by Witt, L. A.
The numbers all flashed through my mind—how much I made, how much I threw at bills every month. If my rent were cut by a third . . . and my insurance was cheaper . . . and the bills were split . . .
He was right. Money would still be tight, but we’d both learned to be frugal.
“I could quit Old Country,” I whispered.
“Definitely. Then you’d have more time to spend with Tariq.”
My knees shook. I was already overwhelmed by his proposal. Now he was offering me even more. A ticket out of that awful, toxic, exhausting second job. Just thinking about quitting, I could already feel the knots in my shoulders relaxing. And I’d get to spend more time with Tariq. More time with Brennan. More downtime. Period.
“I don’t even know what to say right now.” I laughed softly. “Mind blown.”
He smiled and kissed my forehead. “You said yes. That’s all I was hoping for.”
“I definitely said yes.” I ran my fingers through his hair. “Guess we’ll have to think of a good time to tell Tariq.”
“Yeah,” Brennan said with a grin. “I guess we will.”
I kissed him again. “And, uh, when we get there, it’s up to you what you want Tariq to call you. Megan tried to push him to call her Mom, but . . .” I shook my head. “He didn’t like that.”
“He’s called me ‘Brennan’ all this time. I don’t see why that needs to change.”
“If you’re both happy with it, then it doesn’t.” I cradled his face in both hands. “You are, without a doubt, the best thing that’s ever happened to us.”
“Likewise.” He hugged me tight. As he let me go, he glanced up at the clock. “Damn. You probably need to get to work.”
I looked up and groaned. “Damn it.”
“You want me to come by after your shift is over?”
“Definitely.”
“Text me when you’re off?”
“Will do.”
“Sweet.” He gestured at the ring in my hand. “You want to wear that? Or wait?”
I glanced down at it. “Kind of think I should wait until you’ve got one too.”
Brennan grinned. “I’m game.”
“Cool. Okay. I should go, or I’m going to be late.”
“What’re they going to do?” He winked. “Fire you?”
“A dude can dream, right?” I pulled him to me again and kissed him lightly. “I’ll see you later tonight. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
One more kiss, and I headed out of the shop. Usually, I was grumbling to myself and dreading the evening on the way to Old Country. Tonight would be miserable just like every night at that place, but that was okay. My days there were numbered.
Because, inshallah, I was marrying the most amazing man ever. Inshallah, my son was getting the best stepparent I could have possibly prayed for.
And my family’s future looked amazing.
The End.
Get a Grip
About Get a Grip
If a tree falls in Bluewater Bay . . . could it be fate?
A year after his divorce, Shane Andrews isn’t interested in dating—not that he has time, between three kids and a demanding job as a grip. When a windstorm knocks a tree onto one of the Wolf’s Landing soundstages, Shane’s there to help with the mess . . . and so is firefighter Aaron Tucker.
A former smoke jumper, Aaron’s an adrenaline junkie and way too restless and reckless to be relationship material. As far as he’s concerned, monogamy is for penguins, and he’d rather be alone than tied down. Signing up to be a stepparent? No, thank you.
But after a scorching-hot night together, they’re hooked. Aaron is a taste of the excitement Shane’s been lacking, and Shane’s pushing buttons Aaron didn’t know he had. The more they’re together, the less Aaron craves wild nights with other men . . . but the more Shane wants to play the field like he never got to in his twenties.
This could be the love neither man knew he needed, but only if Shane gets his feet back on the ground before Aaron walks away.
This book was previously published.
Chapter 1
Shane
“So if a tree falls in Bluewater Bay and no one’s around to hear it, does it still make a fucking mess?”
Beside me, my coworker, Dan, whistled. “Yeah, I’d say it does.”
Standing there in the gravel parking lot with Jase, another grip, we surveyed the disastrous scene in front of us. Namely, what was left of Soundstage Two. Other buildings on the production studio property had been damaged as well: a branch had smashed through a wall, and one of the outbuildings had been squashed by another tree. My biggest concern was the soundstage, though, especially since I was pretty sure the water had made it past the sandbags that had been placed around the buildings before the storm came. We’d find out once Anna arrived and gave us permission to go in. She’d ordered everyone to stay out of the buildings for now.
The place was deserted anyway because all production had been canceled until tomorrow. The studio would probably have a conniption about it, but Anna had had the foresight to realize Bluewater Bay would be a mess after the storm, and she didn’t want people trying to make it in when the roads were a disaster. Plus people would have damage to their homes.
We didn’t have to go inside to see the soundstage was an unholy mess. It probably would’ve withstood the storm as well as the buildings next to it had, but it hadn’t been built to catch a hundred-foot cedar blown over by seventy-mile-an-hour winds.
Jase shifted his weight, gravel crunching under his boots. “So, what do we do?”
“Nothing until Anna gets here.” I tucked my hands into my coat pockets. “And, anyway, with all that water and electrical equipment in there, I don’t want to take a chance of the power coming back on.”
Dan grunted in agreement. “Isn’t like we need to rush inside. Anything that’s salvageable will still be there in an hour or two.”
