9. Sierra
SIERRA
T he thing about working with beads was that it took forever.
The bodice of my mother’s wedding dress still wasn’t done, even with me working on it every chance I got.
“Uh-oh,” Ro said, coming through the front door with a bag of groceries. She wore a pink Barbie-branded tank, blue men’s board shorts, and a bucket hat that said Gone Fishing . “The sewing goblin is in the house.”
I shot her a look that said be nice . Sure, I was crouched in the corner of the kitchen like a goblin, but it got the most natural light in the apartment. “It was so romantic!” a voice crackled through my phone speaker.
“Oh!” Ro mouthed silently, throwing a hand up in apology as she tip-toed to the counter to unload the groceries. “Sorry.”
I’d put my mother on speakerphone so I could talk to her and work simultaneously. I was all about multitasking these days.
“Seriously, Sierra. It felt like I’d walked into a movie. ”
“That’s great, Mom.”
“Date?” Ro mouthed in my direction.
I nodded.
Ro’s eyebrows lifted, impressed. “Go, Larry!” she said quietly.
I smirked as my mother continued to gush about the most romantic evening of her life.
“There were candles everywhere, bathing the room in this soft golden light…” Her words trailed off. “And I keep thinking about how gorgeous that would look during the wedding ceremony. I think the soft candlelight will pair so nicely with all the lace on the dress.”
“And the beading…” I said, holding my breath. Right ? My stomach twisted up in knots.
“What beading?” my mother asked.
“That floral pattern you sent me in the mail. The cutout from the bridal magazine.”
“No, no, no!” my mother said, half in surprise, half in horror. “I didn’t want that.”
“You sent me a photo!” I said. Please tell me this was a joke .
“I just thought the trend was cute, but I thought we talked about the lace. Lace is timeless,” my mother said. “Elegant. Sweetheart, can we just stick with the lace?”
I looked at the bodice in my hands, fingers brushing over the delicately beaded flowers, filled with dread. How many hours had I already poured into this? And now I was going to have to start from scratch. My gaze lifted, catching Ro’s unimpressed look across the kitchen.
She jammed her finger in the air. “Tell her no!” she whisper-yelled .
“It’s her wedding dress. It should be what she wants,” I mouthed back.
“ She’s the one who wanted the beading,” Ro continued.
“Honey?” my mother said. “Are you still there?”
I looked away from Ro. “Yeah, Mom,” I sighed. “We can go with just the lace.”
Ro rolled her eyes, pretending to flop down on the kitchen counter.
“Perfect!” my mother said. “Call you later?”
“Sure, love you.” I hung up, clutching the bodice and wondering if there was any way to save it for a future project. I hated to think of all that work going to waste.
“Sierra!” Ro said the second the call ended, gently but lovingly scolding me.
“I know! I know .” Ro was always lecturing me about standing up for myself, but that wasn’t the issue here.
Mom was so excited about this wedding. I just wanted it to be perfect for her.
She couldn’t have had an easy time raising me as a single mother.
Now that she’d found happiness, I didn’t want anything to spoil it.
“I just want her to feel special on her wedding day. This is not me being a pushover. That’s not me anymore. Look at all the arguments I’ve been having with Finn that I’ve been winning.”
I immediately regretted the words because Ro’s favorite topic of conversation lately involved teasing me about Finn.
“Ah, yes.” She shot me a kissy face. “We both know how standing up to Finn is going to end.”
I rolled my eyes. Ro liked to screw with me by insisting that all the arguments were some exaggerated form of foreplay. “You need to let this go.”
“I can’t. Not when the tension is that delicious.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Maybe you should start visiting his office after hours more.”
“If you mention me bent over his desk one more time,” I warned, “I’m going to change the locks.
” I’d heard so many versions of Ro’s dirty fantasies of me and Finn lately that they were starting to seep into my dreams. And that was a no-go.
“Finn’s my boss. Our boss. I do not need to be thinking of him in that way, thank you very much. ”
Ro smirked. “You’re attracted to him. Admit it already.”
“I admit that he’s handsome,” I said, closing my bead tray. “By societal standards.” And by my standards, too. But while he might be good looking, that snarky, bossy personality should warn everyone to keep clear.
Of course, in my dreams, his mouth was otherwise occupied , which made it a lot harder to remember why I found him so aggravating. Especially when dream-Finn did that thing with his tongue…
“Sure,” Ro said, doing air quotes. “Societal standards.”
