Stuck Landing

by Lauren Gallagher

  “Hey,” I said. “Any updates?”

  She turned to me and rolled her eyes. “Well, they approved it. But Jesus fuck . . .”

  I grimaced as I stopped beside her. “Fun, isn’t it?”

  “Totally.” A smirk played at her lips. “I think I figured out their weakness, though.”

  I straightened. “Do tell.”

  “I batted my eyes and asked if I should have a big strong man look over the blocking and effects to make sure I knew what I was talking about.” She put her finger to her lips and gave a shrill giggle. “Because I’m a silly girl, so what do I know?”

  My jaw dropped. “You didn’t.”

  “I did.”

  “What’d Finn say?”

  “He bitched, but he backed off.” She shrugged. “Anyway, he’ll get over it. He’s— Tyler, camera three is too close to the floodlights.”

  One of the camera guys looked around. “Are you sure? It seems fine.”

  She groaned. To me, she said, “Excuse me.” Then she stalked onto the stage, flipping open her script. “It’s right here. See?” She showed him the camera blocking diagram she’d tucked into the script. “It needs to be—”

  I didn’t hear the rest.

  Because Natalya.

  She’d picked just that moment to walk into my peripheral vision, prickling the hairs on my neck, and when I turned, I just . . . stared. I had always been hyperaware of her presence, but now it was so much worse. Ever since we’d slept together, my senses seemed to be hardwired to her. And then I’d pissed her off, and now . . .

  Fuck.

  She was still as hot as ever. Hotter. Much hotter. Because I couldn’t touch her, and I knew what it was like to touch her, and I wanted to touch her, and she’d probably take my arm off if I tried to touch her.

  Goddamn it. I let her go? I pushed her away? Fuck—what was I thinking?

  Exhaling, I glanced at Corrie. She was busy with the camera guy, who insisted his interpretation of the blocking chart trumped hers. I had her back, though, so she’d get me if she needed help.

  I left her to her crew and walked across the snake pit of cords and cables to where the stunt crew were preparing for the shoot, Jeremy right behind me as always. The scene called for several stunts at the same time, so nearly every stuntman on the payroll was here today. Pads and protective gear were tucked beneath costumes. Harnesses were secured to people and cables. The battered remains of a car were positioned so they could be set alight and hurled across the set, narrowly missing one character and sending the other flying.

  And in the middle of it all, as people ran around with tools and harnesses, Natalya barked orders and sent her crew in every direction. The director in me was impressed—she seemed to know what everyone was doing at any given time, from those securing cables to the stuntmen themselves, and she was on top of everything.

  “Where the fuck is pyrotechnics?” she snapped at someone as she adjusted Ginsberg’s harness. “I need that car on fire in ten minutes.”

  “On it, ma’am!”

  “And where is—” She looked around. Then she swore in her native tongue. “Stay here, Ginsberg.” And before he could respond, she stormed off.

  As soon as Natalya was out of earshot, Ginsberg groaned. “She’s going to kill me on purpose one of these days, isn’t she?”

  C.J., one of the stuntmen, nodded. “Yeah, probably. She’ll even make it look like an accident.”

  “Dick,” Ginsberg muttered. He glanced at me, and his customary adorable smile lit up his face. “Hey, Anna. What’s up?”

  “Just checking in on my stunt people.” I clapped his arm. “We’re working together on the next episode. You, um, might want to stock up on Aleve.”

  He grumbled something, but shrugged as he fussed with his half-assembled harness. “Eh. Job security.”

  “Yeah. Wait until you see what Hunter and Kevin have planned.”

  His head snapped up. “What?”

  I winked. “You’ll see.”

  “Fuck . . .”

  He started to say something else, but my focus was once again pulled to Natalya. She was on her way back across the set with a box in her arms.

  She dropped the box on the table beside Ginsberg, making the two of us jump as metal clanked and the table protested beneath the weight. As she turned to me, her rigid expression hardened even more. Though she didn’t say a word, her eyes spoke loud and clear: What the fuck do you want?