Jase glared up at the sky. “Assuming it doesn’t rain again.”
I scowled at the thick gray clouds. They were swirling lazily and heading east; with any luck, they’d keep going and dump their cargo on Seattle. At least that would give us some time to get in and salvage what we could. Ideally before any electronics were fried or mold had a chance to set in.
But there was nothing we could do now except wait.
They’d called it a fifty-year storm. One of those massive almost-typhoons that whipped through the Pacific Northwest once or twice a century. And it might not have been so bad, or at least not done so much damage, if the Olympic Peninsula hadn’t been getting hammered by torrential rain for two solid weeks. With the ground saturated with water, this had been a disaster waiting to happen, and last night, it had.
That enormous tree had probably been there for a hundred years or more. Thanks to last night’s winds, coupled with waterlogged soil, it had uprooted and come crashing down through the roof. At least it had hit the soundstage and not one of the other buildings. A tree that big would have crushed anything smaller, like the production office, any of the storage sheds, or the houses on the lot that we used for certain scenes.
I’d gotten the call from Dan two hours ago. He’d come to the set to borrow a couple of tools to try to fix some minor damage to his house—not really something we were allowed to do, but nobody ever said anything when we did—and had discovered this mess. Right away, he’d notified me, Jase, and the higher-ups. Our key grip was stuck in his neighborhood thanks to another fallen tree, and that asshole producer Finn Larson couldn’t get out of his driveway, but Anna Maxwell was on her way. Jase and I both lived on streets that had been spared the brunt of it, so here we were.
Beside me, Dan and Jase started muttering about climate change, and I walked away. I wasn’t ignorant of the problem, but I wasn’t in the mood to hear about it this morning. It didn’t really matter right now if this was because of catastrophic global warming or if a butterfly had farted in the Amazon six months ago. The fact rem
ained that a large tree was now reclining on the soundstage, and the mess inside . . . Well, we’d find out before too long.
While I waited for Anna to show up and call the shots, I took out my cell phone and speed-dialed my daughter.
“Hey.” Desiree sounded disinterested and barely awake. Typical fifteen-year-old.
“Hey,” I said. “Just wanted to check in with you guys. Is the power back on?”
“Not yet.”
“Figures. It might be a few hours—I didn’t see any utility trucks near the neighborhood when I left.”
“Great.”
“Your brothers awake yet?”
“Yeah. They’re outside playing in the mud.”
I laughed. That didn’t surprise me. “Keep an eye on them, okay?”
She clicked her tongue. “Dad, I’m—”
“All I’m asking is to check on them occasionally. There’s a lot of branches down in the backyard.”
“Okay, fine.”
“Thanks, kiddo. I gotta go. I’ll check in when I can.”
“You don’t need to. We’re just hanging out here.”
I suppressed a chuckle. I’d expected the teenage years to drive me crazy, but admittedly, her Dad, oh my God, stop being such a Dad tone amused me more than anything. “Okay. I’ll be home as soon as I can. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
After she’d hung up, I slid the phone in my back pocket. Over and over, I tried to remind myself the kids were fine on their own. It had only been a year since I’d started leaving them alone, and I was still kind of edgy about the whole thing. But she was old enough—hell, she’d been old enough—to supervise herself and the twins, and I’d get used to the idea sooner or later.
As I returned to where the guys were standing, I caught their conversation.
“When that chick said she was turned on by storms?” Dan grinned. “She was not kidding. She probably did more damage to my house than the wind.”
Jase high-fived him. “Nice, man. You gonna hook up with her again?”
“Eh.” Dan shrugged. “We’ll see. I’ve been messaging this other girl on Tinder, and she’s—”
I put some more space between us, pretending to be focused on my phone so they wouldn’t know I was trying not to focus on their conversation. Those two were always comparing notes on hookups or whatever they remembered from a night of partying.
And I . . . envied them. I wouldn’t trade my kids for anything, but sometimes I wished I could spend a weekend, or even a night, being like Jase and Dan. I’d missed out on being young and stupid. My very brief taste of youthful recklessness had made me an eighteen-year-old father, and I’d spent the last fifteen years being as close as possible to a responsible adult. What I wouldn’t have given to at least have some memories of sowing my wild oats, even if adulthood and responsibility meant I couldn’t keep sowing them.
Just once, can I go out and be stupid?
I’d been asking myself that for a decade and a half. And going out and being stupid totally sounded like the kind of thing a thirtysomething father of three with a damn mortgage would actually do. Yeah, right. Those wild oats were not going to get sown, and the sooner I made peace with that, the better.
A car pulled into the muddy parking lot and jarred me back into the present. The responsible, mature, doing-my-job present.
Anna got out and shut the door with her hip as she glared at the damaged soundstage. She didn’t have her bodyguard with her, which was unusual, but she’d sounded like she was in a hurry to get here. Maybe he was on his way. Or maybe she didn’t give a shit because a bodyguard wasn’t really necessary right now unless he wanted to help us move tree branches and wet equipment.
Hands in her jacket pockets, she glared at the scene as she walked toward us. “Well isn’t this nice?” Her lip curled. “So much for reshooting that interrogation tomorrow.”
