Seth
I growl at Riff. There are two supervising producers on the show, Eddie and Riff. Eddie is a cool guy, someone who I genuinely feel cares about the cast and has our best interests at heart.
And then there's Riff, every gross Hollywood sleazeball stereotype rolled into one. He's been pressuring Gabe and me for a showmance since season three. We've always refused.
At the end of last season, he brought it up again, and this time, he wasn't going to take no for an answer, threatening to not renew our contracts and to pull funding from my family's dog rescue charity in Eastern Europe.
"I hate this," I grumble to Gabe who's straddling me on the sofa. Cameras line the room, lenses trained on us as the lights burn hot overhead.
Riff isn't easing us—or viewers—into this showmance.
He's hard-launching it. This is going to be the opening shot of season seven.
Funny how for a show about animals and vets, last year it was all about us parading around in Speedos all the freaking time while the villain vs. villain storyline dominated.
This year, it's going to be this.
Gabe leans down and whispers, "You hate me on top of you?"
His green eyes shimmer with amusement.
I grab his ass, not because slimy Riff told me to, but because I want to. Because when I'm around him, it takes an inhuman amount of willpower to keep my hands off him. "No, I don't hate it." I press his flesh. "But I do prefer you under me."
He smiles, and I totally understand why fans go apeshit for him. It's the most amazing smile in the world, complete with dimples and a snaggletooth canine. Sucked the air clean out of my lungs the first day we met on set and doesn't fail to captivate me all these years later.
If my parents' situation hadn't messed me up, I'd have been on bended knee in front of Gabe years ago. But I am so fucked up when it comes to love and relationships there's no way I could pull Gabe into my orbit of crazy. I love him too much to do that to him.
He swipes a hand through his slicked-back brown hair. "Good thing for you I can be very accommodating."
He sure fucking is.
Sometimes you meet someone and you just know they're going to be part of your life forever. It feels like you've always known them even though you've just met.
That's what it was like meeting Gabriel Hodecker. After the first day of shooting, we were told we had great on-screen chemistry. That may be true, but it's nothing compared to what we have off camera.
Our physical attraction has exploded into the hottest, most passionate, most intimate lovemaking I've ever experienced. It's fun, and it's rough, but it can also be sensual and soul moving. Every time we have sex, I feel a little different, like we're even closer than we already were.
Then there's the fact that he's just an all-round great guy.
He loves animals, which is the number one most important thing to me.
We have common interests like hiking, CrossFit, being obsessed with coffee, taking road trips to national parks to get away from it all, and being allergic to meal prepping, as well as similar tastes in indie-rock music and dumb comedies.
But there's one big, stupid reason why I've never allowed myself to pursue something more with Gabe, despite loving him with every single fiber of who I am and being pretty sure he feels the same way about me.
And that reason is… Eleven.
That's how many divorces my parents have between them. Seven for Dad, four for Mom. It's like they're getting worse at love the older they get. Their marriage was Dad's third and Mom's first, so I've had front row seats to their roller coaster of love and divorce. It hasn't been nice.
After two weddings and divorces in quick succession after things with her and Dad ended, Mom moved back to Poland where she's from.
I stayed with Dad because I was already in school and didn't speak a word of Polish.
I spent so much time flying between the two countries I was a Star Alliance Gold member by the time I was in middle school.
I completed my vet studies here in the US even though I knew that once I’d finished I'd move to Poland for a few years to work with Mom on the animal shelter she had set up.
"Let's go!" the director yells out entirely unenthusiastically. They're at the mercy of whatever random-ass shit Riff wants just like the rest of us are.
So to make things easier for the crew and ensure we finish on time, we resume making out.
Okay, this part isn't so bad. A little weird to be doing it in front of twenty people since we're more used to sneaking into each other's bedrooms late at night after filming, but, hey, any chance I get to kiss up on Gabe, I am going to take.
With both hands.
"Cut! That was great. Enough ass grabbing for you?" the director hisses at Riff who gives a firm nod before pissing off to the craft services table where he loses his shit over the cheese selection.
"Oh, boy," I say, holding Gabe's hand as he climbs off me, stretching his legs out since he was in that position for a long time. "I have a feeling this is going to be a looong season."