Chapter 12
MICAH
I’d been running for weeks. The shooting schedule was tight, but the limited budget on this movie left very little wiggle room. Four weeks to shoot was ambitious, but we weren’t making a huge Marvel movie. We could get it all finished as long as I didn’t screw anything up too badly.
Every minute of daylight cost money. Every setup, every reset, every time someone called cut, the meter ran. I had a crew of over a hundred people showing up today, all of them expecting me to know what I was doing.
Day one of principal photography. No pressure. I’d been at the lot since five.
The crew was solid. That was going to be my saving grace. They knew all there was to know about making movies. I didn’t expect to have to micromanage.
I found my set manager first. “We ready?” I asked.
I’d checked last night and the set crew was going to be pulling an all-nighter to get things done.
“All good. Tested, inspected, and cleared. Ready to rock.”
“Great. Thanks.”
I did my rounds. That was the ritual. Walk the floor before anyone needed me, check in with every department, and hopefully put out any fires before they could make a mess of my whole day.
The ship looked incredible in the work lights. The lighting director had sent me test shots with every lighting scheme. I checked in with sound and photography. Toby was like a little bee, humming along and flitting from one place to the next.
“No more coffee,” I warned him.
“I couldn’t sleep last night,” he said. “This is wild. We’re making a movie!”
“That’s the goal. Are we good?” I asked. I needed him focused. The guy looked like a spinning top.
“We’re good,” Toby said, his head bobbing up and down.
It was my turn to freak out. I did another slow turn, mentally ticking off every element of the shoot. There were a lot of moving parts. A hundred-piece orchestra with me conducting every tiny note.
Sound was ready. Wardrobe was humming. Hair and makeup had been in since five. Craft services had a great spread. The set looked incredible. There’d be some post effects, but the magic would be happening right here on this stage.
Everybody was ready. The machine was built. All it needed was the fuel. The actors.
Buzz and Lisa walked in with little fanfare. They were old hands. They greeted the crew they knew, checked out the set. And then Grace walked onto my set.
I was mid-sentence with Toby when I saw her. Patty was leading her across the floor. She was in full wardrobe. The distressed cargo jacket, the boots, hair falling out of a hasty ponytail like Elena had been fighting for her life for three days.
I completely lost the second half of my sentence.
“Micah?” Toby asked.
“Yeah. The—yeah. That. What you said.”
Toby followed my eyeline, then looked back at me with the faintest smirk. I ignored him.
She looked beautiful. For ten days I’d been the model of professional distance.
It had taken everything I had and now we were going to be spending long nights and days together.
I’d been on shoots before. Emotions ran high.
There’d be frustration and excitement. Downtime.
Breaks and the inevitable coaching that would put me in her personal space.
Time is money, Blackwell.
Every minute I spent staring at Grace Stone cost the production a small fortune. I had a hundred people on the clock. I did not have the luxury of standing there like a drooling idiot.
The proper, professional thing to do was greet her.
Make sure she had what she needed. I crossed the floor, reminding myself with every step that I was the director, not some lovesick idiot.
She stopped a few feet away. The words lined up in my head.
Professional greeting, quick check-in, move on.
Instead I opened my mouth and said, “You look… ready. I mean, you are ready, right? Not that you don’t look ready.
You look great. Professionally. Obviously. ”
Grace’s lips twitched like she was fighting a smile. “I’m ready.”
“Good. Great.” I cleared my throat and tried again. “The first scene we’re shooting today is with all four of you. Jack, Buzz, Lisa, you.”
She nodded, calm and focused. “I’ve got it. I can run lines with anyone if we need to before we’re rolling.”
“Perfect.”
Toby chose that exact moment to appear at my elbow. “Micah, the crane’s ready, but Jack’s still in his trailer doing whatever it is he does with his abs. Should I go find him?”
“Tell him we’re starting without him,” I said, grateful for the interruption. I took one last look at Grace. “You good?”
She offered a nervous laugh. “I will be. I promise.”
“I know you will.”
Jack walked in twenty minutes late. I wasn’t all that surprised but there would be a conversation.
And then we were rolling.
I called action and the set fell silent.
The camera started its slow crane movement as Grace stepped into frame on the catwalk above.
She looked the part—hair wild, jacket torn just right—but something about her posture was off.
Her hands trembled as she reached for the railing, a faint shake that hadn’t been there during our rehearsal.
She delivered the first line with the right edge of panic, but her voice wavered on the second, cracking where it should have held steady.
I leaned forward, watching the monitor. The actress I’d seen in rehearsals was gone. It felt like day one nerves all over again. What had changed in the ten days since our private session?
I told myself not to panic. It was the first scene. There were bound to be some hiccups. She’d find her footing. I considered calling cut and restarting, but I needed to let it play out.
Jack entered from stage right, hitting his mark with that signature swagger. He launched into his opening line, all cocky menace, and Grace responded. Her eyes locked on his, but she stumbled on the third beat, glancing down for half a second like she’d lost the thread.
Jack looked directly at the camera and ultimately me through the lens.
“Cut,” he snapped, even though I hadn’t called it. He turned on her, pointing a finger up at the catwalk. “What the hell was that? You call that acting?”
Grace stared at him. “I’ll do it again.”
“If you can’t handle that basic scene, how are we supposed to get through the rest of this fucking movie?”
“I can,” Grace said, but even I didn’t believe it and I was rooting for her.
I called action again, watching the monitor with a knot forming in my stomach.
Grace reset on the catwalk, shoulders squared, chin up. She looked ready. She looked like she had slipped into the character and was about to deliver an Oscar-worthy performance.
