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“Now will you tell me about the hickey?” Kix asked with a knowing grin. “Tell me it wasn’t that sexy firefighter. I licked him first, so he’s mine. Forgot his name, though. Shame.”
I shook my head. “Not a firefighter.” If I wanted the entire cast and crew of Gold Rats to find out about my private time with the sheriff of Rockley County, I’d spill the beans to Kix. Since I didn’t, I kept my trap shut.
“Who, then? You didn’t even come out with us last night.”
Tomo’s ears were like a cat’s. They seemed to swivel toward the juicy details. The man was quiet as a mouse, but he heard all the best gossip on set. Thankfully, I’d never heard him repeat any of it.
“Did you go to the Roadhouse again?” I asked, trying to get him to forget about my mysterious hickey-maker.
“Don’t change the subject.”
“If you don’t want to talk about that, then let’s talk about New Year’s,” I suggested calmly, as if I’d mentioned planning a trip to the grocery store.
Kix glanced at Tomo and then down at his lap. “Yeah. A bunch of us went to the Roadhouse. Logan flirted with this hot set of twins. I thought they were going to suck him off right there in the booth. Someone said they were barely eighteen, though, so he freaked and left early.”
I watched him from the corner of my eye, trying not to move my face as Tomo did his work to cover up my freckles for the camera. “Mm-hm.”
Kix glanced at me and then away. “We can talk about New Year’s another time.”
I stared at him for a minute, but he didn’t look back. I started to get a sneaking suspicion that there wasn’t a misunderstanding about the NYE thing. That the misunderstanding was me still trusting this guy.
Tomo moved silently around me. His long fingers brushed various products across my skin to make me look sweaty, bruised, and dirty until he finally declared me ready for my first call. With one last glance between the oddly silent Kix and me, he left the trailer.
Kix opened his mouth, but I didn’t have time for this conversation. It was going to be a shitshow. Besides, I was already pushing the schedule, and I hated being late for a call. This morning’s first scene was the tyrolean traverse, and it would demand all of my attention. “Not now,” I muttered, ducking into the back room of the trailer to change into the clothes the wardrobe assistant had left for me there. It consisted of a filthy red tank top with several rips in it and a pair of khaki cargo pants in the same state. This scene came after my character had already raced through the woods, fallen down a ravine, and scrambled across a boulder field. Thankfully, the pants were deceptive. They looked like tight-fitting cotton cargo pants, but they were actually made from a stretchy material that allowed me to climb better than regular pants would have.
Without my climbing trainer there, the rope work was being managed by two production assistants who’d been hired specifically for their climbing experience and ability to help with the technical aspects of these scenes.
I still didn’t trust them the way I trusted Kramer. He’d been overseeing my climbing for years, but his mother was having a medical procedure and he needed to be back in LA helping her through it.
We’d planned for this, but it was still a departure from the routine. It still meant the rope work for the tyrolean had been set up by PAs who weren’t necessarily expert at it.
When I arrived at the location of the shoot, I greeted the two PAs with a smile. “Hi, Sara, Bo. How are you two doing today? Are we ready to traverse this bad boy?”
The first scene involved my character realizing that when he rescued Crystobell’s character, he’d need a way to get her across a deep ravine. He had to assume she might be hurt or unconscious, and even if she wasn’t, her character didn’t know how to rock climb. The scene entailed my character setting up the tyrolean traverse as quickly as possible. These action scenes had a sense of urgency to them since my character was racing against the clock to get Crys’s character out of the mountaintop cave before it detonated.
The first part of the scene went smoothly. I set an anchor at the top of the eastern cliff and rappelled down one side of the rock face to the floor of the ravine below. The sun was shining, and the helicopter noise drowned out the nervous thump of my heart. I got in character and focused on the scene.
I am the rock, and the rock is fearless.
My muscles were warm and loose by the time I hit the ground and hustled over to start the climb up the western face of the ravine, pulling the trailing rope with me that I would anchor at the top to create the first part of the tyrol. Because there wouldn’t be a top rope in this scenario, I had to lead climb which took longer since it involved placing anchors as I went. The problem came when Nolan kept shouting, “Cut!” and insisting I speed up the pace to increase the sense of urgency in the scene.
