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He was always so good and easy with people. He never felt like a producer who would boss people around or tell them that things had to be done his way. He seemed to find a way to get people to work with him, not for him. He was one of the favorite producers on the show and I was sure if the crew had a choice, they would want to keep Jason on the show more so than me.
Talent was easy to find and I only got the job because I was the star and creator’s stepdaughter. There was no way of knowing how people would feel about me when they knew I was the one taking over the show. It might be smart if they found someone else. Someone who got along with Jason better and could make the show even bigger and better than what Kevin had started.
It was something that I would discuss with Jason while we were on the trip. I would see what he was thinking, how he was feeling, and what he wanted to do. Once I knew that, it might be easier for me to bow out. He might be happy to see me go and I could almost imagine he would. But I would deal with that later, for now I needed to find a way to get through this trip with him.
Rolling my suitcase out to the living room I stopped when I got to the doorway and my eyes fell on Jason. He was laughing, something I had seen him do countless times while we were working but certainly never directed at me. But there was something different about watching him this time. It might have been the way the sunlight was catching his hair that made it look a little more golden or it might have been how his eyes seemed to twinkle as he laughed.
But it wasn’t any of those things. The reason my heart jumped into my throat and I was even happier that I hadn’t taken Annie up on her idea of the bet was because of how Jason looked at me when he stopped laughing.
It was the most intense look I had ever seen directed at me before. It was a look of pure and unfiltered desire. The look he gave me told me he wanted me, naked, in his arms, and in his bed. I immediately imagined him coming up to me, taking me into his arms and kissing me. The thought took my breath away and I had to close my eyes for a second.
When I opened them, it was to see Jason talking to Annie and I wondered if I had imagined the look. I wanted to blame Annie for putting the thought of Jason and me in my head, for allowing me to think Jason could feel anything more than annoyance towards me, and for me seeing things that I knew logically were not there. But I still couldn’t get the look out of my mind or the thought of what it would be like if he had actually looked at me that way.
Chapter 8
Jason
In the land of Steinbeck and Cannery Row
You will begin your journey on the go.
There you will find these three things all in one place:
I am many colors or only one.
I was a home but now I’m not.
You might hear the sea in me. What am I?
I use ink but cannot write.
I can stick on hard or drift about.
I have three hearts.
I have eight arms but cannot juggle.
What am I?
I am in the sky and in the sea.
I do not have gills but I live under water.
I am a common shape.
I have five arms.
What am I?
The riddles ran through my mind as Natalie and I drove up to Monterey. It was only a short drive from Santa Barbara to our first stop, the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The riddles weren’t difficult but they never had been for me. Dad had loved Monterey and had even taken me when I was a kid. It didn’t surprise me that it would be one of our first stops. However, I wasn’t sure how the other three riddles were connected or how we were going to find all three together.
Natalie sat silently beside me as we drove towards Solvang on the 101. She had offered to drive but I didn’t mind doing it. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to have as much control over the trip as she could or if she just liked to drive. In either case, it was only an easy four hour drive up the coast. The plan was to get up there, get ourselves settled, maybe do some footage of the area and some commentary and then the next day we would go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It seemed to be the logical spot where the three animals in the clue would be.
I didn’t know what my father had in store for us when we got there or how easy it would be to find all the clues, so I didn’t want to rush it. Plus, I wanted to be able to spend as much time with Natalie as I could. If we figured everything out too quickly then we would be done quickly and I didn’t want that. I wouldn't sabotage the trip but it didn't mean I would make it easier for us to complete our tasks.
Dad had originally started Scavenge as a fun thing to do in his community, mixing local lore and history with fun spots to check out and see. He did it because he loved small towns and going on little adventures. I was sure it was also the fact that he didn’t want to hold down a job and was hoping his little videos on social media would make him enough money to support his family. From what I understood, Sunshine had been very supportive of him and even was his first camera operator when they were getting things off the ground.
The videos were fun and quirky, like my father, and soon they started to get a decent following. The spots the he talked about in his video saw an uptake in visits and helped to increase the tourism in the area. A few city councils got wind of what he was doing and asked him to do more, even getting him some corporate sponsors to help out.
