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“Brought you coffee. You warm enough?” Avery strode toward me, carrying two steaming cups. His undoubtedly had hot chocolate. Funny, all the little things I knew about him now. Things changed after my nightmare last week. Not like we pranced into the diner holding hands the next morning, but there were a lot more moments like this, checking in on each other, doing nice things. “And here. Keely had a box of scarves at the diner.”
Avery transferred one of two scarves from around his neck to mine. We were alone near the makeshift lot for extra parking on the other side of the motel. The early-morning chill had kept all but the hardiest of souls indoors until absolutely necessary.
We were facing two crowded days of filming because bad weather was forecast for later in the week. We were into week two of filming, and like Avery and me, the production had settled into a routine.
“Thanks. I’m sure I can think of some good ways to return the favor later. Warm you up.” I gave him a deliberate look, holding his gaze long enough to share those memories I’d been replaying of the night prior when we’d rubbed off long and slow, lots of the kissing I liked and tons of the friction Avery craved.
After, he’d reminded me about my meds right before my phone alarm beeped, and we’d brushed our teeth together before stumbling back to bed. Routine. I supposed we had one now. We’d fallen asleep wrapped together like we had much of the last week. I loved the coziness of our nights together, checking locks, walking the perimeter, coming back to the room, warming up with the hottest sex of my life, and sometimes we didn’t even need the sex. Hanging out and watching a documentary together was pretty awesome too.
It was fast becoming a powerful craving, a need rather than a bonus or something optional. The main course, not a dessert. I couldn’t get used to this, but I already had, and worse, my stupid brain kept galloping ahead to what might happen back in LA. I needed to stay rooted in the present like I kept advising him to do, but as always, it was far easier to give the advice than take it.
“Did you see the ghost on your security check?” Bumping my shoulder, Avery laughed. He’d gone to fetch coffee and breakfast while I’d walked the perimeter and checked various locks.
“Nope. Others keep saying they have, but maybe it’s scared of us.” Neither of us had seen anything out of place, but certain cast and crew members seemed to delight in scaring each other with tales of rippling curtains, items moved, and strange shadows.
“Yeah, we’re real scary.” He snorted, then turned thoughtful. “You’d make a great old-west sheriff, though, handing out the law, looking all serious and deadly.”
“Uh-huh.” Likely, the old-west townsfolk would have objected to my skin color, but Avery was all cute imagining me with a badge, so I let him have his fun. “You want to pretend to be an outlaw later? I can cuff you and…” I trailed off at the sound of footsteps crunching across the cold gravel.
“Hold that thought,” Avery said under his breath before brightening for Keely, who looked all cheery in her pink parka.
“Your security help should be here any minute, along with the first of the extras. At least the security temps didn’t cancel. I’ve got more horses than handlers, and our poor wardrobe person is short the help we promised him.”
“What type of help?” Avery tilted his head. “I’m a city boy, so I can’t help with the horses, but I could probably hand out costumes after we get the temporary guards positioned. Once all the extras are checked in, there’s less for us to do.”
“Would you? My hero.” She gave a startled Avery a fast hug.
“If we get someone to man the lot, I suppose I can see about helping with the livestock.” I couldn’t keep the reluctance out of my voice, but since Avery was offering, it seemed like I should too.
“Great. You’re both lifesavers. Good luck getting your personnel sorted when they arrive.”
My personnel. The past week I’d come to really like the supervising part of our job: assigning tasks to the temporary workers, checking up on them, answering their questions. It was like the best parts of being an officer without the taking orders from superiors part. I was the superior, and as it turned out, I liked that. The responsibility for the temp workers made the days pass quickly. Well, that and the nights with Avery, but I was truly enjoying this assignment more than I’d expected.
“You’re good at matching the right temp to the right task,” Avery observed sometime later, after we had everyone set for the day.
“Thanks. But now, apparently, I have to go be good with large animals.”
