Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
JOSH
Dawson’s massive form curled around the jagged tear in the ship’s hull. Shards of metal pierced his torso, and a shuddering breath hissed out of his lungs as he used his remaining strength to close the airlock, sealing the room and his fate.
He knew the consequences. There was no coming back. Brynne swallowed silent sobs, her hand pressed against the thick glass separating them, but she held his gaze until his eyes fluttered closed for the last time.
Dawson was dead.
Or rather, Donovan Rykoff was dead. Again. He’d been dying all day. And it still wasn’t right.
“Cut!”
His lead actors traded glances as they made their way over to the monitor, followed closely by Cass.
Brynne glared at him over crossed arms. “What was wrong with it this time?”
Nothing, other than the fact that I’ve seen you two show more emotion when catering was late.
“I’m still not getting what I need,” he ground out.
“Which would be what, exactly?”
Josh slumped into his director’s chair, elbows on his knees and fingers tugging his hair like he could pull his thoughts straight through his skull. He could practically hear Cass say that wouldn’t be helpful, and instead swore under his breath for the hundredth time that hour.
“You need them to look like they didn’t just meet a month ago.”
All three heads turned to Cass, who paused her adjustments on Dawson’s costume.
She blinked between the three of them, shifting uncomfortably. “Our main characters have a long, complicated history. They’ve been rivals, colleagues, lovers”—the way that last word rolled off her tongue sent a jolt straight to his groin—“but you two don’t know each other yet. My hunch is once you spend more time together, feel each other’s rhythms, it’ll flow out of you.”
Josh sucked in a breath. That was it. That’s what was missing.
Time. History. Trust. No one would mourn the loss of their future if they didn’t have a past.
Cass just solved the problem that had plagued him for days.
Her instincts were incredible.
He studied her. She always looked put together, but today her normally boisterous curls were more dishevelled than usual. Her blousy top had wrinkles, and he’d seen the pleather pants recently. Very recently. Something he couldn’t put his finger on plucked at the corner of his brain.
Dawson’s bloodied face broke out into a lopsided smile. “Well, shoot. That’s a right neat way to put it. I think that’s my block.”
“I know it would help me,” Brynne agreed. “Can we move this scene?”
If they filmed the scene later in production, they’d have months to build trust. But expenses would climb, and continuity would need a full review. Juggling the schedule now would cause a shitstorm.
Fuck .
“One day you’re going to have permanent elevens creased into your brows.” Cass reached over to smooth them out with her thumb, and a warm glow flowed over him as the tension left his body. She hummed in approval. “Don’t worry. Stephen and Terry are magicians. They’ll figure it out.”
Josh exhaled sharply through his nose. Right. He didn’t need to do it himself. His team had his back. He felt the corner of his mouth turn up. “Stephen will blow a gasket when he learns this is your idea.”
Cass waved a hand. “Stephen loves me.”
Like a sister ? He bit down on the words before they escaped his mouth.
“Come on, you two,” Cass nodded to Brynne and Dawson. “I’ll get you out of those suits.”
He tore his gaze away from her ass as she crossed the set. What the fuck was wrong with him today? None of the things on his to-do list included mentally undressing his costume designer.He motioned to a hovering Bex. “Tell Stephen and Terry I need them.”
Most of the directors he’d worked with had been yellers. When he was a production assistant, they didn’t know his name, and just snapped their fingers at him. When he was first assistant director, a lot of the yelling was for him to get someone to do something different, not something Josh had done wrong. The stories he’d heard from other sets, there was nothing but screaming, which, for whatever reason (money and egos—the reason was always money and egos) people put up with. But it was a lot easier to get things done when he wasn’t being an asshole.
See? Not even barking orders at Bex anymore, thanks to Cass. Although that was still more of an order than a request. One day he might even say please.
“On it!” she chirped, and skipped off in search of his first AD and production coordinator.
It took less than thirty seconds to fill them in on the scheduling change .
“You’re springing this on me now ?” Stephen said. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“And deprive myself of the pleasure of your company?” Josh deadpanned. “Never.”
“Impossible.”
“Impossible is part of your job description.”
“It’s going to cost us.”
“With the savings Cass has brought in on her design changes, the budget can handle the extra expense.” Probably. Stephen hired Terry, and Josh trusted Stephen. And Cass trusted them both. “You can figure it out.”
