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It’s been fucking incredible to watch.
And as I open the door to her trailer and step inside, I find her bearing her newfound claws to everyone around her.
“God, no,” she states on a sigh. “I refuse to wear anything that makes me feel like I’ve been stuffed into the casing they use for sausages. Do you want me to look like a sausage, for shit’s sake? I don’t think so. They’re tasty as hell, but not exactly the statement I’m going for in fashion.”
I look down at the cups I’m carrying to camouflage my smile as Rocky keeps going on her short-term rampage.
“Give me something with spandex or stretch or, hell, a flowy top, for God’s sake,” she demands. “No skirts with the word mini or leather or tight or anything other than knit-stretch as their adjective. I just want to beach myself like a whale and be done with it. Honestly. Maybe we should just cancel shooting today if I can’t go in my sweatpants? Aren’t sweatpants in fashion now? I swear I’ve seen the Kardashians wearing chunky sneakers, sweatshirts, and bicycle shorts everywhere they go. If they can do it, why not me?”
Heidi heaves a deep, heavy, exasperated sigh. “Raquel, this is a costume. For your show. You can’t wear sweatpants and sneakers because the wardrobe for Highlander is eighteenth-century baroque.”
“Maybe, just this one episode, we could talk to the writers about adding a time travel sequence to say, now-ish,” Rocky offers. “It could be a commentary on the minute differences between old world—”
“No,” Heidi cuts her off. “Absolutely not happening.”
I have to cover my nose to hold in a snort.
“Come onnnn,” Rocky says on a groan. “You can’t tell me that pregnant bitches back then didn’t find some way to be comfortable. A sheet as a nightdress. Something. There’s no way they walked around squeezing their pregnant baby bellies into corsets.”
“Raquel, be reasonable.”
“I am being reasonable!” Rocky tosses her hands up into the air. “You’re the one not being reasonable. There have to be some sort of labor laws against this kind of thing at this stage of pregnancy. There’s no way this is legal.”
“Raquel, you signed a contract. Unless the baby is physically leaving your body right now—”
“It is, it is,” she lies. “Oh no. Ow. I think I feel the head.”
Finally, unable to maintain my composure anymore, I let go of my laugh. Heidi eyes me with contempt and possible thoughts of murder, but Rocky’s face softens at the sound.
It’s that second reaction that really hits me straight in the chest in the best kind of way.
“How about this?” I say, trying to be the voice of compromise as I hand her the requested hot chocolate. Her eyes instantly light up like a kid on Christmas morning at the sight of it, but I force myself to continue my train of thought. “You put on your sweats—the comfiest ones you own—and you wear them right up until the moment you’re needed on set. You get your makeup done in them, maybe even take a little nap…and then right before they need you, we get you changed into costume so you can do the scene. And you go and do it spectacularly—I know you’re capable of one take. In fact, if you succeed, I’ll buy you anything you want for dinner and have it delivered to the apartment—even if they don’t deliver. And then, when shooting is over for the day, you come right back to the trailer and put on your sweats again. Easy as can be.”
Rocky taps her chin, thinking it over. “You know, I do like the sound of food.”
I nod enthusiastically.
“Okay. Fine,” she eventually answers. “I’ll wear the goddamn dress for the scene.”
“Great,” I encourage, winking at Heidi in a way that really pisses her off.
Which, obviously, makes me smile.
I’m getting more and more comfortable here by the day; Heidi’s feelings, I fear, are growing exponentially toward the opposite.
Too bad for her, though, because she’s going to have to learn to deal with it.
As long as Rocky wants me, I’m here to stay.
Harrison
I never thought I’d see the light at the hands of the mother of my child, but I also never thought Caplin Hawkins would force us to start a fucking book club that led to him falling in love.
Today has been a busy day for both Rocky and me. After hours’ worth of work meetings and filming on set all day, we spent the better part of our evening together, eating Chinese takeout and group crib building—I did the building and she did the watching.
But somehow, after the food was consumed and the crib was fully built, the night took a strange and dangerous turn that’s all thanks to Amazon same-day delivery and a bet.
That is to say, strange for her, dangerous for me.
