“We’re going again. Everybody, ready?”
Again, Lothair climbed onto the truck bed. This time, they performed the fake fight until the villain flew backward over the tailgate onto a prepared stack of mattresses. Lothair leaped from the hood over a fence and landed in a somersault before flinging himself onto the prepared bike.
Engine revving, he drove up the ramp, but one of the metal sections rattled and part of the ramp broke off, clattering to the ground. Lothair leaned to the side and kicked as if riding a lightweight scooter, helping the bike up the collapsing ramp and onto the warehouse rooftop. It happened so fast that I was sure the crew couldn’t see Lothair’s move, but it would be on camera. Had he been human, he’d have been lying on the ground with six hundred pounds of metal on top of his broken body.
The director yelled and swore, but the cameras kept rolling.
Lothair jumped, drove over the second roof, and landed on the other side, where timed explosions accompanied his ride off into the sunset.
When he returned to the trailer half an hour later, he was grinning like a kid at a fair. His set assistant skipped behind him, carrying a headset and a tablet.
“What do you think?” Lothair asked me.
“With the budget they have, I think they could make the workplace safe. The ramp was a death trap.”
Lothair unscrewed another water bottle and took a few deep gulps. “Yeah, I’ll be talking to Kelly about that. But the jump was cool, right? It’s going to be a killer scene.”
“Have you read the script?”
Lothair’s jaw tightened, and he flashed me a glare. “Yes. What?”
I shrugged. “Okay.”
“What, Terrance? Did you have a reason for that question?”
“Not really, no.”
“It’s not Shakespeare. I know, okay?” He threw his arms in the air, shooting daggers at me. His assistant tiptoed out of the trailer noiselessly. “It’s a pile of crap. But I’m actually doing some acting in that pile of crap, and if it does well at the box office, I’ll be getting more acting jobs and not just stunts and himbo posturing. You know nothing about the business, so keep your judgy remarks to yourself!”
“I haven’t said anything.”
He huffed, slamming the bathroom door behind him. It would have been effective if the trailer bathroom didn’t have a thin metal door with a wonky lock. It creaked open again, and Lothair had to close it twice before it held.
“Fucking crap!” he yelled.
I swallowed a laugh.
Even though wewere sitting outside on a noisy piazza, the screaming was getting us some unwanted attention from the other patrons.
Leo cradled the baby, expertly unfastening his shirt with the other hand. Timothy latched on to Leo’s nipple, and people around us at the café sighed with relief.
“That’s better,” Leo said, using his free hand to take a gulp of his decaf iced coffee.
“How can you drink that?”
“Beggars can’t be choosers. Can’t feed the baby caffeine, can I?”
“He’s a shifter. Sure you can.”
Leo looked at me as if I were clueless. “Not in public. You should experience the judgment.”
“How are you? It must be a lot.”
“It is, but Davidson spends more time with Rufus now, and it’s good for them both.”
“And how’s the new guy?”
Wrinkling his nose, Leo waved his hand in the air. “Okay, I guess. Boring.”