I nodded mutely.
“What do you want us to do?” Jase asked. “I’ve got all day.”
“Me too,” Dan said.
“Same.” I glanced at the fallen tree. “What’s the plan?”
“Right now? We wait because the insurance company and the unions will have our heads if we touch anything.” She folded her arms across her chest and scowled. “The fire department is sending an engine and a crane when they can spare the bodies. The power’s out anyway, and I’ve got a call in to the utility company to keep it off until this is all cleaned up.”
“Good idea,” I said. “Is there anything we can do, though?”
Anna shook her head. “Not really, no.”
The guys and I exchanged uneasy glances.
“What’s the fire department going to do?” Dan asked.
“Anything they can.” She shifted her weight. “I called earlier to see if they can at least help us move the tree off the roof. With the power company as tied up as they are, the firehouse said they’re happy to help as long as they don’t get any actual emergency calls.” With a humorless laugh, she added, “Guess that’s one advantage to living in a small town.”
“Yeah. That means there’s no fires or anything in town, right?”
“Yep.” She nodded. “Sounds like it blew some trees down and fucked up some buildings, but there was only a small fire early this morning. No injuries that I heard about, either.”
“Nobody got hurt anywhere?”
Anna smirked, the first sign of humor since she’d arrived. “Well, not that I know of, but twenty bucks says one of the stunt guys did something stupid.”
I laughed. “I’m not betting against that. You know they did.”
“Mm-hmm. And they can answer to Natalya if they can’t work.”
I grimaced. “I think I’d rather be under the tree than piss her off.”
“Smart man. Smart man.” She let out a quiet laugh, then sighed. “Okay. I need to start making some calls. The insurance company is going to be thrilled.”
“Okay.” I motioned toward the other soundstage. “Should we check in there? See if anything’s damaged or wet?”
Anna pursed her lips.
“It looks safe,” I said. “We might as well at least see if there’s anything we can cover up to prevent more water damage.”
She blew out a breath and nodded. “All right. Take Dan and have a look, but if anything is damaged, don’t touch it unless you’re putting a tarp over it to keep it dry. You hear me?”
“I hear you.” I gave her a mock salute. While she walked away to make her calls, I gestured for Dan to follow me. We stopped by the tool shed to get an armload of plastic drop cloths from one of the set designers’ cabinets and took those, along with a couple of high-powered flashlights and some sturdy gloves.
Dan only had keys to one of the tool sheds, but I had soundstage keys, so I let us in. The instant the door opened, an “Oh, fuck my life” escaped my lips. The soundstages were usually alive with activity, even when someone gave the “Quiet on the set” order. The place was eerily still without the hum of machinery and constant activity, but it wasn’t completely silent—the distinct sound of dripping water turned my gut to lead. I shined my flashlight inside. From here, everything looked intact, but with an inch of standing water on the concrete floor and more dripping from somewhere, I had no doubt we’d find some damage.
“Glad I won’t be the one footing the bill for this shit,” Dan grumbled.
“Yeah. Me too.” I stepped carefully inside, thankful my boots were watertight.
He muttered something I didn’t understand. Cautiously, we picked our way across the wet floor toward the sets. The interior of Gabriel Hanford’s bedroom was currently set up, since a shoot had been scheduled here today before everything’d had to be canceled.
We checked the set, and aside from a few pine needles, it appeared to be unscathed. The wardrobes where the costumes were hung looked like they were fine too, but I didn’t have a key to be sure. All I could do was drape plastic drop cloths over the tops of the wardrobes. At least t
hen if any more water leaked into the building, it wouldn’t seep through and ruin the costumes. Assuming it hadn’t already.
“Aw, shit!” Dan called out from twenty feet or so away.
My head snapped up. “What?” I started toward the sound of his voice.
“Found a branch.” He huffed sharply. “Lighting is gonna shit themselves.”
I came around a corner to where the jail set was ready to roll and grimaced. Didn’t need the flashlight here—the hole in the wall lit up the place well enough. The bedroom interior set was going to need some serious work too. Sections of Sheetrock that hadn’t melted in the rain like the Wicked Witch of the West would need to be patched where debris had punctured them. An armchair that was supposed to look stained and moldy was soaked and covered in pine needles.
The branch that had ripped through the wall was almost the size of a tree itself. It had to be at least six inches in diameter, and God only knew how fast it had been going.
And, like a well-aimed arrow, it hadn’t landed harmlessly on the floor. No, it had gone right through the glass and bulb of a floodlight, smashing through the middle like it was a bull’s-eye.
Dan cocked his head. “Just needs a little gaffer’s tape, right? Good as new?”
I laughed dryly. “Yeah. That’s it.” Gaffer’s tape was more magical than duct tape, but even it couldn’t put this mess back together.
Fortunately, I didn’t belong to the “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men” union, so putting it all back together wasn’t my job.
The rumble of a diesel engine caught my attention.
“That the fire department?” Dan asked.
I went to the door and craned my neck to peer outside. The distinctive red truck rolled across the parking lot. “Yep.”
