Keepers

by Meg Collett

  Stevie took a deep breath. It almost felt like . . . home.

  “Get your ass in gear!” Emilie shoved Stevie’s back, propelling her toward the wardrobe trailer parked off to the side of the main tent. “You and you,” she pointed at Cade and Arie, “to Wardrobe! Now!”

  “Jesus Christ, calm down,” Stevie said. “Everyone knows call times are just a suggestion.”

  “We’re not running this show like your previous little drama diddles,” Emilie hissed.

  “What the hell is a ‘diddle’? Do you even hear yourself? You really need some Vicodin—”

  “Out of the way!” Two guys carrying a stack of lumber rushed between them, nearly trampling Emilie. She jumped out of the way with the seasoned speed of an overworked, underpaid associate. She barely missed a step, fitting in another “Hurry up!” over her shoulder as she went.

  Cade pressed his hand to Stevie’s lower back and steered her around the construction guys as if she needed the help. Not that she was complaining. His touch was almost as good as coffee to wake her up in the morning.

  As they dodged workers and hurried after Emilie, she checked on Arie, who was looking around more than he was walking. “She won’t be here yet. They don’t cater breakfast, so you can stop breaking your neck trying to find her.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Arie said, hunkering over his thermos of coffee.

  “Sure.”

  Emilie jerked open the doors to Wardrobe and waved them through. Inside, the lighting came from a cheap clamp light that bathed the racks upon racks of clothing in a sickly yellow haze. Emilie led them through the maze, straight to their racks.

  “Changing rooms are there.” She pointed vaguely toward the other end of the trailer. “And these are your outfits for today.” She jerked a hanger off Arie’s rack that was labeled “Monday.” The rack contained a lot of Carhartt and plaid—a lumberjack’s wet dream. “Don’t spill on them. Don’t mess them up. And for the love of God, don’t steal them. Everything has to be turned in at the end of the day. You can stop by Makeup for any touch-ups. Be ready in fifteen, or so help me, I will find you.”

  She shoved between them and disappeared into the rack maze, too short for them to see her head even over the shortest rail.

  Stevie snarled in Emilie’s general direction. “She’s a real delight.”

  “I heard that!” Emilie shouted right before the door banged open and closed as she left.

  “I meant you to,” Stevie mouthed mostly to herself as she briefly examined her rack of clothing. She then grabbed other shirts and cuter pants from the other contestants’ racks.

  Realizing what she was doing, Cade just shook his head. Arie hadn’t even bothered going to the dressing room to change, and Stevie happened to glance his way while he was stripped down to his briefs, his wide shoulders flexing as he pulled on his blue plaid shirt. Then her eyes fell to his lower back. Valley-like scars pocked his skin and burns stretched down the back of his left thigh. Where his leg ended and the metal prosthetic began, his skin was an angry red rash and swollen. Stevie grimaced. It looked so painful.

  “Is it always like that?” she asked.

  Arie turned and noticed her attention. “What’s that?”

  She nodded at his leg. “It looks like it hurts.”

  “Oh.” Arie picked up his assigned pants and put in his left leg first. Sitting down on a folding chair, he pulled on the other leg. His washboard abs rippled with every movement. “It does, but this prosthetic doesn’t fit me right. I’m hoping to get a new one with what I make from the show.”

  “Will you be able to stand on that all day?” Stevie asked, her worry genuine.

  Arie stood and buttoned his pants. “I’ll manage.”

  She lifted a shoulder. “Okay then. Just don’t step on my toes with all that metal.”

  “Good grief, Stevie.” Cade shot her a disapproving look. He’d dressed while Stevie had been distracted. She was more disappointed than she wanted to admit that she’d missed it. “You can’t just say things like that.”

  “Why not? It would hurt.”

  Arie stepped up next to her and ruffled her hair with his massive hand. “I appreciate your brand of asshole honesty.”

