by Witt, L. A.
“Good. Maybe they’ll get that tree out of there so we can salvage shit from Soundstage Two.”
We continued surveying the damage, covering what we could in case the rain started up again, then headed outside to report to Anna.
She was standing where I’d left her, arms folded as she watched the firefighters work. They were bracing the tree with cables and the good-sized crane that had arrived. Probably to keep it from collapsing completely and taking more of the roof down with it.
Anna turned to me, brow pinched. “How’s it look?”
“Well.” I tucked my gloves into my belt. “It’s not as bad inside as Two probably is.”
She groaned. “How bad?”
“At least one set’s going to need some serious rebuilding. The rest just have some pine needles and a little water damage.” I paused. “And a branch went through the wall and into a floodlight. I couldn’t see if any of the other lights were damaged, but that one is fucked.”
Anna buried her face in her hands and swore. “Oh, fuck my life. I do not need this.”
“Sorry.”
Her phone chirped to life, muffled by her pocket, and she cursed as she pulled it out. “I have to take this.”
“Sure, no problem.”
The other grips were standing near the fire truck, talking while they watched the firefighters working, so I headed their way.
I wasn’t ten feet away from my coworkers when two firefighters stepped around the end of the truck, and I halted so sharply I almost slipped on the wet ground.
Oh, hello.
Okay, so firefighters were gorgeous by nature—I was pretty sure it was a requirement, even for volunteers like these guys. And the one on the left was cute. A bit young, but cute.
He wasn’t the reason I’d stopped in my tracks, though.
The other guy . . . holy shit. He was easily forty, maybe a little older. Nobody in his twenties had that kind of faintly weathered look with salt-and-pepper hair. Only age sharpened somebody’s features like that. In his younger days, he’d probably been cute like the guy next to him, but now he was fucking hot.
And I . . . was . . . staring. Noticeably.
The younger one nudged the older guy. “I’m going to go see if they need any help.”
The older guy nodded. When we were alone, he extended his hand. “Aaron Tucker.”
“Shane Andrews.” I shook his hand, surprised I remembered my own name.
“You work here?” He had the voice of a smoker, not to mention the lines at the corners of his mouth.
And he’d asked a question. A simple one, right? Shit.
I cleared my throat. “Yeah. I, uh, work here. I’m a grip.”
He cocked his head. “A what now?”
“A grip. I, uh . . .” Know how to speak. Right? “I put up the rigging for cameras and lights. Stuff like that.”
His ears perked up a little. “Oh, so you know your way around the equipment inside, then.”
I nodded.
“Hmm.” He absently rubbed his scruffy chin with the backs of his fingers. “Now that the tree is stabilized, you might want to check inside to see if there’s any equipment we can move out of the way. There’s always a chance of branches snapping off, or the trunk breaking while we’re moving it.” He met my gaze. “Maybe you could come in with—”
“Oh, no,” Anna’s voice came out of nowhere, and I turned to see her approaching. “Nope. Can’t send any of my people in there.”
Aaron scowled but shrugged. “It’s your call.”
I cleared my throat. “Anna, he might be right.”
They both looked at me.
The double scrutiny was unsettling even though I normally wasn’t intimidated by her in the slightest, and I’d just met him. Ignoring both her gaze and the intensity of his—is it legal for a man to be that hot?—I motioned toward the soundstage. “Uh, it might not be a bad idea to go in there with him. If there’s any equipment that hasn’t been damaged yet, but could be when they go to move the tree, maybe we can still get it out of the way. Or at least away from the damaged wall in case more comes down.” I grimaced. “Some of that rigging is fragile as hell—even a piece of the roof or a small branch could mangle it.”
Aaron nodded. “The tree is stable, and the roof is only compromised on one side. It wouldn’t hurt to have one of them come in with us.”
