by Meg Collett
Stevie grunted. “What did the previous owner use to glue this shit down? Dragon jizz?”
Arie hacked out a laugh just as Emilie shouted, “Language!”
Stevie fought back the urge to flip her off. Cade glanced at them from his seat in front of the camera. He looked a little pale.
“Are you going to pull or not?”
Stevie gripped the edge of the tacky flooring, but her eyes were trained on Cade. “What do you think they’re asking him?”
Arie looked up. “I don’t think we’re supposed to talk about production when the cameras are hot.”
Cade suddenly recoiled as if Emilie’s question had landed like a slap across his face.
“Uh oh,” Stevie muttered. This wasn’t good.
“Why are you asking about that?” Cade’s words echoed through the duplex.
Stevie abandoned trying to help Arie. She knew exactly what Emilie was asking Cade. “Son of a bitch.”
Arie’s eyebrows shot up. “Christ, you don’t have to call me names. I just asked for help.”
Stevie waved him off and stomped over to Emilie and Cade. “What the hell is going on?”
“Do not interrupt interviews. What are you, some noob?”
“Answer my question!”
Cade put a hand on her arm, but his attention stayed on Emilie. “I don’t see what this has to do with the show.”
“Everything has to do with the show,” Emilie snapped.
Stevie’s attention bounced between the two of them like a tennis ball. “Are they asking you about your stutter?”
Cade dipped his chin jerkily. “And about middle school. How did you find out about that?”
Emilie smirked from her chair next to the monitor. “One of your old classmates returned my call during lunch.”
“You won’t let this go, will you?” he asked the producer.
“Not on your life. Now sit down, smile pretty, and answer the damn questions. And Stevie, if you don’t get back over there pulling up flooring, I’ll inform Shepherd of your . . . unhelpful nature. Got it?”
In Emilie’s expressionless stare, Stevie saw all she needed to see. This woman would go to any lengths to milk drama from Stevie and Cade, and she was deep enough inside Shepherd’s pocket to know how to play Stevie. Shepherd had assigned his little watchdog to their team, and if Stevie stepped out of line, Emilie would tattle on her. Thinking she could trust Emilie, that she might have an ally against Shepherd, had been a mistake.
She would make Emilie pay for this.
Cade eased her back a few steps and turned so his back was to Emilie, blocking her from sight. He was trying to protect her from Emilie. “Go on,” he whispered so only she could hear. “I can handle it.”
“She promised she wouldn’t do this.”
“Promises mean shit in reality television,” Emilie said from behind them. “You basically just told me where to cut, and I can hear you, so quit it with the lovers’ secret meeting and get back to work.”
“You told her not to ask me about it?” Cade looked bewildered for a moment.
“I’m sorry. I thought we could trust her.” She shot a glare around his shoulder, though Emilie didn’t even notice.
Cade smiled softly, giving her the barest hint of his dimples. “Thanks, Stevie. I appreciate it, but I’ve got it.”
He turned back to the camera and chair, jaw flexing, and there was nothing else Stevie could do. Emilie was right: she’d basically told the producer exactly how to attack Cade. She’d already made her first mistake, and it was only the first day of filming.
“So,” Emilie said, attention on her tablet as Cade settled in front of the camera. “Tell me about middle school. About the bullying.”
Cade took a deep breath, and Stevie knew he was mentally counting down from ten. Emilie was doing everything in her power to make him nervous, to make him stutter on camera while talking about his past, about the asshole kids in middle school who had worn him down to a shell of a child for no reason other than he talked a little differently than they did.
“Any time today,” Emilie pressed, still not even bothering to look at Cade. Her boot jigged up and down in an erratic beat.
Cade swallowed, his count interrupted. For a tiny second, he looked like that little kid whose brother got into fights on the playground to protect him. The kid who had held his breath underwater in a bathtub one evening after school when the bullying had gone too far and the little shell of a kid couldn’t take it anymore. His lips had been blue when Hale tore him from the water.
