by Jae
Jill hated having her inadequacies pointed out to her. “That’s very kind of you,” she said stiffly. “But if I need help, I’ll let you know.”
“Yeah, right after you cure cancer and bring about world peace,” Crash muttered just loudly enough for Jill to hear.
Jill bit back a smile. Why was it that Crash made her smile even when her symptoms were flaring up and they were butting heads? She turned her back and tried to open the first of the tiny buttons on the front of her dress.
The damn thing seemed to escape her fingers, which felt as awkward as if she were wearing three pairs of mittens.
“Jill, come on. Let me help,” Crash said behind her. “It’s no big deal.”
“Maybe not for you,” Jill mumbled. For a moment, she considered other options—taking her nail clippers to the buttons. Okay, now you’re being ridiculous. Wardrobe would kill her if she ruined another dress. Plus using the clippers took coordination too, which she didn’t have at the moment.
She turned toward Crash, took a deep breath, and let it escape. “All right.”
“All right?” Crash repeated, looking surprised. “You mean you’ll actually let me undress you?”
Images of Crash unhooking her bra and then bending to kiss her breasts flashed through Jill’s mind. No. Firmly, Jill pushed those fantasies away, because that was all they’d ever be—fantasies. Acting on them wouldn’t be fair to either of them.
She licked her dry lips. “You can help me with the buttons. I’ll take care of the rest.”
Crash nodded and took a step toward her.
They stood facing each other. Outside, lightning flashed, bathing the trailer in a pattern of light and shadows.
“Okay, let’s see…” Crash lifted her hands to the row of buttons on Jill’s costume bodice.
Jill’s gaze was drawn down. She watched as Crash’s fingers—slender yet strong—struggled a bit with the top button. Were her hands, usually so competent whenever Jill had watched her shoot a stunt, trembling a little? It was probably just because she wasn’t used to undressing someone—at least not in this context.
Finally, the top button slid through its hole and Crash moved on to the next. Her hands an inch from Jill’s chest, she paused and looked up at her face. “Are you okay?”
Jill bit her lip and nodded. This was just so confusing. Exciting and embarrassing at the same time and, most of all, terribly intimate—not just in a sexual way. Only once, on the morning of the most important press conference of her life, had she allowed Grace to help her dress. Somehow, having Grace hook her bra for her hadn’t evoked so many complex emotions.
She wanted to pull away or push Crash’s hands aside, but that would only make Crash aware of what a big deal this was for her.
To distract herself, she focused on the rolling thunder and the flashes of lightning outside. The weather seemed to echo the storm brewing inside of her.
Finally, the last button fell open, and Jill shrugged the dress from her shoulders. It fell to the floor, revealing the corset and the old-fashioned drawers she wore.
Normally, Jill wasn’t shy about people seeing her in a state of undress, but now she felt strangely exposed. “Thanks,” she said, her voice a bit rough. “I can take it from here.” No need to torture herself by allowing Crash to put her hands on her any more than necessary. The memory of how it had felt when Crash had helped her take off the stunt harness was still ingrained in every cell of her body.
“Nonsense,” Crash answered. “The corset is damn near impossible to take off on your own. Let me help you with that.”
Jill let out a sigh, but knowing Crash wouldn’t give in, she finally turned. She felt Crash’s heat behind her and her breath on her neck as Crash bent her head and unknotted the laces of the corset. Goose bumps formed all over her body.
“Who the hell invented a thing like this?” Crash grunted.
“No idea. Some sadist, probably.” When the ties loosened and Crash lifted the corset away from her chest, she sucked in a breath. “Thanks.” Very aware of the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra beneath the thin chemise, she hastened toward the bathroom as fast as her still slightly dragging foot allowed. “Let me get a T-shirt.”
She firmly closed the door behind her, turned on the faucet in the tiny sink, and splashed cold water onto her face. After drying off and slipping a T-shirt over her head, she was starting to feel more in control.
When she stepped out of the claustrophobically small bathroom, Crash stood by the trailer’s window, looking outside.
Maybe she did enjoy the view from the trailer after all. Jill smiled. She stepped next to Crash and peered outside too.
Lightning bolts zigzagged across the darkened sky, but the thunderstorm brought little rain.
“That’s one thing I miss here in LA,” Crash said, almost as if talking to herself. “I can count the number of thunderstorms I have seen since moving here on one or two hands.”
“Hmm, I don’t know. With all the wildfires they cause, I’m kind of glad we don’t get them more often.” Talking about the weather was a relief. It helped get some much-needed distance after the intimacy of letting Crash help her undress.
“You’ve got a point.” Crash turned away from the window and faced Jill. She slowly ran her gaze over Jill’s body, from her bare feet to her disheveled hair.
Ripples of awareness followed her gaze. Jill crossed her arms over her still braless chest.
Crash looked away. Another lightning flashed, then Crash asked, “Remember the two answers you owe me?”
Jill swallowed. “Yeah,” she said cautiously.
“Can I ask one question now?”
Every muscle in her body tense, Jill nodded.
“Are you uncomfortable around me?” Crash asked.