Anna gnawed her lip. I knew exactly what she was thinking—my union and the insurance companies would hit the already damaged roof if they knew I’d gone into the building before it was deemed absolutely safe. As it was, going into the other soundstage could get us in trouble. But, at the same time, if that tree snapped and smashed another lighting rig or the camera cage, the bean counters would lose their minds. I wouldn’t put it past them to look the other way about putting people in danger if it meant salvaging valuable equipment. Given some of that expensive shit in there, it was probably worth putting a grip or two in some moderate danger.
“All right,” she said quietly. “Shane, go in with him and see what you can do. Don’t do anything stupid, okay?”
I nodded and didn’t try to make a joke about Who, me? Normally, I’d banter with her like she was another grip, but she was not in the mood today. And, besides, the only stupid thing I wanted to do right then had nothing to do with the soundstage and everything to do with the man I’d be following inside.
Holy fuck, Shane. What is wrong with you?
Cheeks burning, I cleared my throat and tried not to stare at the guy. Again. Still. Whatever.
“Let me grab a flashlight,” Aaron said. “Then we can go have a look.”
Anna made an unhappy noise. “I don’t like this at all.” She glared at the damaged building. To Aaron, she said, “At least get him a hard hat, would you?”
“Will do.” He disappeared around the side of the truck.
As soon as we were alone, she pointed sharply at me. “I’m not kidding, Shane. I shouldn’t even be letting you go in there, so if you get so much as a splinter—”
“I’ll be fine.” I put up my hands. “I’ll go in, give everything a quick look, and if we can move anything, I’ll tell him.”
She winced, probably envisioning all manner of catastrophes that could happen if the firefighters didn’t carefully handle some of that delicate gear.
Aaron reappeared and handed me a hard hat. “Let’s go.”
I hesitated, raising my eyebrows at Anna. You sure?
She pursed her lips, took a deep breath, and then nodded before turning to answer yet another call. I didn’t envy her the people she’d be dealing with today.
Gloves and hard hat on, I followed Aaron toward the soundstage. As I did, I reminded myself we had a job to do. That my place of work was a literal disaster, and Anna was counting on me to minimize the damage to expensive equipment before anyone tried to move that tree.
So stop drooling over the firefighter and get your head together.
As I fell into step beside him, I stared straight ahead. One thing was for sure—between envying my coworkers and ogling him, this was a clear sign it was time for me to get back into the dating game. Divorce number two had been final for six months, and he’d been gone for six months prior. That was to say nothing of the month or two we’d spent sleeping as far apart as our king-sized bed would allow. Which made it well over a year since I’d been laid.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t wanted to. There just never seemed to be time.
One look at Aaron, though, and I was already mentally shuffling my schedule around. Perhaps not the best timing in the world, given that there was a goddamned tree on top of my workplace, but terrible timing pretty much summed up my life, so why not?
Today, I told myself as I unlocked the door to the battered soundstage, I’d do as much as I could to help clean up this mess.
And tonight, the second I had a minute to myself, I was downloading whatever app everyone was using this week to get laid.
Chapter 2
&nb
sp; Aaron
If this had been the scene of a fire or some massive earthquake damage, I’d never have even thought of taking someone into the building with me, hard hat or no. As it was, I kept an eye on Shane to make sure he stayed clear of the branches and the pieces of debris dangling precariously above us.
This structure was compromised, but not the way it would’ve been after a fire or a quake. With the tree braced and the wind relatively quiet, nothing was moving. Still, I kept an eye on it while Shane and I carefully made our way through the building.
A piece of the aluminum rattled, drawing my attention upward. It swayed a little, and some of the tree’s branches fluttered. The wind was picking up slightly for the first time since the storm had died down. Hopefully that wasn’t a sign that we were in for a second wind, so to speak. If it picked up even a little bit more, I was sending Shane out of here. No amount of equipment was worth injuring someone, even if property owners often seemed to think otherwise.