  She jerked away. “Hey! I just fixed it.” And she had in the truck with her battery-powered curler while enduring Cade’s multiple threats about burning his leather seats. He didn’t realize what a professional she was at getting ready in moving vehicles. It truly was an art form.

  Cade checked his wristwatch. “Five minutes. Better hurry, Stevie.”

  With one last narrowed-eyed glance at Arie, she pulled off her pajama top.

  “Whoa,” Arie said. She heard him quickly turn around.

  She glanced back, catching Cade pivoting away from her, the back of his neck flushing red. She sighed. Of course she wasn’t wearing a bra. She avoided them at all cost. “They’re just boobs. I’m sure you two losers have seen them at least once in your lifetimes.”

  Arie made a gagging noise that was downright rude. Stevie flipped him off over her shoulder before she pulled on a strapless bra outfitted with extra wrapping to secure a microphone pack. Confirming Cade’s ears were burning red, she grinned and finished getting ready in an outfit she’d mostly stolen from the racks around her. She looked pretty cute in her jean shorts, distressed t-shirt, and work boots.

  Cade turned around and looked at her from head to toe, his eyes leaving a burning trail on her skin. “You’re demoing in that?”

  “Sure. It’s just demo, right? Can’t be that hard to knock shit down.”

  The guys just laughed at her.

  * * *

  Stevie screamed.

  Looking back, she understood how RealTV could afford four duplexes with ocean views. They were infested.

  Her hammer smashed down on the fist-sized roach, sending brown liquid guts splattering across the master bathroom’s countertop. She’d been prying it off when a swarm of insects came pouring out. She banged the hammer down a few more times for good measure, then jumped back and swiped her hands through her hair and under her shirt. Little insect legs felt like they were crawling all over her.

  Across the hallway, Cade watched wide-eyed as she shook out her shirt, his words frozen mid-sentence during his diary-cam interview. All the cameras swiveled onto her and the sound guys readjusted their mics to perfectly capture the pitch of her squeals. Only Arie actually came over to help, and he just took the hammer from her hand before she could fling it at someone’s eye.

  “Chill,” he said. “You’re fine. They’re just bugs.”

  Stevie did one last jittery dance before releasing a shuddering breath. “That was disgusting. Did you see how big they were?”

  On the other side of the narrow hall, a camera guy crunched a roach under his boot.

  “Would you totally freak out if I said you had one on your shoulder?” Arie asked.

  A production assistant violently shook his head at Arie.

  “Are you serious?” Stevie screeched. “There’s one on me? Get it off! Get it off!” Her voice grew louder and louder with each word.

  “Never mind. Must have been a shadow.”

  “Get it off!”

  Arie shushed her. “You’re fine. Nothing’s on you. My mistake.”

  “You’re full of shit!”

  “No cursing!” Emilie snapped from the other room with Cade.

  Stevie whirled on her. “Can we get some mother-freaking bug bombs in here?”

  A hand brushed the back of her shoulder and she heard the thwack of something hitting the cheap laminate they’d been pulling up in tiny slivers since the morning.

  “What was that?” She spun back around to face Arie.

  He stubbed the toe of his boot on something that let out the unmistakable splatter of guts. “Nothing.”

  Stevie cringed. “That was on me.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Focus in!” Emilie stood from her cha
ir and clapped her hands. “I want at least one more hour of solid filming. We’ll smoke the suite tonight.” She flapped a hand toward Cade. “You’re done for now. Help them with the demo.”

  Stevie put her hands on her hips as Cade picked his way over the rubble. “We should smoke it now. These are unfair working conditions.”

  Emilie kept her attention on her tablet. “You signed away your rights to fair working conditions. We’ll smoke the place tonight. Keep demoing. We need another hour of footage.”

  “You have enough.”

  Cade looked ready to agree with Emilie, but then he caught Stevie’s pointed stare at Arie, who stood with his back to them. Cade’s eyes flared with understanding.

