness between now and then."

Parker snorted. Jody giggled. Colt was still breathing steadily through his nose and trying not to puke.

"You can come too, dipwad," she reminded him tartly. Beside him Tom crossed one arm over the other with a sour look. She doubted he liked being talked over and not to, as well as having been called an asshole three times in a single conversation. To him she gave a pretty flap of the eyes. "You're not invited."

He ground his jaw at her, but she could see the flicker of annoyance to not be included in this little get together. "I'd rather eat dirt."

"You might have to if your coffee takes any longer," she chirped in response. Parker stuck around long enough for him to realize she was goading him before turning to leave. She waggled her fingers at him on her way past. "Break a leg!"

She was feeling pretty good about herself as she headed off in the direction that she had come from. There were even more people milling about now that the new scene was about to start. And just as she ducked past a truck of equipment, there was a shrill call of, "I have a flat white for Mr. Ryder!'

Parker peeked back just in time to watch him burn his tongue on the coffee.

Extra hot, indeed.

...............

The Fall Guy was one of the best movies I've seen in a while! As an OG Aaron Taylor-Johnson fangirl, I had to write this blurb just to get the itch out of my brain. No idea if I will transition this into something more or not. For now, please enjoy my brain itchiness and ATJ.

#plot bunny #the fall guy #tom ryder #original female character #tom ryder x oc #tom ryder imagine #au

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