The damage was nasty, and I didn’t envy whoever drew the short straw for cleanup detail, but the building and its interior weren’t a total loss. Most of the structure was intact. The exterior wall had held up the tree, keeping it from crashing all the way down. A chunk of the roof had collapsed onto the sets and equipment below while the rest dangled over our heads. And there was standing water everywhere.
It was so weird to see the Wolf’s Landing set like this. I’d been here before when it had been all intact and fully active. There’d been a minor fire last year, and another falling tree had done some damage to one of the smaller buildings. We’d warned the production company the other trees might come down if the weather went to shit, but I’d heard later that they’d taken one look at the estimates for having them removed and decided not to bother. Way to go, idiots.
I was usually happy to come here because most of the time—today being an exception—they were filming. I’d get a little thrill because I’d get to grab an in-person eyeful of the cast. This job didn’t pay, but it sure had its perks sometimes.
And, somehow, I’d never noticed Shane.
I sure noticed him now, though. Holy shit. And, hey, part of my job currently meant watching him closely to make sure he stayed out of harm’s way while he inspected the equipment. Perfect opportunity to steal some decidedly unprofessional glances.
Shane’s hair was long enough for the wind to blow the odd black curl into his face, which he’d casually bat away just in time for another breeze to push it back into his eyes. It probably wasn’t as messy without the wind. Whatever—it was long enough for a man to really grab on to.
The thought made my breath catch, and I actually stumbled.
Shane turned around. “You all right?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” I coughed and gestured at the inch of standing water at our feet. “Just a little slick right here.”
He nodded. “Watch out for the cords too.”
“Thanks.” On the way in, he’d warned me about cords taped to the floor and hiding under the water near the sets. Damn. Could’ve used one of those as an excuse for tripping.
We kept walking—me a little more cautiously than before—and I stole another look at him. What was it about this guy? He was sure as hell easy on the eyes. He had two or three inches on me, so he was probably hovering around six foot. Shortly after we’d walked in, he’d taken off his jacket and walked with it under his arm while I checked out everything he’d been hiding underneath. He was slim like a runner, with arms and shoulders that said he didn’t only run. I could even forgive the Raiders T-shirt, and if it came down to it, I’d allow that awful thing on my bedroom floor.
The toe of my boot caught on something under the water—probably one of the cords he’d mentioned—but I didn’t stumble. I did, however, pull my attention away from Shane’s structure to focus on the structure we were walking through.
“So, anything that isn’t damaged now . . .” He looked at me. “What’s at risk? When your guys start moving the tree?”
I gestured to indicate an invisible line beginning a few feet from where we stood. “Anything from here back is most likely out of the way. The farther anything is from the tree, the safer it is, but there’s no guarantees once we start moving it or cutting into it.”
Shane scanned our surroundings. His shoulders sagged a bit, and he shook his head. “I don’t think there’s much to save that we can get to without somebody getting hurt.” Pointing over his shoulder, he added, “The camera cage is safe, so that’s a plus.”
“The what?”
“The camera cage. Where we lock up the cameras at night. Oh man, the studio would be pissed if those got fucked up. Bad enough somebody tried to break in once and . . .” He waved his hand. “Anyway. The cameras are safe. The lights are . . .” His eyes flicked up toward the ruined ceiling. “Well, the gaffers have been pushing to replace some lights and electrical, so I guess there’s a silver lining here.”
“Apparently there is.” I nodded toward the area with the most damage. “You see anything from here that might be salvageable?”
Shane adjusted his jacket under his arm and held up his flashlight. “There’s some lights over there.” He pointed with the flashlight beam. “I can’t tell from here if they’re intact, but it wouldn’t hurt to get them out of here.”
I clicked on my radio. “Tucker to Jensen. Over.”
“Go ahead. Over.”
“I’ve got some equipment inside the damaged structure. Lighting equipment. Looks like it’ll take three or four people to move some of this shit. Over.”