“Okay,” Terry said doubtfully. They wiped a hand over their face as if to scrub off the pained expression and bent over to crunch numbers or count beans or wrangle whatever math needed to happen.
“She seems to have your number.”
Josh broke off his stare from where Cass was busy unstrapping Dawson from his suit. “What?”
“Cass.” Stephen flicked through various screens, not looking up. “She got you to figure out a problem without you yelling at anyone.”
Almost no yelling. He’d still have to apologize to Brynne for biting her head off.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “She did.”
Terry looked up from their tablet. “We can do it, but we’ll have to push the scene to mid-January. No cost overruns, but I have to book it now.” Their finger hovered over a button, hoofing at the cement floors like a bull ready to break into the ring.
She was right again. Terry was a magician. “Do it.”
Hell, that might even get them finished early. And he’d be back in Vancouver just after Christmas. The shoot would be over before he knew it.
If it wasn’t for her, he still might have his head shoved up his ass. He might have gotten here by himself, but she’d saved him time and embarrassment. Still his good luck charm.
“Hey, Bex?” Josh snagged the PA as she walked by. “Can you tell Cass I need her?”
Now he was upgrading from orders to requests. Assholery, under control.
Cass avoided his eyes until she drew level with him, looking somewhere over his shoulder. “Bex said you needed something?”
“Yeah. I need to say thanks.”
“For what?”
“The solution you conjured out of thin air that’s probably going to save my ass? Terry and Stephen said they can make it work. Thanks.”
“Oh, sure, no problem,” she said, inching backwards.
Josh squinted at her. “Are you avoiding me?”
“No!” she stammered. “I’m just busy. With stuff.”
Busy with stuff? Cass looked like she’d rather disappear behind the green screen than be having this conversation, and his stomach tightened as he realized why.
Blousy top, pleather pants? Platform loafers? That outfit looked more than familiar.
“You wore that yesterday.”
Cass crossed her arms as if trying to hide the offending repeat clothes. “So?”
“I’ve never seen you wear the same thing twice.”
“Why are you memorizing my outfits?”
He hitched up a smirk instead of the scowl that threatened to cross his features at the thought of her with someone else. Which she was free to do. “I make it a point to observe beautiful women.”
She rolled her eyes, a spot of pink appearing high on her cheeks.
“Someone didn’t go home last night.” He leaned back in his chair, then grinned in triumph as she snapped her head up. That was as good an admission as anything. He continued, “Not a boyfriend, though. You’d have makeup and hair stuff and clothes at his place if it was serious.” The thought was oddly comforting. “But not a one-night stand either, because you’d probably have left his place afterwards and gone straight home.”
“I don’t do one-night stands,” she said, already looking like she wanted to take back her words.
He felt his smile deepen enough to pop his dimples.
Cass made a pitiful attempt at a glare, a comically incongruous look with her sweet features. “That was one time.”
If that was true, he’d definitely been lucky that night. He splayed his hands between them. “No shade. So, a regular hookup? Friends with benefits?”
“Not exactly friends. And the benefits are pretty limited.”
“Not a friend and no benefits? Sounds like a bad deal.”
Cass’s defensive demeanour wilted, and she slouched into the chair beside him, hands supporting her forehead. “Are we really doing this?” she asked in a pleading voice.
This wasn’t the effervescent woman he knew. Kind of knew. All the confidence and cheer evaporated, leaving this timid, quiet stranger in her place. He sucked in his cheeks, appraising her. “We don’t have to,” he said, softening his teasing tone. “If you’ve had enough of this conversation, we can stop.”
She fiddled with a strap on her boot and let out a resigned sigh. “There’s a guy I used to see. Casually. He and I never really figured out what we were doing,” she said in a low voice, then turned to him with a look of determination. “That’s not true. I wanted to see if things could go further with us, and he didn’t.”
He’d been on the other side of that conversation, more than once. It sucked seeing the other side. “Ouch.”
She looked more embarrassed than weepy about the whole thing. At least that was good. She gave a chagrined shrug. “At least he didn’t lie about it. But I keep coming back for more like the glutton for punishment I am. Last night, I got a text out of the blue and I hopped on that dick like it was a free pony ride.”
God, he loved that unfiltered sense of humour. Almost enough to distract him from thinking about her riding someone else’s dick. She was an adult. She could ride any dick she wanted. He just didn’t need to think about her riding anyone but him.
