Page 25 of The Producer: Aaron

“Do you want to go home to check? We are almost finished.”

“Something I should be aware of?” I ask, just to be sure.

He smiles and shakes his head as he closes his laptop. I think he wants to go home to his family, too.

“No. Nothing relevant. We tackled the tricky part at the beginning, and there are no particular variations from last month on what is left.”

I sigh in relief and get up with him to walk out of the office. When I get in the car and slip into Los Angeles’s slow traffic, I curse my decision not to hire another driver when I let Gaspard drive that infuriating woman around. The one who is now soaking my house with the smell of Marijuana.

“Are you going to move? It’s green!” I’m glued to the horn earning a nice middle finger from the guy in front of me who shows no sign of moving his car despite the clear road.

Finally, an hour later, I cross the threshold of my house, stomp like fury toward the kitchen, and I am disoriented by the chaos in front of me. It looks as if a bomb exploded in here. There are dirty pots everywhere, remnants of vegetables on the white marble counter and on the floor, and Alexa repeating a recipe for a filet mignon that no one listens to.

“What the hell…?” The words stick in my throat when Dakota dumps the pot she was scrubbing inside the sink with adeafening noise. I startled her.

When she turns, her hair is gathered in a messy bun over her head, her eyes are red, and I think there is broccoli stuck to her T-shirt with the print of some cartoon. She looks so innocent and fragile that the only feeling in my chest is tenderness.

“I wanted to make you dinner to apologize for vomiting in your car, but it caught fire when I poured the Cognac into the pan with the steak. And while I was looking for a fire extinguisher in this damn house the size of a mall, the vegetables in the oven started to turn black. So I panicked and tried to pull it out but got burned, dropped the baking dish which broke on the floor, and I made a mess.” She sobs, trying to explain why the kitchen looks like a battlefield.

The only reaction that comes from my chest is a laugh which I can’t control. I thought she was here smoking a joint with those degenerate friends of hers, and she was panicking in search of a fire extinguisher. The relief that opens in my chest is so great that with two huge strides, I reach her, take her by the arm, and draw her to my chest for a hug. She clings to my waist, her hands still wet and the sobs shaking her.

“I’m dirtying your shirt with broccoli,” she complains between hiccups as I stroke her head to calm her down.

She was afraid to set my kitchen on fire, and I feel a little guilty. I’m so strict and jealous of my space that she probably thought I’d be barking at her.

“Don’t think about the shirt. I’ll wash it, and it will come back as new,” I whisper as I hold her tight.

“I ruined your pots… and the furniture is blackened where the fire has almost burned them.”

“The furniture can be cleaned, and the pots replaced,” I whisperas she continues to sob.

“I was terrified. When I saw the flames, I was terrified,” she whispers.

And that’s what I thought. She’s not crying because of the mess but because she really thought she’d set the house on fire. And to think that, like a perfect asshole, I immediately thought about the art upstairs when instead she was the one who could have gotten hurt.

“I know, but now it’s all over. Nothing irreparable happened,” I try to console her. “How about you go upstairs and take a shower while I clean the kitchen? I’ll order a pizza in the meantime.”

“So, let me get this straight. I didn’t prepare dinner, so you are starving. I set your kitchen on fire, but you’ll clean the mess I made and also pay for the pizza? I don’t know how you can run a production company. You suck in negotiations,” she mumbles while I free her, and she tries to remove the broccoli stuck to my white shirt, making a much bigger stain than the one already there.

I burst out laughing. Her lack of filter between brain and mouth is so ridiculous that it only makes me laugh.

“Go upstairs before I change my mind.”

She doesn’t let me repeat it twice, and I watch her, amused, as she runs up the stairs. But when I look at the disaster in front of me, the smile dies on my lips.

***

I am just putting the pizza and silverware on the table when Dakota comes downstairs and frowns as she watches me.

“Ok, I accepted many of your rich man quirks, but the pizza on the plates with cutlery… No. Just no,” she snaps when she reaches the table.

I look at her with a raised eyebrow. She is very wrong if she thinks I will eat pizza from the box.

“You are still wearing your suit. Go change, and I’ll prepare dinner.”

“I see your fear has died down and given way to the flippant teenager,” I provoke.

She’s nothing like a teenager, tucked into a pair of blue shorts and a top of the same color as her naked belly. She is beautiful enough to take your breath away with her wet hair that descends down her back.

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