  “I’m with Stevie,” he said firmly. “The schedule says it’s lunchtime. Can’t argue with that, right?”

  Stevie sent him a relieved grin, but her eyes snagged on him like they’d been doing all morning. His safety glasses were pushed up on top of his head, and a fine sheen of sweat coated his face. The hardhat they were required to wear had done devilish things to his hair, and if it weren’t for the roaches, Stevie could have imagined he was breathing hard for other reasons. But she pushed the thought aside and checked on Arie again.

  He’d kept his back to them while they argued because he was too laid back to get involved, but she noticed how he limped with every step. When he bent down to pull out a chunk of rotted sheetrock where the shower had leaked through the wall, he grimaced. If his prosthetic had been irritating his leg that morning, before they even started working, he had to be in a living hell now.

  She turned back to Emilie, who was scowling at Cade, ready to shove the schedule down his throat. “We can get the hour after. I swear to God, if I don’t eat right now, I’ll curse so much your footage will be one long string of bleep tones. Got it?”

  Emilie’s eyes turned on her. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  They stared each other down for so long that a sound guy cleared his throat.

  Emilie snapped the magnetic cover to her tablet in place and said, “Fine. Lunch for everyone. Be back in thirty. If even one person is late, I’ll personally see to it that everyone is here all night.”

  The crew left first to plug in equipment and hopefully apply more deodorant. Stevie had opened all the windows on the first floor, but the bathroom space was cramped and air circulation was nonexistent. Between the humidity and the roaches, she was almost ready to check into rehab again.

  She, Cade, and Arie were the last to leave, and Arie waited until he thought everyone wasn’t paying any attention before he used the roach-infested counter to pull himself up to his feet. Only once she was sure he’d gotten himself together did she ask, “You ready to eat?”

  He looked slightly pale and his eyes were getting bloodshot beneath his heavy, dark eyebrows, but he put on an easy smile and smoothed back his hair. “Sure thing. Hey.” His eyes brightened considerably. “Violet should be here, right? With Maggie? Earlier you said they bring in catered food for lunch.”

  “If they didn’t just drop it off and leave.”

  Arie headed out the door first and started down the duplex’s shared hallway with a quickness in his step that had Stevie grinning. The hall’s popcorn ceiling hung low, and Cade almost hit his head on a dusty light fixture. The carpet smelled like mold, and there were holes in the walls that they hadn’t put there during their attempt at demo.

  Over his shoulder, Arie said, “Keep your distance if she’s here. You scared her off last time.”

  “I was just being honest. You are devilishly handsome, and I thought she might like to know how adorable I think your children would be with her.”

  In answer, he slammed the screen door behind him. By the time she and Cade stepped outside, Arie was halfway to the tent.

  “Why didn’t you tell me he was having a hard time?” Cade asked, watching Arie double-time across the set.

  “He’s fine,” Stevie said, pulling her attention away from Arie. He seemed fine enough, so she’d worry about him later. “I was just keeping an eye on him. He’d be pissed if we brought anything up to production.”

  “You’re letting everyone think you’re a diva, though.”

  She elbowed him in the ribs. “Maybe I am.”

  “No, you’re not.” He huffed out a breath as if she frustrated him. “You care about everyone else more than yourself.”

  Stevie snorted. “That’s what you think.”

  As they wove through the set’s landmines, Stevie sensed something was bothering Cade, but she didn’t push. When they were almost to the tent, he finally admitted, “I’m worried about the demo.” He said it like the admission was a personal strike against him.

  “Why?” Now that Arie was on a break, she needed to keep an eye out for Shepherd. Between watching Arie, handling pretty much the entire load of commentary during filming, the roach-pocalypse, keeping Cade from turning his back to the cameras, and dealing with Emilie’s near-constant jabs, Stevie didn’t have time to deal with Shepherd’s special brand of douche.