The memory of whispering filthy nothings against her creamy neck as he buried himself in her perfect pussy popped into his head. She had begged for him. He shifted uncomfortably on his chair as his blood flow headed south.
He wiped his face blank. “So, this fuckboy got under your skin and is leading you around by the cooch?”
“Sounds about right. Cassidy St. Claire falls for the cooch whisperer again.”
“Again? Sounds like a pattern.”
“At the risk of giving out TMI?” She pursed her lips. “I foster fuckboys.”
If she didn’t look so beat up, he’d laugh. “I think that’s the first time I heard you swear. What does that mean?” he said, managing not to choke.
“Men stay with me until they find their forever homes. Libby says it’s practically a public service.”
“So, like, dudes go on to their OTP after dating you?”
“OTP?”
“One True Pairing. Like soul mates and shit. Jesus, it’s like you don’t even read fan fiction.”
“My nerdery lies elsewhere.”
The chair’s fabric strained as he leaned back. “Do tell.”
“Not telling. You’ll laugh.”
Josh pulled his phone out. “Hey Siri, take a note. Find out what Cass’s nerdery is.”
Cass smiled at her shoes .
Good. Smiling was an improvement. “Now, you were saying. Fostering fuckboys as a public service.”
“My record is flawless,” Cass said. She held out her fingers. “Liam got together with Therese while we were dating, now they’ve been together for five years. Rafael and Cindy are getting married next month. Dan and Marta are about to have their second kid.”
“And you dated all these guys?”
“And others. Those are just some recent ones.” Cass gave a rueful smile. “Every single one of them, players until they met me. Once a friend asked me to go out with this guy she had a crush on to see if he’d settle down after a couple dates with me.”
The fuck? With friends like that … Josh shook his head. “That’s messed up.”
“She was kidding, I think.” She stared wistfully to where Libby and Stephen huddled. “I guarantee Nick will announce the future Mrs. Martin within the year. Two, tops.”
A thought unsettled the edges of his brain. Stephen played his romances close to the chest, but surely, he would have said something if they’d had a history. “You and Stephen ever …”
“Oh, god no. He and Libby go way back.” Cass laughed. “Plus, Stephen’s not my type.”
Something unclenched and he let his lip curl. “How’s he not your type?”
“I don’t fall for guys who are nice to me, and when the guys I date do start being nice, they are nice for someone else. They put their energy into someone else.”
“Ever think you just make them realize they want more?” asked Josh.
Cass winced and stared down at her hands.
“Oh, shit. That sounded really bad,” Josh said hastily. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I’m not sure you’re wrong, though.” Rose blossomed on her cheeks again. “I’m just tired of it. And Nick, he’s just the latest, and the worst. I need to get over him once and for all. ”
Josh couldn’t help but think she was extremely cute when she was embarrassed, and she embarrassed herself a lot. But this wasn’t the kind of embarrassment where she was having fun.
Cass gave him a put-upon look, but a small grin broke through. “Sorry, I don’t usually throw pity parties like this.”
He did. He was practically an event planner for pity parties. And he knew how to break out of them.
“There are way better people out there, and definitely better fuckboys.”
“Haha,” she said. “The last thing I need is to be under someone else’s spell.”
Again, she’d been under him. Those fantastic tits pressed into his chest, one shapely calf wrapped around his back, the other locked around the back of his thigh to urge him deeper. The way she’d cried out when she came, arms twined around his neck as he … absolutely shouldn’t be thinking about this right now.
Talk about getting someone out of your system .
He cleared his throat. “You need to meet people. A bunch of dates with a bunch of different men. A bunch of different women?” he finished with a question.
“Unfortunately, I’m only attracted to men, although being into women would just double my chances of getting ghosted. No one really wants this package.”
“Package looks spectacular from where I’m sitting.”
“Stop it.”
“Are you on Raya?”
Cass scoffed. “Not all of us are big enough names to get an invite to that.”
He hadn’t gotten his invite through his name. The model he’d slept with added him because it was the only messaging platform she used. Easier to hookup when he was in LA. Not like he messaged her back after.
“Never mind, that’s useless up here, anyway. Tinder? Bumble? That new one? ”
She looked away, fiddling with the tail of her blouse. “I have a Tinder account. I haven’t used it in a while,” she hedged. “It’s really out of date.”
“We’re in production here for months,” he said, a plan forming. If he was in a self-imposed celibacy to focus on his movie during that time, at least he could get vicarious stories out of Cass, and maybe help her get over this schmuck. “Go on two dates a week. That’s plenty of time to see what else is out there.”