“I’ve stuttered as early as I can remember. We tr-tried—”
Stevie pivoted and strode back across the hall.
Emilie Lau would fucking pay for this. But first, she was getting Cade out of the damn chair.
Arie looked up as she took her spot next to him. “Follow my lead,” she hissed. Her eyes flicked to the rotted counter behind them. She angled herself.
“He can handle himself, Stevie,” Arie said quietly, eyes on the piece he was trying to scrape up.
Stevie cut him a look. Maybe while she’d been watching out for Arie and his leg, he’d been watching out for them too. “I got him into this shit, and I’m getting him out of it.”
“They’ll just ask him again later.”
She gritted her teeth. She knew that, but at least he would have some time to prepare and not be as nervous. Emilie wanted the stuttering, damaged image of a handsome man she knew all the housewives of America would cream their panties over, but she wasn’t getting it. Not on Stevie’s watch.
“Just help me,” she ground out.
“All right then.” He nodded. “Let’s get this shit on.”
She moved over enough to give him room to get a hold on the sticky old laminate. They rocked back on their heels and prepared to pull together.
“On three,” he said.
A camera guy shifted to keep them centered.
“One.”
Stevie tightened her grip, but she couldn’t help another glance at Cade. His body radiated tension, and his voice was too low for her to overhear what he was saying.
“Two.”
This was going to suck, but she deserved it.
“Three.”
Stevie hesitated just long enough for Arie’s shoulder to ram into her chin when she didn’t pull on three. Stars flashed across her vision, the hit coming harder than she’d anticipated, and she flailed backward, arms pinwheeling for balance.
All cameras swung in her direction as she let out an ear-piercing scream and crashed into the infested counter. Her back crunched into the rotted wood, and it gave beneath her weight like tissue paper. She fell ass first into the roach breeding ground, the hub of the roach infestation.
The L.A. of roach kingdoms.
She screamed and didn’t stop.
9
The following day’s call time was later in the afternoon, but Cade insisted on arriving an hour early, which meant an hour of hiding from Shepherd and Emilie. Snarling at the thought of her, Stevie scuttled between trailers and dumpsters to her shade trees. She’d dumped Arie and Cade in the main tent. They could fend for themselves while she finished her makeup.
Peeking between two low-hanging branches, she spotted the toe of a black Mary-Jane pump.
“Hey, Violet,” she said as she walked over.
The young woman sat with her back to the tree and Jane Eyre in her hands. She wore a flowing skirt and a pleated sleeveless top. Though Violet wore thick black sunglasses, Stevie could feel the condemning stare behind them as she looked up. Apparently, Violet was still offended by her introduction to Arie the other day.
Stevie smirked. “If you keep frowning like that, you’ll get some nasty-ass wrinkles.”
She plopped down next to Violet. As she pulled her makeup tote onto her lap and started rifling through the contents, Violet subtly shifted away, putting a few feet of safe space between them. It didn’t bother Stevie; she understood some people needed more
space than others. It was a hard-earned lesson after years of reality television work.
The silence between them could almost be considered companionable as Stevie dabbed globs of concealer on each and every freckle. She rotated between sponges and brushes until her face looked like a solid layer of airbrushed perfection. She’d started contouring when Violet quietly closed her book and said, “I heard about the roaches yesterday.”
The brush paused against her cheek, and Stevie squinted at Violet, whose attention stayed on her hand skimming across the blades of grass.
“We don’t talk about that,” Stevie said. “As in, never. Ever.”
Stevie resumed the slashing motion beneath her cheekbone with renewed fervor, but a soft whistling noise came from beside her.
Violet was laughing quietly—nearly silently, but laughing. Her heart-shaped mouth was pulled into a smile, flashing her small teeth. Her laugh sounded like the old wind chime Stevie’s grandparents used to have on their porch. That porch had been her one reprieve from the reality shows. Her grandparents’ little home in Pasadena had been an escape from life, until they passed away and Stevie was whisked onto the next show.