“Sending bodies in now. How soon until we can move this tree? Over.”
“Depends on how long it takes to get this equipment out of here. Over.”
“Copy that.”
As footsteps came in through the door on the other end of the building, I turned to Shane. “You stay over here. We’ll get it moved.”
He gulped. “Okay. Be careful, though. This shit’s expensive.”
I smiled. “We’re always careful. It’s what we do.”
He held my gaze, then managed a slight but knee-shaking smile.
Turned out he was right about the lights. One was smashed pretty badly, but three very expensive-looking rigs were intact, if a little wet and dirty. While we were moving those, we found some stands, what I assumed was audio equipment, and a few rolling cabinets marked PROPS and LIGHTING. It was all unscathed and reasonably dry, so we took those out too.
By the time all was said and done, we’d moved enough gear away from the tree to fill a shipping container. The woman in charge was visibly relieved, and so was Shane. God knew how much money had been crunched under that toppled cedar.
While Shane, Anna, and their coworkers started cataloging the rescued equipment, my guys and I started on the tree. We had to cut off the branches, then cut the trunk into pieces and carefully remove each chunk with the crane. Oh the excitement of a small-town volunteer firehouse. Safer than parachuting into a wildfire. Not nearly as thrilling.
Usually.
Every once in a while, as we both worked on our respective tasks, I’d catch sight of Shane again, and my whole body would respond. What the hell? It wasn’t like I hadn’t been getting laid recently. I made liberal use of a premium membership on Grindr and a couple of other apps.
But Shane caught me off guard. Not only the first time I’d looked at him—every time I looked at him. There was something about him that fucked up my focus and nearly made me trip over my own feet. Good thing I wasn’t handling a chainsaw today, or I’d have lost a leg by now.
You’re being stupid. Concentrate before somebody gets hurt.
I pulled my gaze away from him for the millionth time and gathered some branches Jensen had cut off the tree. I carried them to the pile we were making off to the side of the lot. The production company could deal with them from there—I just needed them out of my crew’s way.
With the relatively safe task of moving branches, I let my mind sneak back to the
gorgeous guy in the Raiders shirt. I tried not to read too much into the way he’d stopped and stared at me outside. He hadn’t even been subtle about it. There was no mistaking that he was looking at me and not Jensen, who would’ve kicked my ass in any kind of “Who’s hotter?” poll.
I hadn’t minded a bit, because I’d been staring right back at him. One look and my brain had been instantly full of impure thoughts instead of structural concerns and the best way to take down that tree without causing more damage.
I shook myself and dropped some more branches onto the growing pile, pretending my heartbeat wasn’t drowning out the sounds of voices, chainsaws, and the grumbling diesel engine.
This wasn’t like me. What the fuck?
Except I had been a bit of a horndog lately. Should’ve jerked off last night while I’d had the chance. Maybe then I’d be thinking with my big brain today instead of letting my dick lead me around.
Well, too late now. I had a job to do.
I know what I’ll be logging in to tonight, though . . .
* * *
By the time the day was over, I’d helped de-tree the soundstage, two houses, and the bank. I’d picked up more branches off more roads, cars, and mailboxes than I had in a long time. The whole town was a mess, especially the roads. Thank God for all the rain—the last thing anybody’d needed today was a damn wildfire.
Shuffling into the house at almost nine, I ached in places that hadn’t ached in ages. My left knee hurt like a son of a bitch, but that was normal. It didn’t even need a day of hard work for that.
Immediately, my dog and two of my cats came thundering into the kitchen. Jack almost bowled me over, wagging his tail hard enough to damn near dent the oven door, the wall, and the cats.
“Hey, hey.” I laughed, crouching down as much as my knee allowed and wrapping my arms around his neck. “Easy, buddy. I’m home.”
He whined and wiggled—typical boxer—as I patted his back.
“Did you guys miss me?” I asked as he tried to lick my face. “Did you?”
