Page 9 of Stunts and Sparks

He shook his head. “First of all, giving up this job is going to permanently damage your reputation in the industry. You may very well never work again. This is a huge film with a famous director, and word gets around. Second of all, come on, you know I’m not going to let you get an injury like that.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I can guarantee the majority of people who drive recklessly and crash had the same level of confidence you just displayed.”

“Yeah, but I’m a professional.” He nudged her, and she recoiled. “Look, the next stunt will make you happy. You get to land a hit on me, and I don’t want you to hold back. Hit me as hard as you can.”

Heather slouched, deeply disappointed that he intended to continue this stupid plan. “I can’t.”

“Sure you can.” He smiled reassuringly. “Just harness the anger I planted in you and hit me.”

“Seriously?” She almost shouted the question at him. “You don’t think potentially injuringyouwould endanger my career at all?”

He shrugged and smiled. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“Well, you don’t.” She couldn’t even finish her sandwich. “They can replace you too, you know.”

“Not easily.” He grinned. “Listen. What I’m good at is figuring out what a director really wants without their having to ask for it. It absolves them of liability, and they love that. For example, I just talked to our director today, and do you know what he did? He thanked me for getting him that badass shot yesterday. He loved it. I’m not trying to put us in danger here. I’m trying to give us both a boost. Our reputations will be fantastic. Directors will whisper to each other about how Heather and Cole are willing to do what no one else will do. ‘They predict your desires before you even have to voice them,’ they’ll say.”

Heather’s hand flew to her forehead of its own accord. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I’m not.”

“Ugh. I can’t even listen to you anymore.” She packed her sandwich away and finished her drink. “Let’s just do the scene, and I promise to sleep on it before I quit.”

He stood along with her. “That’s all I ask, sweetheart.”

She whirled on him and pointed a finger in his face. “Call me Heather from now on, or I’ll walk out before you can even blink.”

They both walked onto the set, Heather feeling more than a little agitated. Of course, if she was going to stay her course, she was going to have to keep her temper in check.

“Positions, please,” the director said.

They stood on their respective marks right next to each other, and Heather positioned herself to kick him. She was supposedto roundhouse him in the stomach, and he would pretend to be knocked back — a carefully choreographed stumble.

“Action!”

Heather pivoted on one foot and kicked him gently with the other. Cole did not fall back the way he was supposed to.

“What the hell was that?” she shouted at him.

“Oh, sorry,” he said with an absolutely infuriating look on his stupid face. “Was I meant to feel that?”

“Let’s go again,” the director said.

The second time wasn’t any better than the first. Heather wanted to scream. He really wasn’t going to allow them to get the shot at all unless she did it his way. She turned back to the director to see if he was going to admonish Cole at all, but he didn’t. “Stupid boys’ club,” she muttered.

“I just need a little more enthusiasm from you,” Cole was saying. “You know, so I know when to react precisely.”

“The metronome should tell you that,” she said. “The count. Did you even rehearse?”

“Of course I rehearsed,” Cole answered. There was a glint in his eye that Heather was not at all comfortable with. “I just had a different partner. Maybe she and I were more in tune, you know? Or maybe she was just capable of giving one hundred percent.”

That did it. Heather kicked him hard. Her temper really had gotten the better of her. Cole fell back for real, stumbling in the wake of her rage with an infuriating smile on his face. She didn’t let him regain his balance. Instead she kicked him again and flewat him in a blind rage. She was punching him in the chest with closed fists. “You want to be hit harder? How about this, huh? Is this hard enough for you?”

He grunted and pushed back. “You wanna think about rephrasing that maybe?”

She hit him even harder for the grievous crime of making her blush. At some point, someone dragged her off him, but she was still kicking the air as they pulled her away. She must have been practically frothing at the mouth over him. She must have looked like an uncontrollable animal.

They took her into a small room and sat her down. “Chill,” one of the men said. “Wait here. Do you need some water?”

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