She forced herself to keep blending instead of throwing her arms around Violet’s shoulders. She didn’t want to terrify the girl—again. But she found herself smiling and chuckling along until she remembered she’d found roaches in her hair during the ride home yesterday.
Freaking roaches. But the distraction had done the trick. The cameras had been on her for the long minutes Cade needed to collect himself. Stevie had practically stripped on camera, and Cade had rushed over to help her swipe off the roaches, his arms tight around her as she shuddered.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he’d whispered in her ear.
She’d gritted her teeth and fought back another shiver as little furry legs scuttled over her skin. “Just get ready. She won’t drop it.”
His grip on her had tightened by a fraction, hugging her to him. By the time Emilie had called him back over to the diary cam, he was prepared. He’d made it through the interview with a reserved grace that had Emilie’s mouth twisting into a sour frown. She’d wanted to catch him off guard, and Stevie had stolen the opportunity from her. Neither of them would forget the slight.
Even during the ride back to Canaan yesterday evening, she’d found a few bugs on her. Cade had to pull over once when she got really panicked. He’d helped her sort through her hair to make sure no more bugs were crawling around in her curls. His fingers had run gently through her strands, and she’d shuddered more than once. He’d felt every tremble but hadn’t said anything, though she’d heard his breath catch a few times.
She thought he’d even run his hand along the fine hairs at the back of her neck just to feel her shiver under his touch.
“—the green?”
“What?” Stevie asked, snapping out of her daydream.
“The green would look pretty with your eyes.” Violet pointed with a long, slender finger at a soft mossy eyeshadow in the palette Stevie had open.
“Oh.” Stevie considered the color. “I hadn’t even thought about that one.”
Violet nodded and thumbed through the pages of her book, blowing a paper-scented breeze up to her face and breathing it in deeply.
Stevie had one eye done, blended and lined, when Violet spoke again. “Do you like your assistant?”
“Emilie or Arie? Cause Emilie is a ho-bagel. No joke.”
“Arie,” Violet said, his name blending into her breathless words. By the way she said it, Stevie knew Arie wasn’t walking down a one-way street with this girl. There was a special power to how a person spoke a name, especially someone who felt stomach-deep butterflies at simply saying it. And Violet certainly felt something, if Stevie was guessing correctly.
“Sure.” Stevie angled her face to start on her other eye. “He’s a cool guy.”
Even though he’d joked about seeing something on Stevie all evening yesterday, she still liked how he interacted with Cade—naturally friendly, unassuming, and sometimes reserved when his past came up, especially if Cade mentioned his service in the Marine Corps. But he waited patiently as Cade spoke, listening with an ease that had Cade talking at a normal speed and casualness in no time. It had taken Stevie months to earn that when she first moved to Canaan. She’d met the Cooper brothers when they redid a bathroom for her.
She smiled at the memory.
“He limps sometimes,” Violet said, her hand stilling over the grass. “When he thinks no one notices.”
Stevie nodded. “You know he has a prosthetic, right? An IED took his leg below the knee in Iraq. The fit isn’t quite right, and it bothers him if he stands on it for a long time. He’s working with his insurance to get a new one.”
Violet started reading again, though she remained on the same page the entire time Stevie finished her makeup.
Stevie packed her supplies away, closed the tote, and stood, brushing off her pants. “Well, I’ve got to go before Cade has a stress aneurysm. Talk to you later, Violet.”
“Good day . . . Stevie.”
Stevie walked away, grinning.
During a pit stop in Wardrobe, she again dressed in clothes she mostly stole from other racks. She had no doubt Emilie was giving her the shittiest clothing of all the contestants on purpose. Another mark against the associate producer.
Back outside, Stevie wove through the hazards of a reality show production without paying them much mind. She could sidestep and shuffle, duck a swinging crane or dodge scampering assistants with the best of them. The sense of homesickness she’d felt yesterday struck again, confirming she was batshit crazy, because who in their right mind would miss this? She should miss it like a hole in her head or whiskey in her drink.
