Or so I thought, because the actor who walked into the room that was doubling as my wardrobe department was very familiar. So familiar I thought surely I was imagining him. Surely I’d fallen asleep and was having a nightmare and so it wasn’t really Angel’s ex-boyfriend Blake walking into the room right now. It wasn’t really a Hemsworth lookalike pulling off a hoodie and kicking off his sneakers before even saying hello.
I stared as he yanked down his pants and then turned and faced me, his penis swinging around like a beige windsock. “Hey, I’m Blake,” he said in a deep voice. “I hear you got a suit for me?”
“I do,” I managed to say, spinning around to fumble for the suit. I’d known that Blake did porn—he and Angel had met at some Uncle Ray-Ray’s holiday party a year and a half ago while I’d sulked in the corner and watched their chemistry blossom.
But he’d been off the scene for a while, and I’d put him in the coffin showroom of my brain. May he never rest in peace.
But here he was. Muscled thighs, windsock dick, and all.
After forcing my eyes up, I yanked his pants off the hanger and threw them in his general direction. “Try those on and we’ll see if we can make them work. I’ll be right back.”
I marched out of the room and slammed the door behind me as I roared, “Sunny!”
Weaving in and out of crew members and cast members, I pushed down the hallway into the room doubling as the hotel suite. “Sunny,” I called again. “We need to—”
I stopped right there in my special edition Doc Martens tracks.
Right there on a stepladder, positioning lights, was Angel.
Sunny looked up from where she was perched on her director’s chair with her laptop balanced precariously on her thighs.
I opened my mouth to shout—at anyone—but Angel spoke first, shaking his head as he dismounted the stepladder. “You didn’t tell me he was going to be here, Sunny.” His voice was tight, furious, and his hand as he pushed his big glasses up his nose was shaking.
Without another word, he stormed out of the room, his shoulder brushing mine just enough for it to sting, and I staggered back, my hand going to my deltoid like I’d just been hit with a cannonball.
Which was possibly not entirely warranted, since Angel was as lanky as they came, but still.
I swiveled my head back to Sunny, Sunny the Betrayer, Sunny the Summoner of Cute Exes with Glasses. She threw her arms up as if this wasn’t all her fault.
I made a frustrated noise in her general direction before stomping back to wardrobe.
By the time I made it there, Blake was gone. I supposed he’d used the two spark plugs in his brain to find the rest of his suit, so I slumped down on the white leather sofa to text Bee and tell her, We should put out an Amber Alert for Sunny.
Bee responded almost immediately.
Bee: Why? Where is she? Did she not make it to work this morning?
Luca: She’s here now, but I’m about to kill her, and if you want any help finding the body, you’ll need help from the authorities.
Bee: I’m guessing you ran into Blake.
Luca: And Angel.
Luca: Wait.
Luca: You knew?
Bee: ️
Bee: LA is a small town and porn is an even smaller business, hun.
Hun! Hun? How dare she hun me?
I threw my phone in the adorable little upcycled Dooney & Bourke bum bag Vanya had got me a few years ago. She’d hand painted flowers that looked strikingly similar to vaginas all over it, making it the perfect 911 bag for porn sets. It had all the necessities. Needle, thread, pasties, and even a plant-based menstrual disc because I was a good friend to uterus-having people, despite the fact that two of my favorite uterus-having people were making an actual attempt on my life at the moment.
As I popped in an earbud, Harry Styles “Daylight” remixes playing, I began to sort through costumes for the next scene, my hands shaking just like Angel’s had been earlier. I flexed them once and then rubbed them together. As much as I appreciated what an incredible music video this would make right now—the lonely beauty in his kilt bravely hiding his agony at seeing his cheating, Eiffel-Tower-loving ex—I wasn’t going to give Angel music video power over me. It had been seven months! I could easily handle however long this took . . . right?
I quickly did the production math in my head. Some porn shoots happened in a day, but the bigger budget remakes Teddy had a soft spot for could take anywhere from one to two weeks, and with this being Sunny’s first movie, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
Which meant I could be on set with Angel, Blake, and Blake’s windsock dick, for at least the next week. Possibly two. Or—God, no—three.
That was doubtful, of course, but it was better to brace myself now.
There was a knock at the door and then Graham, a pale twentysomething with Big Tweed Energy, and Sunny’s assistant for the shoot, poked his head in. “Would you believe me if I told you Mackenzie broke her costume?”
I threw my head back with a groan. “This day!”
I followed him downstairs to where the crew was in full panic mode, trying to get cameras rolling before the light shifted again.
But it was fine. Everything was fine. I’d fix Mackenzie’s costume, because that was a problem I knew how to fix. Unlike Angel being here with his very naked ex.
Unlike my life, which sometimes felt entirely too much like a music video—the same scenes, over and over. The perfect aesthetic with no real substance behind it.
Anyway, we’d start rolling on this shiz and before I knew it, we’d have one day down. And that’s how I would survive this. One day at a time.
Part of me still wanted to call Teddy and demand he take me off this shoot due to his hot, mean artist son being here, but I’d been ecstatic about the as-yet-untitled Pretty Woman parody since Sunny first pitched it. So why should I let Angel and Blake ruin this for me?
“Right down here in the last bedroom,” Graham said as he walked faster than a nurse in a pair of Crocs leading you through the office to your appointment room. You always knew they meant business when that little loop was pulled up around the heel. It was like sport mode for Crocs.
I dug around in my bag for my sewing kit as Graham opened the door and then stepped back for me to walk ahead.
The door shut behind me just as I looked up to see Sunny pushing a reluctant Angel through the door of a bathroom which was conjoined to the next bedroom over.
I gasped.
I’d been tricked. Bamboozled!
“Graham!” I shouted as I rapped my fist on the door. “You lied to me!”
“Not technically,” he protested. “I asked if you would believe me if I told you Mackenzie broke her costume. I didn’t say she actually did.”
“I don’t have time for your drama on my set,” Sunny said through the other door.
“Me neither,” I yelled back, as Angel slid down the wall and onto the floor.
“And I’m not about to choose between you two,” Sunny said. “So work it out.”
“You’re dead to me, Graham,” I called back to him.
“Don’t listen to him, Graham,” Sunny shouted. “You haven’t lived if you’ve never been dead to Luca.”
“Can confirm,” Angel mumbled.