“What does it matter anyway?” I said, pushing dream-Finn’s tongue aside. “A guy like Finn would never look twice at someone like me. Not when he’s had a woman like Violet Stone on his arm.”
“Someone like you? You mean someone talented and gorgeous and kickass?” Ro said. “He’d be lucky for you to look his way, and he knows it.”
That was delusional thinking. “Honestly, the only person in Finn’s office who cares about me in any way is Brenna. I think she must be the one who’s been ordering me dinner every night I’ve stayed late. ”
I’d stayed late my first day to create a mockup of the costume double I’d pitched to Finn after his mom and X had gotten in a fight over authenticity versus movie magic.
He’d been suitably impressed and it was after midnight by the time I made it home, but I’d wanted the costumes to look perfect before presenting it to X for his approval.
“Aww,” Ro said. “What a sweetheart. That girl needs a raise.”
“Abso-freakin-lutely. That’s what I keep telling her.”
August has crept up on me too quickly , I thought, glancing at the giant calendar we’d taped to the wall, counting down the days remaining to finish the costumes.
The end of preproduction was just around the corner and, as always, there were daily hiccups causing delays in our progress, forcing me to spend another late night in the costume shop hunched over the industrial sewing machine.
“Work, you piece of—” The machine buzzed, zipping through the material I fed through it. “Now is not the time to be temperamental.”
I pulled the pair of pants off the machine and tried to unpick more of the stitching Trin had accidentally botched.
It was purely from inexperience, and thankfully not an impossible fix.
If we’d had more time in the schedule, I would have encouraged her to give it another go.
Ripping stitches and starting over was how you learned the ropes in this business.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have that kind of time, so I’d taken over the fix myself.
I shoved the fabric back under the presser foot, but it wouldn’t lower, locked in an open position.
“C’mon,” I muttered, giving the machine a whack and hoping it would release itself.
“Maybe you should try being a little nicer to it. ”
I gasped, jamming my heel down on the foot pedal as the presser foot dropped, sending the machine flying across the fabric. Shit . I wheeled around, eyes narrowed, ready to lay into Finn for ruining something that was taking forever to fix, but the words died on my tongue.
He stood there, as suave as ever, holding a plate of food. It looked exactly like the plates of food that had been magically showing up since I’d started staying late.
“Why do you have that?” I asked.
He shrugged. “The person from craft services who usually handles the deliveries already went home.”
“So you offered to bring it over?” I eyed him suspiciously. That didn’t sound like Finn Lockhart. At all.
He set the plate down on a table. “Are you actually complaining about being fed?”
“…No,” I admitted reluctantly, turning back to the pants that had just been munched by the machine. “I’m too stressed to complain about anything right now. But I’ll try to remember tomorrow.” I reached for another RevX, cracking the can open and taking a sip.
“Really?” Finn said. “More of that poison?”
I tipped the can in his direction. “It’s poison you supplied me with.”
“Because you put it in the damn contract,” he grumbled.
“Well, good thing I did,” I said, picking up a seam ripper and gesturing at my work area.
“I’m going to need a major dose of caffeine to get through everything that has to be done tonight.
I have to undo everything the machine just wrecked.
And hopefully I’ll have time to fix the pants tomorrow because I wouldn’t want to affect your precious schedule.
At this rate, I should probably just sleep here because no sooner will I get home than I’m going to have to turn?— ”
“That’s it. You need to come with me.”
“I can’t go anywhere. I just told you I have all this work to do and it needs to be done before tomorrow morning.” I brandished the seam ripper like a weapon.
Finn mumbled something I could quite catch—something about “stubborn”—and strode toward me.
I yelped as he latched onto the back of my chair and wheeled it away from the sewing machine.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, whipping my head around. All I saw was a smirk disturbing that perfectly square jawline.
“Hold on,” he said.
“Finn!” I cried.
He rolled the chair faster, pushing me out the door of the shop and into the hall. If I tried to get up now, I’d only hurt myself. Instead, I latched onto the seat of the chair as he pushed me out a door and into the parking lot. This was literally how horror movies started.
“Where are we going?” I demanded.
“You’ll see,” he said, pushing the chair up a ramp to a building on the other side of the studio lot. The door creaked as he pulled it open. I’d never been in here before. Then again, I didn’t often go anywhere except the costume shop, craft services, and the occasional conference room.