  Cade took her hand and pulled her to a stop in the middle of the street. Cables and cords, equipment boxes, and rubble that had missed the dumpsters littered the road. An assistant ran into Cade’s side, bounced off in the other direction, and took off again before Cade could even get out an apology. He blew out a long breath and leveled a serious gaze on Stevie. Only then did she realize he looked as fried as Arie; she cursed herself. She had to pay better attention.

  “Are you listening?” he asked.

  “Sorry. What were you saying?”

  “The demo.” He gestured back to their ramshackle duplex. “I had no clue the duplex would be in such rough shape. We’re never going to finish. I should have planned better or something.”

  At one of the other duplexes, someone got on a bullhorn and started calling for a fire truck. Given the state of these houses, that did not bode well.

  Stevie pushed back a piece of hair stuck to her sweaty forehead. “You planned perfectly. But they’ll bring in a crew to finish whatever we start tonight. Remember, we only do what they need to make this look like a renovation show on television. Nothing else.”

  He rubbed his hand across his forehead, making his hair stick straight up in the front. Stevie fought the urge to smooth it back down. “I guess I didn’t realize how fake this would all be.”

  He had no idea. Not yet. It would get much worse than this.

  “Don’t you feel like you’re lying?” he continued. “Like any business we get from this show will think we did all this, but we didn’t. I can’t lie to people like that.”

  “We’re doing some of it. It’ll still be your work and plans—and Hale’s too—even if we don’t do every minute of it.” At least, Stevie hoped so. Some home shows did the work completely separate from the contestants.

  “I had no idea it would be like this.”

  He sounded so let down that Stevie wanted to hug him. Instead, she said, “Come on. Let’s eat. Maybe we can find Arie and embarrass him in front of his girl.”

  They did indeed find Arie hovering near the catering buffet, talking to a rolling rack of fresh sandwiches. Only once she and Cade had sat down at a nearby table with their food did they realize Violet was standing behind the rack, spackling potato salad onto sourdough slices like it might save her life if she focused hard enough on the task and pretended like Arie wasn’t standing right next to her. Once the rack was fully loaded, she disappeared through the back of the tent and Arie started his walk of shame over to their table. Stevie gave him a thumbs-up for his attempt, but she didn’t have the heart to tell him that catching the Ghost of Canaan was as impossible a task as holding on to smoke.

  * * *

  After lunch, they tore up bits and pieces of the bathroom beneath the bright lighting the camera guys kept adjusting and the sound guys kept running into. Supervising producers came and went, rotating between the filming teams in each duplex to c
heck on the associate producers. The team that had the other side of Stevie and Cade’s duplex weren’t filming until later tonight. The staggered setup meant the footage wouldn’t be muddied with noises from the other side of the duplex. It also meant the network didn’t have to pay for soundproofing or overtime.

  They were near the end of their scheduled filming time for the day, when Stevie noticed Emilie was gone, leaving their team with no producer. She didn’t have long to dwell on what the absence meant before Emilie reemerged, barking orders and generally harassing everyone like she’d never left. She strode straight back to the room across from the master bathroom, bringing a cameraman and a sound guy with her for more diary-cam interviews.

  “Cade,” she called. “Diary cam.”

  Cade straightened from where he’d been helping Stevie and Arie pry up the laminate flooring. “Again?”

  Emilie just snapped her fingers.

  Cade cast a glance at Stevie. She shrugged, but on the inside, she was worried. Where had Emilie gone, and why was Cade going on the diary cam again? Considering how often he’d been answering questions over there today, she should just call it the Cade Cam.

  It was a good thing they were spending so much time on his interviews, because it meant the producers knew he would be likeable and desirable to the viewers. She would’ve been more worried if Emilie hadn’t asked him anything. It also meant they weren’t focusing on her or her past. Then again, if they weren’t working her angle, then they had something else planned . . .

  “Here, help me with this corner,” Arie said, distracting Stevie from her train of thought. He pointed to a piece of laminate he’d been struggling with.