Chapter 4 Quentin #2
“The owner of the cabins hurt his wrist,” he said tightly. “And I was helping him split firewood for the crew. You know. Like a decent human being.”
“Well look at you. A charitable little lumberjack. So rugged. So generous. Please tell me you were shirtless. That feels important to the narrative.”
“Absolutely,” he said. “There is a deluxe calendar too. Fold out pages. Very tasteful.”
Sadie barked out a laugh, sharp and unexpected, and for half a second, Quentin thought, maybe this won’t be a total nightmare. Then she dipped a brush into a tub of liquid latex like she was calmly preparing to poison him, and the thought evaporated.
He took her in properly this time, from her face down to her arms. She was swathed in gauzy layers, draped in ethically sourced hemp and linen like a high-end hippie who definitely judged people for using plastic straws.
She probably drank herbal teas with names like Moon Womb and had very strong, unsolicited opinions about oat milk.
He could practically smell the patchouli and aggressively overpriced farmer’s market soap.
And then she moved closer. The scent that reached him wasn’t patchouli at all.
She smelled like summer. Sweet and bright.
Like strawberries and sunshine and the kind of popsicle he was never allowed to have because it was “too much sugar.” It hit him soft and sudden, settling straight into his head.
His hand clenched in his lap, and he dimly realized he was probably cutting off circulation to his own thigh.
This woman had been sent here to torture him, and he was increasingly convinced it had been done on purpose. Everything about her, the way she moved, the way she smelled, the way her eyes lingered on him just a beat too long, felt like a targeted, highly personal attack on his sanity.
“I’m going to apply the latex now,” she said, her voice dipping low. “It smells a little like someone set a glue stick on fire. Just a heads up.”
“Fantastic,” he muttered, already bracing himself.
She leaned in. The scent hit him like a hot slap from a preschool arts-and-crafts bin. He barely suppressed a grimace.
“Hold still, cowboy,” she murmured, her tone skating dangerously close to a smirk. “You don’t want to mess up my masterpiece.”
He didn’t respond, mostly because his brain had decided this was a good moment to power down entirely.
The second her fingers brushed his cheek, coherent thought became optional.
The latex was cool, but her touch was somehow warmer than it had any right to be, like someone had wrapped a sunbeam in silk and told it to flirt directly with his jaw.
And then without warning, her other hand clamped gently around his chin.
That was it. He was finished. Fully cooked.
Served with a side of delusion. Her palm was hot, her grip firm, and the scratch of her nails against his stubble made his skin feel like it was auditioning for an entirely different movie than the one he had signed up for.
He swallowed, which turned out to be a mistake, because it only made him more aware of how close they were and how much of her he could suddenly register.
He dared a glance at her face and immediately regretted it. She looked focused, intent, like she was constructing a tiny art project and not absolutely frying his nervous system. Her brow furrowed in concentration, mouth slightly parted as she worked.
His eyes, traitors that they were, lingered anyway. His eyes dragged over her skin, smooth and glowing like she'd been kissed by sunlight. Her eye makeup was smoky, sharp enough to cut, and her lashes were long and fluttering.
And her lips. Those were a problem. Pink, full, and unfairly sinful, the kind of mouth you dreamed about. The kind of mouth you broke rules for.
He looked away, stomach tight and fuming internally. She was just doing her job, applying fake wounds for a paycheck and a call time. And yet somehow, it felt like foreplay and spiritual warfare at the same time, which seemed deeply unethical on multiple levels.
She flicked the brush onto the counter and went in with her hands. Well, weapons, really. Her long nails, painted in an aggressive shade of green, glinted under the trailer lights as she used one to tease along the edge of the drying latex.
He just sat there helpless and emotionally flammable. Being slowly dismantled by a hot makeup artist who moved with the poise of a goddess and dressed like a forest witch who had unionized woodland creatures and led them into battle.
He cleared his throat, desperate to break whatever the hell was happening in him.
“Watch those claws,” he muttered as her nail neared his eye. “You’ll scratch my retina, and then I’ll have to sue.”
“Don’t tempt me,” she whispered back, her voice dripping with sugar and threat. “Maybe having one eye would humble you.”
He huffed. It came out more of a wheeze. Before he could recover enough to fire back, she leaned closer, and everything in him flared all over again. Her breath brushed his cheek, warm and unmistakably human, and then the scent hit him properly.
It was strawberries. Not the artificial kind from gas station lip balm, but real ones.
Sun-warmed and freshly bitten, like she had eaten breakfast in a meadow where birds braided her hair for fun.
His brain stalled completely. Was it hot in here, or was he actively being slow-roasted alive?
His cowboy gear clung like a wool prison.
He resisted the irrational urge to fan himself or scream.
Then someone spoke.
“Hey! How much longer on makeup?!”
He nearly launched out of the chair like it was spring-loaded. Avery stood in the doorway, still clutching her binder. Jesus, how had he forgotten she was in here?
“Oh, hey Avery. Ten minutes,” she said smoothly.
Quentin glanced at her, suspicious. “You two know each other?”
Sadie gave a snort that said men are so dumb it physically hurts her. “Who do you think set up the party you trash-talked?”
His stomach dropped. “Oh.”
“Yeah. We pulled that together in four hours. Total chaos. And you still called it ‘deranged cowboy chic.’”
She turned to Avery, arms crossed like she was delivering a closing argument. “Did you know that, Avery?”
Avery’s face visibly crumpled. “Oh.”
“I did not mean it like that,” Quentin said quickly, flashing the carefully practiced smile he reserved for public apologies and damage control. “I meant it was… rustic.”
“Rustic,” Avery echoed, her voice small. “That’s what my aunt said about her backyard wedding. It was under a trampoline.”
Sadie patted Avery’s shoulder while shooting Quentin a glare hot enough to cauterize.
“It was lovely, Avery,” she said warmly. “Don’t listen to Muscles here. He thinks flannel is a personality trait.”
Without missing a beat, Sadie pivoted and launched into an animated explanation of prosthetic application and scar placement. Avery, bless her binder-hugging heart, perked up instantly. Emotional crisis averted.
When Sadie turned back to him, her touch was surprisingly gentle as she got to work.
Foundation gave way to concealer, followed by a careful dusting of fake dirt, her fingers skimming across his skin as if she were not actively imagining pushing him into a meat grinder.
The low murmur of her voice as she narrated each step to Avery was almost enough to lull him into a trance, and he hated how soothing it felt.
“All done,” she announced cheerfully. “You look like you were ridden hard and put up wet.”
He blinked slowly as his brain grabbed onto the phrase, tripped over it, and promptly face-planted into a pit of wildly inappropriate mental images. Sadie smiled like she was fully aware of the chaos she had just unleashed.
He cleared his throat again, purely as a survival tactic, and turned toward the mirror. The fake scar looked disturbingly real, carving him into something rougher, sharper. An outlaw. She had transformed him.
“Wow,” he said honestly. “You are really talented.”
Her smile softened for the briefest moment before she locked it away again. It was not much, but it was something.