“That sounds exhausting!”
“You’re not on set for fourteen-hour days. Ten, max,” he said, waving a hand to dismiss her objections. “Do you want to get over this guy or what?”
She gave a pitiful grimace and nodded.
“Then great things require great effort.”
“Aren’t you being a little melodramatic?”
“Yes, but what’s that got to do with it?”
She pressed her lush lips together, failing to hide her amusement. Good. She barely looked miserable-adjacent now. “Here’s the catch,” he said, pausing for dramatic effect. “No second dates.”
Cass drew her eyebrows together. “Why not?”
“You need to see what’s out there. It’s like inoculation. Get exposed to a whole bunch of different guys so you can spot the players and become immune.”
“That is the least appealing description of dating I have ever heard in my entire life,” she said, swallowing a dry heave. “Besides, isn’t that mean? Going out on one date and ghosting them?”
“No one said anything about ghosting. You can send them a text after thanking them for the nice time, but you didn’t vibe. Good luck on your ‘insert topic of conversation here’ and move on.” He spread his hands magnanimously. “Simple. “
“I’m starting to think you might be a bad source for dating advice. ”
“Dating advice? I’m your guy.” Relationship advice? That was another story. “What do you have to lose? A few Thursday nights? Worst-case scenario, you get a bunch of free drinks and dinners.”
“No. Worst-case scenario, I get murdered and dumped in the river.”
A chill ran over his spine. Right. “Fine, text me in case you need a rescue. Plus, then I can make sure you’re doing your homework.”
“But then I have to shut all these guys down after one date? That sounds so cruel!” She looked genuinely worried to upset strangers she didn’t even know yet. No wonder she got played.
“It’ll be good practice. You need to learn to say no.”
“Like I should say no to you right now?”
You don’t mean it when you say no to me . His dick twitched again. Fucking hell. “I’m different.”
“This might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” she mumbled.
“If this is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, then you need to live a little.”
“Okay, what do I have to lose? Thursday nights and not my life.” She brushed her hands down her bare arms and studied her fingers. “Could you maybe send me your contact info?”
He looked at her, nonplussed. “I know for a fact you have my number.”
“I deleted it?” She squirmed in her seat.
“Oof. If I didn’t know any better, I’d take it personally,” he said wryly. Maybe she’d have an easier time with this whole ‘see-them-once-and-ghost’ thing than she let on. He swiped her phone out of her hands to plug in his info and paused. Might as well have fun with it.
Cass clicked her tongue and smiled. “Sexy Dimples? Really?
“What? Isn’t that what you call me?” He scrolled his own phone until he reached Cass Head of Costume, and renamed it Lucky Charms. His fingers hovered over the keys for half a second, her comment about getting murdered and dumped in a river circulating his brain. Unlikely, but he added her to his Do Not Disturb exception list. Just in case.
“So, how exactly do we do this?” Cass asked. “I randomly swipe on dudes until one of them agrees to go out with me?”
Like it would be hard for her to find men to take her out. Only an idiot would swipe left on those lips. He frowned at her. “Thirty dates, thirty guys. No more than three texts each. If they haven’t declared their intentions by then, or you don’t like them enough to ask them, move on.”
“Declared their intentions? You make it sound like they should be asking my father’s permission for a betrothal,” she laughed, shaking her head in resignation as she stashed her phone away. “Why am I letting you talk me into this?” she said, more to herself than him.
Because you’re a good girl who does what she’s told . His thoughts strayed to him directing her movements, her getting on her knees and looking up at him through those lush lashes. Her licking her lips before wrapping her fist around the base of his cock. That sweet mouth sucking him so well, asking him to cum on her tits, him tipping over the edge before he could growl yes .
The thought of someone else with her sent a feral rage searing through his chest.
“Also,” he said, clearing his throat, “since you’re not actually trying to meet anyone, no sex. No kissing. No second dates. No exceptions.”
Cass tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. “Are you allowed to be ordering me around like this? That has to be against some union rules, right?”
“No exceptions.”
“But what if?—”
“No. Exceptions.”
“—I really like a guy? ”
“Fish in the sea and all that bullshit. Besides, if he really likes you, he’ll be around when your homework is over.”
“No second dates. No exceptions.” Cass nodded and gave a helpless shrug. “What do I have to lose?”