“Stephanie.”
It was too late to leap behind a bush or a burly cameraman, so she sighed and turned around. “What?”
Shepherd oozed a smile onto his face. That was what it looked like to Stevie: like something percolating up from mud, a toxin or poison the earth had rejected. “I wanted a quick moment to chat.”
“I’ve got a call time right now.”
“I know, I set your schedule, but I can walk with you.” He put his hand on the small of her back, and it took physical force to keep herself from pulling away.
“What’s up?” Stevie asked, catching the quick glances people sent their way. She hated the attention and knew the conclusions they were likely drawing. The showrunner rarely ever left his special trailer, an old tour bus that served as his office, especially not to walk with one of the cast members.
Shepherd smelled like expensive cologne and golf courses. In his loafers and with his sweater tied around his neck, he looked ready to whack some balls or whatever it was golfers did. As if he needed a sweater. In late August. In Georgia.
“I wanted to talk to you about filming today. The other contestants are dry as dirt. Honestly, I don’t know where casting found these hicks. I talked to Emilie and told her to set up a romance between you and Arie.”
Stevie choked. “Yeah, that’s so not happening. Like, I can’t even tell you how much that isn’t happening.”
“Really?” Shepherd’s eyebrow arched. He had a spot of orange spray tan on his jaw that Stevie focused on, ignoring the steely disapproval radiating off him.
“I mean,” she said, backpedaling, “I don’t think that would work too well with, ah, within the dynamics of our team.”
“We need something, Stephanie. You promised to deliver your special dramatics.”
They were almost at her duplex, and Stevie spotted Cade and Arie standing outside. They were talking and laughing as they leaned against the duplex’s little stoop area. Cade’s arms were crossed, pulling his shirt tight across his back. Though he had his back to her, she slowed so they wouldn’t spot her with Shepherd. “Does it have to be that?”
“What else do you suggest?”
“I could, uh,” Stevie fumbled, her mind r
acing, “steal the other team’s shit or something?”
Shepherd pulled her to a stop. “Don’t be petty.”
Arie caught sight of her over Cade’s shoulder and nodded in her direction. Cade turned around and found her. Stevie turned her back on him so he couldn’t read her face. “Fine, but not Arie.”
“Cade then.”
“Not him either.”
“Listen. We can do this the easy way or the hard way, but either way, cameras will catch you with those pretty legs spread at some point. Got it?”
She cringed. For a split second, she thought she might puke. “Okay,” she whispered.
Shepherd oozed again; Stevie refused to call it a smile. He pulled her to him, his hand dipping dangerously low on her back, and planted a lingering kiss on her cheek. She kept herself perfectly still until he released her.
“Good girl,” he said against her ear wetly.
As he walked away, Stevie felt like nothing more than a puppet on a string, doing a dance he forced her limbs to do.
Back at her duplex, Cade acted like he hadn’t seen the grossly intimate embrace, though Arie looked like he’d bitten into a lemon.
“Let’s do this,” she said, sweeping past them without meeting Cade’s eye.
They had new camera and sound guys today, and the crew busied themselves with preparing their equipment. Silence came from the other side of the duplex thanks to the staggered filming schedule. That team had worked well into the early morning hours on their demolition, while a hired crew had finished off Stevie and Cade’s bathroom. But it was their turn tonight. Stevie, Cade, and Arie were in for a late night of renovating.
Cade sucked in a shocked breath when they entered the duplex’s master bathroom. It was a shell of what it had been yesterday. The useless half walls made of glass blocks were gone, leaving the space open enough for counters and a bathtub. Electrical wires hung from the ceiling, and plumbing tubes pointed into the air. New cabinets would arrive sometime tonight, during filming, for their crew to install and paint. The countertops were scheduled for delivery tomorrow.
Arie let out a low whistle when he stuck his head in around the doorframe.