“Did it catch on fire? Burn down? Kill half the town and plunge Maryland into a new dark age?”
“It doesn’t have to be that dramatic to be a fuck-up.”
Bunny sighed. “Is it anything she’s even going to notice? Or anything that I wouldn’t be able to figure out?”
It wasn’t. “You’re good at your job.”
“And if she hires someone who isn’t good at their job,ifsomething goes wrong again, then that’s on her, not on you.” She patted his cheek. Perhaps a little too forcefully, but not hard. “You’re looking for reasons to be upset. It’s gorgeous, we’re all amazing, and now you’re going to show off this kickass room you and Jake did for her collection.”
Aras’s belly was still tight…but that didn’t make Bunny wrong. He still understood why he’d wired the lights up in series. And if nothing had gone wrong, he’d never have thought twice about it. He nodded to her. “Thanks. You keep talking me off the ledge.”
“Of course I do. I don’t want to clean up the mess if you fall.” She rested her hand on his shoulder, then disappeared into the bedroom. “You should go. We stalled as long as we could showing her the bathroom, so you’re next.”
The door shut as footsteps approached. Caroline was misty-eyed already, smiling constantly. She nodded to Aras. “Is this—”
“Right through here.” He said nothing more, just opened the door and watched her face as he ran his thumb over the edge of the remote. He’d give her a few seconds to take things in.
Caroline gasped again as she walked in, and her hand shook as she brushed against the punch set on the middle pedestal. “How did you do this?”
“It was all Jake and Rachel, who did the trim work. Custom built-ins everywhere to make sure your glass looked the best we could make it.” He tapped the first button and turned the lights on, the cascading rainbow pattern Mason had helped him set up.
Caroline tossed her arms around Aras so hard they almost broke some of her glass, but she didn’t stay long enough for him to say anything. She moved to Jake, who hugged back firmly.
“I didn’t expect this.” She shook her head. “I never would have gotten away with this before.”
That grated against Aras. “Well pardon my language, but your ex-husband is a piece of shit. You can do whatever you want with your house.”
“I don’t need to.” She sighed. “You already did it for me.”
Chapter forty-three
Dane
Thejobpaidwell,but damn was it ever burning the candle at both ends. Dane flopped down on the bed in his crash pad and let the smell of the clean pillowcase fill his nose. They did bedding every three days, so he never really had to worry about things getting too dirty.
It was satisfying work, to be sure. Working on a closed set was the kind of thing that Dane had always imagined doing. He wouldn’t trade the experience of doing lighting on-site for anything—that was harder, and he knew he’d learned a lot from it—but shooting on the pre-ordained sets let Dane really feel like he knew what he was doing. It was an exercise of his expertise, and Cecelia took notice.
Which was why she worked him specifically to the bone. He’d quickly become her proxy in a lot of ways. Nothing official, but she trusted him enough to take charge of the other grips. And hehadlearned things from this job as well.
The problem was, one of things he learned was how badly he needed to invest in a back massager. And a foot massager. And probably some other massager he didn’t even know existed yet. By the end of a shooting day, he was bone-deep sore, and it wasn’t like he was getting tossed easy jobs. For good reason, the less experienced members of the crew were being used for confessionals, interviews, and mostly still shots, while Dane was with the other half of the crew, running from hell to breakfast to light everything up while people were moving around, colors were in flux, and the layout of the space was consistently changing.
After about fifteen minutes of breathing through his pillowcase, Dane’s muscles had relaxed enough for him to consider the trek to the showers. It was the least luxurious part of this housing arrangement, to be sure. They had closed stalls, but it was still basically a locker room setup.
“Maybe I don’t need it.” He sat up, then caught a whiff of his own BO. “Scratch that, I guess.” He groaned as he rose to his feet and traded out his work boots and socks for flip flops. He didn’t trust walking barefoot across the lot, but the boots were too much to deal with in the showers.
Before he grabbed his shower caddy, Dane checked his phone. He hadn’t heard from Aras the entire day. Day-and-a-half, actually. Last update he got was about them packing up and heading for the next job. Dane’s chest had tightened when he read that. The two of them could have traveled together instead of dealing with phone calls and videos and texts. He’d gotten effusive texts and calls after Aras got the bowl Dane had sent. And it wasn’t like Aras had been ignoring him…until recently. They were probably just busy in transit.
This long distance bullshit is going to kill me.
Dane plugged his phone in to charge, then changed into his comfy clothes. They were cleaner and better for the showers than his full work clothes.
When he’d gotten his sweats on, a knock came at the door. Dane groaned. It was probably a change to his morning schedule, which always meant he had to wake up earlier. Somehow, no one ever pushed his start timebackan hour.
Dane grabbed his caddy and tossed his shirt over his shoulder. It was warm enough outside. He could walk to the showers shirtless, and hopefully being half-dressed would convince whoever this was to give him a break. As much as they could.
He answered the door. “I’m just heading to shower. Can this wait?”
“I’ve waited long enough.”