It took Jill several seconds to grasp that Crash hadn’t asked an MS-related question. Now she almost wished for one. A denial was already on the tip of her tongue, but she held it back. Crash had answered both of her questions honestly and had revealed personal information, so she owed her the same.
“Because if you are,” Crash said when Jill kept silent, “I want you to know there’s no reason for it. I know I come across like a bit of a female Casanova, especially around you, but—”
Jill turned toward her and held up one hand, stopping her. “At the risk of sounding like a lame cliché… It’s not you. It’s me.”
Crash groaned. “That does sound like a lame cliché.”
“Yeah, but in this case, it’s true. You’re a flirt, but not in an obnoxious way. I bet most women, even the straight ones, don’t mind a bit.”
“But you do,” Crash said.
Jill sighed. “I’m not a stick-in-the-mud. I appreciate some flirting as much as the next woman, but most often flirting leads to dating and dating leads to having a committed relationship. Before you know it, you’re U-Hauling and talking about getting a Golden Retriever.”
“What’s wrong with a Golden Retriever? They’re really sweet dogs. Not the most clever, but…” A warning glance from Jill made her trail off. “Okay, all joking aside. I get it. You’re not into relationships.”
“They’re just not a good idea for someone like me,” Jill said, trying to sound matter-of-fact.
“Someone like you?” Crash cocked her head.
Was she purposefully being obtuse?
A clap of thunder interrupted, giving Jill a moment to consider whether she really wanted to get into this with Crash. She hated talking about it, but Crash deserved to know, so Jill took a deep breath and forced herself to look Crash in the eyes. “Someone with MS.”
Crash’s forehead furrowed. “You think people with MS shouldn’t be in relationships?”
“I can’t speak for anyone else, but that’s the decision I made for myself. It’s not one I made lightly, but I think it’s for the
best.”
“Why would you think that?”
“A relationship should be an equal give and take, but in five or ten or twenty years, my partner might have to become a caregiver. I don’t want to do that to anyone, so I have no business being in a relationship.” A wave of anger at the unfairness of it swept over her and then turned into grief. She pushed back both feelings. It was the right thing to do; she knew that.
Crash studied her with a serious expression. “What if you’d been in a relationship when you were diagnosed? I take it you weren’t?”
“No. My last girlfriend and I broke up a few weeks before the first symptoms started, and I’ve lived like a nun ever since.” She forced a grin onto her face. “Well, one in more attractive garb, but anyway…”
For once, Crash didn’t return the smile or respond to the joke.
Jill sighed. “I don’t know, okay? I wasn’t in a relationship and won’t ever be again, so it’s pointless to even think about it.”
“Ever,” Crash repeated. “Wow. That’s a long time to be alone.”
A lump the size of a fist formed in Jill’s throat, preventing her from speaking, so she just shrugged.
For several seconds, only the sound of their breathing filled the trailer.
“Do you really think it’ll get so bad that you couldn’t be a good partner anymore?” Crash asked quietly.
Thinking about it made the lump spread to her chest. She forced herself to get the words out. Crash needed to hear them, just in case she still harbored ideas of asking her out—and maybe Jill needed to hear them too, as a reminder of why she had to ignore the attraction between them. “I’ve got a fifty-fifty chance of my MS turning secondary progressive within the next ten years. That means there’ll be no more remissions, just a slow, steady worsening of my symptoms. I could end up in a wheelchair, unable to even feed myself.”
Crash’s jaw muscles bunched, and she gulped audibly. “But…but you could be one of the fifty percent who don’t get worse.”
“I hope so,” Jill said, holding on to that thought with all her strength until she felt the lump dissolve a little. “But I can’t tie another person to me just based on hope. Can you understand that?”
Slowly, Crash nodded. “Kind of. I just—”
A knock on the door interrupted whatever Crash had been about to say. One of the PAs stuck his head inside of the trailer. His gaze roved over Jill’s T-shirt and her historical underwear. “Uh, you’d better get back into your costume. They need you on the set in five.”
Jill looked to the piece of sky visible behind him. The cloud cover had lifted, and no more lightning bolts flashed from the sky. Jill hadn’t even noticed that the thunderstorm had stopped while she and Crash had talked. “I’ll be there in a minute,” she told the PA.
“I’ll send over someone from wardrobe to help you with that…corset thingy,” he said, pointing at the corset that lay abandoned on the couch.
“Okay.” Better the wardrobe lady than Crash offering to help her again. She felt raw and needed some distance.
When the PA left, she turned to Crash. “Do you want to ask your second question now too?” If they got this over with now, at least Crash would be forced to keep it short.
Crash shook her head. She looked shell-shocked, as if she were still digesting what Jill had told her. “You know what? I’ll take a rain check on that second question. See you tomorrow.”
Before Jill could reply, the trailer door fell shut behind Crash.
Crash slowly climbed down the three steps from Jill’s trailer.
Outside, grips and set technicians were running around, trying to make up for the time they’d lost during the thunderstorm. PAs with walkie-talkies shooed extras into the right positions.
The chaos on set felt strangely distant, though. Crash’s mind was back in the trailer, and Jill’s words still rang in her ears.