  My mouth went dry. This was definitely not the time to discuss anything personal. And apparently I didn’t have the vocabulary to talk about anything professional.

  Shit. If nothing else, we did have to work together. Maybe not on this episode, but the next one, definitely. Even if we weren’t compatible on a personal level, the professional one wasn’t exactly optional.

  Her eyebrow rose. Get it out and be done with it. I have work to do.

  I cleared my throat. “Can you come by my office when you’re done here?”

  She exhaled hard and probably sounded simply exhausted and stressed to her people, though the I don’t have fucking time for your shit was not lost on me. “It won’t be today.” She yanked a box cutter out of her pocket and sliced the tape on the box, severing a piece of cardboard in the process. “I’ll come by tomorrow morning. Nine.”

  I gritted my teeth. One more night of not sleeping before we could talk. Awesome. Looking forward to it. But it was better than trying to hash it out here and getting her pissed off before she had to dangle some of my stuntmen from the rafters.

  “Okay,” I said quietly. “Tomorrow. Nine o’clock.”

  “You wanted to talk?”

  “Yeah.” I held her gaze over my desk the next morning. We were both standing, facing each other with no sound but the buzzing AC behind me. Her eyes were narrow and full of impatience. Mine were heavy from a sleepless night. And there wasn’t much time, because we both had people tapping their watches and waiting for us on opposite ends of the studio property.

  “Well?” She shifted her weight. “What are we going to talk about?”

  “I think you know.”

  She swore in her native tongue. “For fuck’s sake, we have talked about that. What more is there?” She rose to her full height, lifting her chin as if that would bring her to eye level with me. “Or do you want to give me more reasons why bisexual women are unworthy?”

  “No. It’s . . . nothing like that.”

  Sighing, Natalya locked eyes with me, but she didn’t make a sound. She slowly folded her arms.

  I took a deep breath. “Listen, I wanted to apologize. I think we might’ve ended on the wrong foot and—”

  She snorted. “Try again.”

  Chewing the inside of my cheek, I thought quickly. “I fucked up with you. I know I did. And I . . . I want to make that right somehow.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Her arms tightened, and her eyes narrowed. “So you’ve changed your mind about bisexual women?”

  I dropped my gaze. It wasn’t that simple. Fears didn’t stop on a dime, especially not when they’d been reinforced in the past.

  Natalya huffed sharply. “That’s what I thought.” She started to leave.

  “Wait. Natalya, I—”

  She turned back toward me with daggers in her eyes, and my teeth snapped shut.

  I put up my hands, blood pounding in my ears as I fought the urge to grab on to her and keep her from leaving. “Look, I’ve had some bad experiences, and I—”

  “You’ve had bad experiences?” she snarled, facing me fully. “When I date men, they want me to bring girls into our bed.” Wrinkling her nose, she added, “They want to share me. And then women . . .” Natalya laughed bitterly. “Women think I’m going to leave them for men. I can’t win.” She threw up her hands. “Men want me to be a slut, and women are convinced I will be. So half the population expects me to fuck on demand and the other half refuses to believe I won’t.”

  Shit. Wow. I hadn’t even thought of what it must be
like for someone like her. “They . . . really?”

  “Yes!” She groaned. “Do you honestly think bisexuals just skate through life without getting their share of bullshit?”

  I chewed my lip. “Look, maybe you’re right. But can you see where I’m coming from?”

  “No!” She gestured sharply. “No, I can’t! Anyone can cheat on you, Anna. Anyone can leave you for someone else, or want something you can’t give them.” Before I could respond, she shook her head and started toward the door. “I don’t know why I bothered coming in here. This is—”

  “Hold on. Hold on.” I put up my hands again and, as she turned to face me, exhaled. “We . . .” I lowered my hands and held her gaze, and though it was a struggle, forced the fear and desperation out of my tone. “We have to work together. Is there any way we can put this behind us?”

