Page 40 of Doing It for Love

“Yet.” He’s still looking at something behind her. “But when that bite spreads, you’re going to want to eat me.”

“I want to eat you now. Like a stuffed turkey.” She makes this squeezing motion with her hands, and I choke back a laugh.

Jace keeps looking over her shoulder. Chantal steps into his line of vision and he turns his head. They do it through their entire scene, and it’s so ridiculous that holding in my laughter causes me to lightly snort. Landon turns around, nods to some guy who gives him a thumbs-up, then Landon’s gaze drifts to me.

He squints like he’s not sure who I am, but after I wave an apology for disturbing the shoot, his smile widens and he yells, “Cut!” right in the middle of Jace’s line.

“Dude, I was killing that!” Jace says with a toss of his hands.

“Break for ten.”

Chantal lets out a giant sigh of relief and then rushes to the ladies’ room behind me. Jace takes off his ripped wardrobe jacket and chats to a couple of the extras. Landon takes off his headphones, hops over a chair, and meets me at the back of the room.

“What’re you doing here?”

“I’m here to micromanage, of course.”

He laughs. “I’m open to suggestions.”

“Stop making me laugh, because I’ll ruin every take.”

“Laughing is good.”

“I thought you were shooting a zombie movie.”

“Zombie parody. It’s calledThe Walking Stiff.”

“Sounds like a porn.” I flick my gaze over his shoulder to Jace. He’s using a spoon as a mirror while he fixes his hair. “Though I think you’ve cast it well.”

“Comedy is Jace’s forte.”

“And yours.”

His smile gets even bigger, and he pulls me into his arms. “So really, what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you work. Is that okay?”

“Hell yeah. You want a quick tour?”

“Yes, please.”

“You can put your shoes back on.”

I make a face at him and use his shoulder for balance while I slip on my heels. Then he takes my hand and pulls me toward all the equipment. Most of it has been abandoned with the break Landon announced, so he leads me right up behind “camera 4,” which is the one shooting Chantal’s mark.

“It goes to my laptop over there.” He points behind us. “Chantal has great action/reaction, so I end up using more of her perspective than I probably should. She also has the better face for kissing.”

“Say what now?” I ask with a raised eyebrow. Landon chuckles, takes my chin in his hand, and leans in.

“If I shoot from this camera during the kissing scenes, it captures Chantal’s face more while we get most of Jace’s profile. It’s a more direct facial.” His fingers tiptoe across my cheek. “When we kiss, you always turn right. If we were to kiss in front of this camera, we’d see mostly you, less of me.”

“Don’t you see both kissers equally?”

He grins and taps a peck to my lips before pulling back. “There’s always a ‘lead’ kisser. In this case, it’s Chantal because Jace constantly grins like a dumbass.”

“Sounds like someone else I know.”

He lightly tickles my belly button, and then tugs me to the set itself. It’s a replica of a department store that’s in shambles. There’s a prop zombie across a conveyor belt, looking grossly realistic. I see the food in our house has been put to good use for the bloody guts. I’m really trying not to freak out.

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