Fifty-fifty chance. Jill’s whole life, reduced to a coin toss.
No wonder she didn’t want to get involved with anyone. If she were in Jill’s shoes, Crash wasn’t sure she would want to drag a potential partner into it either. It was a courageous decision, and Crash couldn’t help admiring Jill for it.
At the same time, the thought of Jill staying alone, facing whatever life and her MS threw at her completely on her own… Crash shook her head. It just felt so wrong. Jill deserved someone in her life.
Someone? You mean you? Part of her wanted to shout yes, but another, bigger part was scared. No amount of stunt training could help her fight that fear.
Why was she even thinking about this? It was crazy, really. She barely knew Jill, and what she knew of her should make her want to stay away.
Besides, Jill had made it clear that she didn’t want to get involved. Even if Crash could get her to change her mind, was she ready to date someone who could take a turn for the worse at any time? Did she really want to gamble on that fifty-fifty chance?
When no answers came, Crash trudged to her car and drove home, away from it all. For now, she had other things to worry about.
Tomorrow, she would have to do a stunt involving fire for the first time since nearly getting burned to a crisp on the set of Point of Impact. She couldn’t afford to be distracted by thoughts of Jill.
Despite that mental admonishment, she thought of nothing else all the way home.
CHAPTER 7
Crash covered a wide yawn with one hand while she went over the safety checks, testing the wire pulleys, the cable, and her harness. Staying up until three in the morning the night before a stunt wasn’t a good idea. She’d gone to bed at a reasonable hour, but thoughts of the stunt kept her tossing and turning, so she had gotten back up to research secondary progressive MS.
They had rehearsed the ratchet stunt without the wall earlier. Since it had taken the set designers forever to create a wall that looked like a solid brick structure but was actually just drywall, they could do this stunt only once.
Don’t mess it up.
She glanced over at Jill, who stood out of camera range along with some of the other actors, watching the stunt crew. Apparently, it was only a half day for Jill, so she had changed out of her costume. When their gazes met, she gave Crash a nod.
Crash scanned her face for any sign of fatigue and her posture for any symptoms of numbness or pain, but she didn’t find any. Jill looked healthy and attractive in a pair of tight jeans and a form-fitting T-shirt.
It was hard to wrap her head around the fact that Jill’s apparent health was just an illusion that could change any day.
What the heck are you doing? Focus on the stunt, or you’ll end up a pile of ashes! Crash forced her attention back to the job at hand. The ratchet gag she could do in her sleep, but the added element of the fire made her muscles knot with tension.
She watched warily as the technical crew set up four propane tanks just out of view of the cameras. The scar on the back of her neck started to burn as if the flames from those tanks had set it on fire. Calm down. If all goes according to plan, the fire won’t even touch you.
“You okay?” Ben asked as he set a bucket of fire gel down next to her.
She tore her gaze away from the propane tanks and nodded while rubbing the back of her neck.
The rigger hooked the ratchet cable to the harness under Crash’s costume, and Ben slathered fire gel onto her hands and face.
Now they had to move fast, because the gel would dry quickly and no longer protect her from the heat of the flames.
Adrenaline replaced her earlier tiredness, and she felt wide-awake. God, she hated fire stunts. Why the hell had she said yes when Ben had asked her if she wanted to do the stunt, even though she wasn’t doubling Jill in this scene?
She knew the answer, of course. Once you started running from your fears, you were done in the stunt business. She also didn’t want to appear weak or
scared in front of her colleagues. She’d worked too hard to establish herself as a stunt performer who could pretty much do it all—high falls, wire work, fight scenes, stunt driving, and fire jobs.
“Ready?” Ben asked.
Crash gave him a thumbs-up sign. She was breathing much too fast, nearly hyperventilating. Her gaze went to Jill, who looked back with a worried expression and mouthed something.
“Are you sure?” Ben asked. “You look—”
“I’m fine. Get on with it.”
Not looking happy, Ben repeated the thumbs-up sign to the crew.
The cameras began rolling, and the countdown started. “Three, two, one…go!”
Crash held her breath, even though her instincts told her to suck as much air into her lungs as she could. If she did, she would singe her lungs. She tucked her chin into her chest and leaned forward at the waist so that the wire rigged to her harness remained taut.
A crew member opened the gas feed. The fireball from the propane tanks raced toward Crash. The scorching heat hit her in the face. For a moment, she thought they had miscalculated and the flames would reach her.
She barely held back a scream.
Just before the fire could engulf her, the ratchet kicked in, yanking her back and off her feet.
She smashed through the wall behind her, landed on a pile of pads, rolled, and used her momentum to come to her feet. Dizziness gripped her for a second, and again it made her think of Jill. Was this what she experienced during the MS flare-ups? She shook off both the distracting thought and the dizziness, brushed pieces of drywall off her costume, and gratefully took the wet towel someone handed her.
The fire gel was starting to burn in her eyes, so she quickly wiped it off before walking over to Ben. Adrenaline still pumped through her veins, making her a bit shaky. “How did it look?”
He waved her over so she could look at the monitor he was watching.