  “You tell me,” she growled. “If what you’re asking is, can I smile while I’m working with someone who thinks I’m . . . well, whatever stereotype it is you have about bi people—a slut, a cheater, a—”

  “I don’t think you’re any of those things.”

  She scowled. “Really.”

  “I . . .” Blowing out a breath, I shook my head. “Look, I’m sorry. Like I told you before, I’ve been burned by a bisexual woman in the past. It’s . . . Maybe it’s not fair for me to assume you’re going to do the same.”

  “Maybe?”

  I swallowed. “It isn’t fair. I’m sorry.”

  She studied me for a long moment, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the unspoken but. Slowly, though, as we silently held each other’s gazes, she relaxed a little, her features softening and her shoulders slumping just slightly.

  Cautiously, I said, “Look, we have to be colleagues. Maybe we can try to be friends too.”

  Her lips pulled tight again, and I thought she might tell me I could shove my delusions of friendship up my ass, but then she nodded. “Yeah. We can . . . we can try that. I guess.”

  “And if things change,” I said. “If that chemistry is still there, and—”

  Her gaze almost turned into a glare, but I put up my hand once again before she could cut me off.

  “We’ll cross that bridge if we get there,” I went on. “I’m just saying, if we get there, can we just . . . take it slow? I mean, we’ve been colleagues for a while, but I know nothing about you and you know nothing about me. Then bam! We’re in bed together. If something is going to happen eventually, I’d really like to be friends first.”

  She held my gaze, and I couldn’t tell if her eyes were narrow because she was mulling over what I’d said or because she was trying to formulate the best way to tell me to go fuck myself.

  “Okay.” She shifted her weight. Quietly, not quite looking me in the eye, she said, “I suppose we could . . . maybe go to the gym together. It’s something we both like, yes?”

  Cool relief shot through my veins. I hadn’t screwed this thing up beyond repair, thank God. “I should be done here around ten. Would eleven be too late for you?”

  At that, Natalya finally offered a subdued smile, which was enough to send a shiver through me that had nothing to do with being friends.

  She nodded. “Eleven. I’ll be there.”

  “You’re really getting serious about lifting, aren’t you?” Jeremy asked on the way into the gym parking lot that night.

  “Of course.” I ignored the presence of Natalya’s car a few spaces away from the door. “How else am I going to blow off steam without going to jail?”

  He shot me a side-eye. “From anyone else, I would take that as a joke.”

  “Take it however you want as long as you take me to the gym.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good.”

  He parked, waited for me to grab my gym bag out of the trunk, and followed me inside.

  The second we walked through the door, I homed in on Natalya. She was at the front desk, gym bag slung over her shoulder and water bottle dangling from her fingers, as she spoke with the ponytailed girl at the computer.

  Okay. Here we go. Friends. Don’t fuck this up, Anna. Don’t. Fuck it. Up.

  Behind me, Jeremy chuckled.

  I glared at him, and he tried—I’d give him that much credit—to hide his amusement.

  “Shut up,” I muttered.

  At that, he burst out laughing.

  To my horror, Natalya chose that moment to turn around, so she caught a full view of my bodyguard laughing his head off while I undoubtedly turned seven shades of red. Perfect.

  She just smiled. “Ready?”

  Jeremy, if you make a sound, I will choke you.

  “Yep,” I said. “Let’s do this.” I probably imagined the quiet little snort from my antagonistic bodyguard—who was going to get dirty looks the whole fucking way home after this—but I didn’t so much as glance at him to confirm it. “After you?”

  Natalya flashed me another smile before continuing toward the locker room.

  “I’ll, um . . .” I gestured after her. “I should get changed.”

  Jeremy smothered a laugh. “I’ll be here while you’re, um—”

  “Shut up.”

  This time, he didn’t try to smother it, and I couldn’t help laughing myself. Fortunately, Natalya had already stepped through the door and was—I hoped—out of earshot.

  I shot Jeremy a quick glare, then went inside.

  And thank the Lord my bodyguard wasn’t there to see me stop in my tracks and nearly fall on my ass. Natalya didn’t see me either, but that was because she had her back to me and was just peeling off her T-shirt to reveal that tight blue crop top. Jesus.