She didn’t.
Jack delivered his line with precision, stepping forward into the light exactly as we’d blocked it.
Grace opened her mouth. “I think you underestimate how much I have to—” She stopped. Blinked. “Wait. That’s not?—”
The wrong line. She’d delivered the wrong goddamn line.
“Cut,” I said, keeping my voice level even as my chest tightened.
Jack threw his hands up. “Are you kidding me right now?”
“Let’s reset,” I said into my headset. “Take it from the top.”
The crew moved quickly, no one saying a word, but I could feel the shift in energy on the set. Whispers. Sideways glances. Everyone knew what was happening. Everyone could see that my leading lady was falling apart.
Jack stomped back to his starting position, muttering something under his breath that I chose not to hear. His body language screamed irritation. Jaw tight, shoulders rigid, that vein in his temple starting to pulse.
“Rolling,” Toby called out.
“Action.”
Grace moved along the catwalk, her footsteps echoing in the sudden silence. She rounded the corner and her boot caught on a cable that shouldn’t have been there. Her ankle twisted. She stumbled forward, arms pinwheeling, and barely caught herself on the railing before she went over the edge.
“Cut!” I was on my feet before I even realized I’d moved. “Grace, you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Her voice was tight, embarrassed. “I’m fine. Sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Who left a cable on the catwalk?” I snapped, scanning the crew. “That’s a safety hazard. Get it cleared. Now.”
A grip scrambled up the stairs to fix the problem, but the damage was done. Grace stood frozen on the catwalk, her face pale under the stage lights. I could see her hands shaking from here.
“Maybe we should get someone who can actually walk,” Jack said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Christ, this is amateur hour.”
“Jack.” My voice came out with every ounce of authority I could force into it. “That’s enough.”
“Is it? Because I’m standing here waiting while your discovery trips over her own feet.”
The silence on the set was suffocating. A hundred people, all of them watching this disaster unfold. All of them wondering if I’d made a massive mistake. There were always leaks. Everyone signed NDAs but leaks happened.
My disaster would be hitting the gossip blogs by the end of the week.
I looked up at Grace. She was staring at the floor of the catwalk, her jaw clenched, her whole body rigid with humiliation. This was exactly what I’d been afraid of. The pressure getting to her, the magnitude of the moment crushing that spark I’d seen in rehearsals.
Grace forgot her lines.
“I can’t work with this amateur!” Jack’s look of disgust would wither a seasoned actress. “She’s shaking like a leaf and forgetting her lines on the first take. This is a joke.”
The crew went still. Grace froze, color draining from her face. Jack didn’t wait for an explanation. He ripped off his mic pack and hurled it at the nearest grip, who ducked just in time.
“I signed on for a real co-star, not some nervous wreck who can’t hold it together. Fix this or find someone else.”
The silence that followed Jack’s exit was deafening. A hundred people stood frozen, watching the aftermath of Hurricane Montana tear through our first day of shooting.
Grace hadn’t moved from her spot on the catwalk.
Her cheeks had gone from pale to neon pink in the span of three seconds.
The kind of flush that came from pure humiliation.
She looked around the soundstage. I watched her realize that every single person—grips, camera operators, makeup artists, craft services—was staring at her.
From Jack’s trailer came the unmistakable sounds of a full-blown tantrum. Something crashed. Glass shattered. His voice carried through the walls, muffled but still audible. “Fucking amateur… waste of my time… call my agent…”
I pressed my fingers against my temples and tried to massage away the headache that was already forming. Day one. We hadn’t even finished the first scene. The meter was running, my lead actor was destroying his trailer, and my leading lady looked like she was about to shatter into a million pieces.
Our eyes met. Her blue eyes were glassy, filling with tears that caught the stage lights and sparkled like diamonds. Her lower lip trembled. She pressed a hand to her mouth, stifling what I knew was a sob.
Then she bolted. She flew down the catwalk stairs, nearly tripping on the bottom step, and disappeared through the side door before I could say her name. The murmuring started immediately.
I wanted to defend her. I wanted to turn around and tell every single one of them to shut the hell up, that they had no idea what they were talking about. Grace Stone had more talent in her little finger than most of them would see in their entire careers.
But I couldn’t. Because the ugly truth was that they weren’t entirely wrong.
Jack was a spoiled diva with an ego the size of Texas. His reaction was wildly disproportionate. Throwing a mic pack? Screaming at a first-time lead in front of the entire crew? That was bullshit, and I’d be having words with him about it later.
But underneath all that theatrical outrage, he had a point. Grace had been bombing. The confident woman from our private rehearsal had vanished the moment the cameras started rolling. She’d been shaky, uncertain, nothing like the actress I’d cast.
I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw ached.
“Everyone,” I called out, my voice cutting through the whispers. “Take ten.”
Ten could be ten minutes or ten hours. They all had radios. They’d all be called back when I got my set together. Assuming I managed to iron out the kinks that were the size of tidal waves.
Nobody argued. The crew scattered, probably grateful to escape the tension. Toby appeared at my elbow, his face pale.
“Micah, what do we do?”
“Handle Jack,” I said. “Get him calmed down. I don’t care if you have to promise him a producer credit and a foot massage. Just make sure he’s ready to work when we come back.”
“And Grace?”
“I’ll handle Grace.”
I didn’t wait for his response. I was already moving toward the side door she’d disappeared through, my heart pounding in a way that had nothing to do with the production schedule and everything to do with the image of those tear-filled eyes.