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“I thought you looked like a sheriff from a western. All you needed was spurs.” Teddy gave me a thumbs up. “Not at all like you shit your pants.”
“Thanks.” That helped not at all.
I nailed walking on the second try. When I got to Tony’s window, I rapped on it as was written in the script. A few tiny flakes fluttered down from the slate sky as Tony lowered his window, smiled up at me, and said his lines.
“What seems to be the problem, sheriff?”
I gawked at him as my brain went totally blank. Like...nothing. He blinked several times.
“Cut!”
Fourteen takes later, it was over. Thank freaking God. If I never stood in front of a camera again, I’d be a happy man. I’d never felt so stupid or out of place in my life. We went back to makeup just as night was falling. Teddy was on the prowl for his new squeeze and left me sitting in a chair as some guy with a skinny mustache handed me buttery-scented wipes to scrub my face with. He never said a word to me, just stared and huffed, until I was pushed out the door so he could help the endless stream of Rockmount people filing in and out. Then it was back to wardrobe to change. Gracelyn was gone, so there was that small blessing.
I didn’t linger. There was no sense to it.
“Stillman, hey, hold up!” Tony called, stalling me as I stalked from the barn to where I’d been directed to park my official vehicle. “Wow, you must have your afterburners on. I rode in with you today, remember?”
I sorely wanted to forget. Had it only been this morning that we’d eaten waffles together? It felt as if a thousand years had dragged past.
“I’m tired,” I confessed as we walked, our shoes crunching on the walkway leading around the back. I stopped striding along to turn to him. “You told me to swagger.”
He skidded to a halt, a tiny snowflake landing on his nose and quickly melting. The tall pines were swaying in the wind, all the tiny lights blinking as the boughs danced. The final shoot of the day was taking place in the barn, a modern remake of “O Holy Night” by Mariah Carey being carried around the back on the wintry winds.
“I personally thought your swagger was very sexy. Shades of John Wayne’s iconic gait.”
“He said it looked like I shit my pants. In front of everyone.” I was more than angry right now. I was exhausted, embarrassed, hungry, and tangled up in all of my emotions. “How am I supposed to face down the people that live here after having that thrown at me?”
“He says that kind of thing to everyone. Did you not hear him tell me I needed to get the dick out of my mouth and enunciate?”
“What?!” I must have missed that. What a jerk.
He waved off my shock. “It’s fine. He’s just a little stressed. Sasha is being Sasha, setting everything on fire like the dragon that she is, and he’s taking it out on the rest of the cast. Jillian, the animal wrangler, will get him sorted tonight. They’re having a fling while on the shoot. All very hush-hush since his wife is taking a small spa retreat in Spain with her sister.”
“Wow,” I whispered, all the steam that I’d built up fizzling out like stale soda pop. I had nothing else to say right then. “Just...wow.”
I walked off and he jogged up to catch me, shuffling his script to his other arm so he could take my hand. I studied it and then his face.
“You did a wonderful job. Truly. And I’m not just saying that because...”
He let that fall off, but I was not willing to let that dangle.
“Because why?” I demanded with little real fire.
“Because you’re special to me, still, always, forever.”
God.Damn.I should have flipped him off. I should have told him to find somewhere else to stay for the duration, Bradley’s wishes be damned. Well, I should have done a thousand things. The one thing that I shouldn’t have done was take his cold face in my hands and kiss him.
But I did...
