Chapter 12
JETT
My phone buzzes for the third time in ten minutes.
I'm sitting alone in the house with nothing to do again, which is exactly as messy as my life currently feels.
Stunt scripts scattered across the coffee table.
Half of them have rejection emails attached.
The other half are offers for jobs so low-budget that they're barely worth the travel time.
There's a dent in the drywall from where I punched it last week.
There's also a hole in my confidence that's getting bigger every day.
The buzzes are from my agent.
I don't answer. I know what he's going to say. Another job fell through. Another actor decided to do their own stunt work and save the money. Another contract canceled because someone younger and hungrier is willing to do the same work for half the price.
My career is dying. Actually dying. The thing I've built my entire identity around, the thing I've dedicated my life to, is slowly suffocating under the weight of changing industry standards and actors with egos bigger than their common sense.
I was supposed to be doing a car flip today.
A big one. Insurance job worth forty grand.
I was excited about it. Actually excited for the first time in months.
And then the actor decided he wanted to do it himself.
His agent said it would be good for the publicity.
His insurance company said it was reckless and they wouldn't cover him.
Guess which option the actor chose anyway?
Fuck!
I need to be positive, but it’s so fucking hard when you’re down.
There's a knock on my door.
I don't move for a moment, hoping whoever it is will go away. I'm not in the mood for company. I'm not in the mood for anything except stewing in my own frustration and wondering when exactly my life became this predictable disaster.
The knock comes again. Harder this time.
"It's open," I call out, because apparently, I've given up on basic security protocols.
Sharon pushes the door open and stands in my doorway like she's trying to decide whether to come in or run.
She's wearing jeans and a soft oversized sweater that hangs off one shoulder.
Her dark hair is twisted into a bun that looks like it might fall apart at any second.
She's wearing no makeup, which means she just got off work.
Her brown eyes are doing that concerned thing they do when she's worried about someone.
"Hi," she says quietly, like she's approaching a wounded animal that might snap.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, and there's no heat in it. “Sorry I didn’t mean to sound aggressive.”
"Cassian," she says simply. She steps inside and closes the door behind her. "He was worried. He said you weren't answering texts, and he’s working and so is Pine.”
Yeah, everyone’s working apart from me.
Of course Cassian was worried. Cassian worries about everything.
"I'm fine," I say, and I'm already turning away from her. I move toward the couch, which is covered in scripts and empty beer bottles and all the evidence of a man slowly falling apart. "Just had a job fall through. Happens all the time."
"Does it?" Sharon asks, and she's moving around my apartment like she belongs there.
Like she's not invading my space but joining it.
She picks up one of the rejection emails and reads it.
Her scent shifts. Becomes sweeter. More worried.
"Jett, this says they're replacing you with the principal actor doing his own stunts. "
"Yeah," I say, and I drop onto the couch. "That's the new industry standard. Why pay a professional when the actor's ego will do it for free?"
Sharon sets the email down carefully and then she does something that catches me off guard.
She sits down next to me. Not far away, but close enough that I can smell her.
Strawberry and honey, with a note of concern underneath.
She's wearing some kind of soft fabric that looks like it would be nice to touch.
"How long have you been doing this?" she asks.
"Since I was eighteen," I say. "Fifteen years of breaking bones and perfecting falls and making sure actors get to tell stories about how brave they are. Fifteen years of being the backup plan nobody thanks."
"I thank you," Sharon says quietly.
Sharon’s smaller than me, curvy in ways that shouldn't distract me but do. Her brown eyes are focused on my face like she's trying to read something written in my features. Her legs are curled up underneath her body in a way that makes her look comfortable in my messy apartment.
"I know you do dangerous things for a living," she says. “But is it worth it?”
The words land somewhere in my chest and stick there.
"Why?" I ask, and I'm not sure if I'm asking why she's been watching me or why she cares that my career is imploding.
"Because you matter, and risking your life all the time, is it worth it?” she says simply. "To Cassian. To Pine. And probably to me too, even though I'm still figuring that out."
I lean back against the couch and run my hand through my hair. It's been styled back but the motion sends it falling into my face. I don't fix it. I just let it fall and stay there, a curtain between me and the world.
"I don't know what else to do," I say, and the words come out rough. Broken. Like I've been holding them in and they're finally escaping. "Stunt work is all I've ever done. It's the only thing I'm good at. Take that away and there's nothing left."
Sharon reaches over and takes my hand. Her fingers are smaller than mine, softer, warmer. She pulls my hand away from my face and forces me to look at her.
"That's not true," she says firmly. "You're good at a lot of things, like reading people."
"That's not a career," I say bitterly.
"Maybe not," she agrees, and I appreciate that she doesn't lie to me. Doesn't try to make it sound better than it is. "But it's something. And we can figure out the rest."
