3. Daniela
THREE
Daniela
"Cheers to a damn good shoot."
We all clinked our glasses together, cheap beer spilling over the sides of our mugs. Everyone had headed here after we'd showered at the hotel—exhausted, loud, ready to celebrate after a job well done.
And it had been a good shoot. A really good one.
I was wrapped. Three days, every scene in the can, and Ellis had called cut on my last shot and looked up from the monitor and said that's the one in a tone that didn't leave room for argument.
Dale had clapped me on the shoulder. The DP had told Mark—loud enough for me to hear—that I had a great face for this format, and Mark had texted me three exclamation points from six feet away.
Even Rick, who played the villain and had the easy confidence of a man who'd been told he was charming so many times he'd stopped questioning it, had shaken my hand after the kidnapping scene and said I'd made him look good. Which was generous, or a line, or both.
I was going home tomorrow. One pickup shot in the morning—a quick reaction Ellis wanted for coverage—and then I was done.
The leads were flying in tomorrow afternoon and the real movie would begin and I would drive back to Albuquerque and fly home to San Antonio and call my abuela and tell her everything.
It was everything I'd wanted. I knew that.
I leaned against the bar and looked around.
Dale's guys were three rounds deep and loud.
Mark was on his phone, smiling at something, probably already thinking about the next thing.
Rick had drifted over and positioned himself at my elbow sometime in the last twenty minutes, close enough that I'd clocked it and filed it without reacting. We’d all had a few shots of tequila and I was going to feel it tomorrow.
I hadn't seen Sawyer since the paddock. He'd watched the actual shoot from behind the monitors with Dale, arms crossed, and when Ellis had called cut the last time and everyone started moving I'd looked for him and he was just—gone. Back to the property, probably. Back to Bishop.
He hadn't said anything about tonight.
I didn't know why I'd been thinking about it.
Someone clasped my shoulder and I turned to find Ellis Jones herself. Sunglasses indoors, the smell of a whole box of cigarettes, the vague shape of a smile on her face.
"You were great today, Wilder," she said. "Looking forward to working with you again. I'll be in touch with your agent."
"I—thank you, it was a real honor?—"
"Don't." She squeezed my shoulder once. "Just pick up when I call."
Gone. Back out into the New Mexico night before anyone could make it a moment.
I turned back to the bar.
Mark was staring at me, both hands flat on the bartop like he was trying not to levitate.
"She said she'll call," I said.
He made a sound that wasn't a word.
"Mark."
"I'm fine." He picked up his beer with slightly shaking hands. "I'm completely fine. That's Ellis Jones saying she'll call. I'm fine."
I laughed and it came out a little unsteady, because I wasn't entirely fine either. Ellis Jones had put her hand on my shoulder in a dive bar in New Mexico and told me she'd be in touch.
Daphne Wilder was going places.
I took a long sip and tried to sit inside that feeling without immediately worrying about what came next.
Rick leaned in from my right. He smelled like good cologne and an even better night.
And the thing was—Rick Mercer was not a bad option.
Objectively. Tall, dark-eyed, had spent the day being competent and physical and easy to work with.
When he smiled at you he smiled like you were the only person in the room.
Under different circumstances I might have smiled back differently.
"Hell of a day," he said.
"Hell of a day," I agreed.
"You headed out tomorrow?"
"One more shot in the morning. Then I'm done."
"Shame." He turned toward me, unhurried. "You were incredible out there. Most actors tense up on the first take."
"Thank you." I meant it. Coming from Rick it wasn't a line—he'd been the one on the horse.
"I also want to formally apologize," he said, "for kidnapping you. And for the whole—dying thing."
I laughed. "You were very menacing."
"I've been told I have a menacing face." He didn't look menacing right now. Warm, a little hopeful, genuinely pleased with how the day had gone. "Look, I know you're leaving tomorrow, but—you want to get out of here? Find somewhere quieter?"
Straight. No games. I appreciated that.
I smiled at him. The real one, not the Daphne one.
"Rick," I said. "You were great today. Genuinely. But I'm good here."
He read it without flinching. Just nodded.
"Somebody else?" he asked.
I opened my mouth.