  Friends, Anna. Friends.

  I tore my gaze away a split second before she turned to put her T-shirt in her locker, and I pretended to be looking for something in my gym bag. I hesitated before picking a locker, though. Would it be weird to join her in the same alcove? Or would it be weird if I went to a different one? We were both women, after all. We were adults. And we certainly weren’t revealing anything the other hadn’t already seen.

  I shook myself and took a locker across from hers—still in the same alcove, but with some elbow room. I’d never been self-conscious in the locker room. How the hell did having sex with a woman suddenly make me modest around her? By this point, we should’ve been able to talk about the weather while completely naked.

  Right. Like I’d be able to talk to anyone about anything while Natalya was naked in my presence.

  Workout. Focus on your workout.

  On getting ready. And lifting.

  And that amazing body—

  I pulled the bottle of preworkout from my gym bag. I shook it to mix the powder with the water, and once the foul concoction was blended as well as it would ever be, I threw back a few gulps, swallowing it as quickly as I could so the “Banana Blast” didn’t linger on my tongue longer than it had to. The name of the flavor seemed oddly appropriate—it tasted about as appealing as anything else a “banana” might “blast” in my mouth.

  Natalya glanced across the aisle at me and did a double take. Eyeing the bottle in my hand, she grimaced. “Ugh, how can you stand that stuff?”

  I shrugged as I swallowed another gulp. “I try not to think about how horrible it tastes.”

  “Does it even help that much? All it ever did for me was make me jittery.”

  “After I’ve been working all day and have nothing left?” I brought it back up to my lips. “It pretty much means the difference between working out at all and just going home and collapsing.”

  She furrowed her brow, then shrugged. “If it works, it works.”

  “It does. But yeah, it’s gross.”

  Natalya muttered something that sounded Russian, but when she met my gaze again, she laughed, so presumably it wasn’t anything nasty. Well, not about me. My drink, maybe. But she seemed pleasant enough toward me that I could actually believe she didn’t want to kill me with her mind.

  So we were doing this. For rea
l. The arguing and door slamming were behind us. Obviously dating was off the table, but I’d take this.

  Especially since it meant I could once again watch Natalya work out. In fact, I could watch from close range.

  But were things really okay? Had we put this thing far enough behind us that we could be civil and friendly to each other? Was I just worrying myself to death and overthinking it into the ground like I did with everything?

  She glanced at me, and our eyes met briefly. My pulse ratcheted upward.

  As casually as possible, I pressed my shoulder against a locker. “I, um . . . look, I’m really sorry again. The stuff I said, it—”

  “Don’t.” She shook her head. “We’re friends. We’re working out. The rest is . . .” She shrugged tightly.

  “I know, but I feel like an ass. I guess I didn’t think about what I was saying and how it would make you feel, and I . . .” Had no idea how to justify it beyond that.

  “You’ve thought about it now, yes?”

  “Nonstop since we argued.”

  She smiled. She touched my arm. “Then it’s done. You’ve thought about it. It’s behind us.”

  Is it that simple?

  But she was smiling, and she was touching me without shoving me away. So, slowly, I released my breath. “Okay.” My guard remained up, but this was a start. As long as I didn’t put my foot in my mouth and screw this all up again, we were on the right path. Weren’t we? We could make this part work?

  Please, please, let this work.

  “Well.” I muffled a cough. “To the weight room?”

  “In a minute.” Natalya took a rolled-up ACE bandage out of her bag, sat sideways on the bench, and put one foot up onto it. Carefully, she wound the bandage around her left foot and ankle. Then she pulled her sock over it and, grimacing, pushed her foot into her shoe.

  As she laced up her shoe, I asked, “What happened to your ankle?”

  “Landed wrong during a vault.” She scowled, jerking the laces as if for emphasis. “Still stuck the landing, but I knew as soon as I hit the mat that something wasn’t right.”

  “Ouch . . .” I winced. “How bad was it?”