"We?" I ask.
"Yeah," she says. Her thumb traces circles on the back of my hand. "We. Because that's what people do when they care about someone. They help figure it out."
She's sitting so close to me now that I can feel the warmth coming off her body.
I can smell her even more clearly. The strawberry and honey mixing with something underneath that's purely Sharon.
Something that smells like home and safety and the opposite of everything my career has been making me feel.
I want to kiss her, and I want to pull her close and let her comfort me in ways that have nothing to do with conversation.
"I'm scared," I admit, and it's harder to say than I expected. “That I've wasted fifteen years on something that's becoming obsolete."
Sharon shifts on the couch. She's still holding my hand but now her other hand comes up and touches my face. Her palm is soft against my jaw.
"You are good enough," she says. "You're someone worth being serious about, Jett."
We sit on the messy couch, and she listens while I complain about all the jobs that have fallen through.
"What if this is it, and you have no more jobs?” she asks eventually. “What would you actually want to do?"
Everyone's always just assumed that stunt work was my passion, my calling, the only thing I could possibly want.
"I don't know," I admit. "I've never really thought about an alternative. The stunts came so early and so naturally that I just... went with it. I never considered that there might be something else."
"Then we'll figure it out," Sharon says. She squeezes my hand. "Not today. But we'll figure it out."
I look at her for a long moment. She's looking back at me with those brown eyes that seem to see everything. She's not trying to fix me. She's not trying to make this better with grand gestures or false promises. She's just here. Present. Witnessing my fear and not running away from it.
After about an hour, I notice it’s getting darker outside. The sun is setting outside the windows. The light is turning golden and soft.
"I should go," Sharon says, but she doesn't move.
"Stay a little longer," I say. "Have dinner with me. I can order something. We can keep talking."
She hesitates for just a moment, and I can see her thinking it through.
"Okay," she says. "But I'm ordering the food. You look like you've been eating junk all day.”
"That's because I have been," I admit.
"Yeah," she says, and there's a smile in her voice. "So, I'm getting you something with actual vegetables."
She pulls out her phone and scrolls through food delivery apps while I watch her. She's still sitting close to me. Her shoulder keeps brushing against mine as she moves. Her scent keeps mixing with mine.
She orders Thai food with an excessive amount of vegetables and insists I also get a green smoothie, which I protest against until she gives me a look that suggests I don't have a choice in the matter.
We eat on my couch, sitting closer than we probably should be. She teases me about the way I eat. I tease her about her obsession with broccoli. We fall into an easy rhythm that feels natural and comfortable.
"Do you actually hate the stunts?" she asks. "Or do you just hate what the industry is becoming?"
I think about that question carefully. It's a good question. It's the kind of question that gets to the heart of the matter.
"I hate that it's becoming less about the craft and more about saving money," I say finally.
"But you love the actual work," Sharon says. It's not a question.
"Yeah," I admit. "I love knowing that I'm protecting people."
"Then maybe the answer isn't to leave the industry," Sharon says. "Maybe the answer is to find a different way to do what you love. A way that doesn't involve actors trying to be heroes."
"That's smart," I say.
"I know," she says, and there's humor in her voice. "I'm not just a pretty face.”
I reach over and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. It's a small gesture. Like I need to touch her to confirm that she's real and that this conversation actually happened.
"Thank you for coming," I say. "For listening. For not trying to fix everything."
"Thank you for letting me," she says. "For being honest about what you're feeling. That's not something that comes easy for you."
"No," I agree. "It doesn't."
When she finally leaves, I walk her to the door. She stands in the doorway for a moment, looking at me like she's trying to memorize the moment.
"Figure out the career thing," she says. "And when you do, it's going to be something amazing."
She kisses me then. It's soft and quick.
After she leaves, I start thinking about the possibility that maybe my career doesn't have to end.
My phone buzzes. It's a text from Cassian who is at the station: "Thank you for having Sharon around. She needed that as much as you did."
I smile.
I text back: "We need to talk about Sharon. All three of us. Soon."
The response comes immediately: "Yeah. I know."
I put my phone down and look out at Pine Hollow. The town is quiet under the winter sky, lights twinkling from houses scattered across the mountain.
I'm starting to understand why Cassian and Pine are both falling for her. It's not just her scent or the way she fills out those jeans. It's the way she cares, even when caring makes everything harder. The way she tries, even when she's terrified of failing.
My brothers are right about her. Sharon Martinez isn't just some omega planning a wedding we don't want. She's someone worth protecting, and claiming, if she'll have us.
I close my eyes and let that truth sink in. My career might be uncertain, my future unclear, but this feeling about Sharon is the most sure I've been about anything in a long time.
Tomorrow, I'll figure out what that means. Tonight, I'm just going to sit with it and let myself want something good for once.