The door opened and a group from set spilled in, loud and sun-worn, and Sawyer was with them—hat gone, dark henley pushed up at the sleeves, the St. Christopher medal catching the bar light at his collar.
His curls were close to his head, defined, the kind of hair that looked like it was taken care of rather than fussed over.
He was talking to someone from Dale's crew, relaxed, not scanning the room.
Then he was.
His eyes found mine across the bar and he lifted his chin once.
"Maybe," I said to Rick.
Rick followed my eyeline. Snorted into his beer. Said nothing else about it.
Sawyer came over and leaned against the bar beside me, close enough that I could smell the soap under everything else.
Up close he looked—good. Really good. Dark jeans, the henley open at the throat, the belt buckle catching the light the same way the medal did.
He had the particular settled quality of a man who'd done a hard day's work and was fine with that. No performance in any of it. Just—him.
I'd spent three days surrounded by people performing.
It was disorienting, how much I noticed the difference.
"Hey," he said. “You were great out there today.”
"Thank you." I turned toward him. "You were pretty good yourself."
"I held a horse."
"You held a horse very professionally."
The corner of his mouth pulled. He flagged the bartender and ordered a beer, and I watched his hands on the bar and thought about those same hands at my waist this afternoon.
"How are the ribs?" he asked.
"You already asked me that."
"Asking again."
"Sore." I shifted against the bar. "Worth it."
That was the tequila talking. One beer and two shots with Dale's crew after the wrap, and I was warm all the way down and feeling like exactly who I wanted to be tonight.
He nodded. Took a sip of his beer. We stood there for a second, comfortable like old friends, uncomfortable like two people who’d known there was a mutual attraction for a while and had never acted on it.
As far as anyone here was concerned, he was the horse master on the call sheet.
As far as anyone here was concerned, I was actress Daphne Wilder.
Two co-workers at a bar…no strings attached.
"Ellis told me she'd call," I said, because it was safer than what I was thinking.
"Yeah?"
"My agent almost cried." I looked at my beer. "It's a big deal. Ellis Jones calling you back."
"I know,” he said. "You earned it."
I looked at him.
That was the thing about Sawyer. He didn't say things to make you feel good. He said things because they were true and the feeling good was incidental.
"I'm leaving tomorrow," I said.
"I know."
"One pickup shot and then I'm done. Back to San Antonio." I turned my glass on the bar. "Back to reality."
"This not real enough for you?"
I looked around at the sticky floor, the neon Coors Light sign with one letter out, the jukebox working hard.
"It's a dive," I said.
"I like dives."
"Sawyer."
"Daniela."
We were smiling at each other and I knew it and couldn't stop and the tequila had nothing to do with it, or not much.
He was so—steady. That was the thing. Every person I'd talked to today had wanted something from me or wanted to give me something or wanted me to know how important they were. Sawyer was just standing here drinking a beer like we had all the time in the world.
"Can I ask you something?" I said.
"Sure."
"Have you ever—" I stopped. Started over. "Millie and Gage’s wedding. We…we were drunk, but—you remember?”
His expression didn't change but something in it went careful. "Yeah."
"Did you—" God, I was bad at this. I was never bad at this. "Was that?—"
"Nothing happened."
"I know that, but I'm trying to ask you something."
"I know." His voice was low. "Ask it."
I looked at him. The bar noise was a wall around us. Mark was at the other end talking to someone and not looking our direction, which I appreciated.
"Did you think about it after?" I asked. "That night. Us dancing. Flirting."
Sawyer was quiet for a second. He set his beer down.
"Yeah," he said. "I did."
My heart did something I was going to deal with later.
"Me too," I said.
Neither of us said anything for a moment.
Someone bumped into me from behind and I swayed into him and his hand came to my elbow and stayed there. Just that. His thumb moved once against the inside of my elbow and I felt it everywhere.
"I leave tomorrow," I said again, because it felt important to keep saying it. I wanted him to understand that there was some urgency here—that I’d decided what I wanted and now was the time to take it.
"You said that."
"I'm saying it again."
"I heard you." His eyes stayed on mine. "What do you want to do about it?"
I looked at his mouth. Looked back up.
"I want another drink," I said. "And then I want to get out of here."
His eyes sparked…he almost smiled.
He turned to the bartender.
"Two more," he said.