Page 54 of The Boss I Can't Stand
Then Finn’s hand was on my shoulder again, squeezing gently, pulling my attention. “Breathe,” he said.
I did, sucking in a shaky breath.
“Can we buy more?”
“We were only able to find one bolt of it,” I explained. “Even if we could locate more, there’s no way it’d get here in time.” Shit, shit, double shit! And then I said the words no producer ever wanted to hear. “We’re going to have to push back the schedule.”
“We’re not pushing anything,” Finn said, whipping out his phone. “Can you give me the fabric specifics?”
Carter ran off to get him the information.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, distraught.
“Track down that fabric.”
That felt impossible. “Finn?—”
“Leave it to me,” he insisted. “You get to work on prepping whatever else you can for tomorrow.”
Was he actually going to be able to find more of the fabric and get it here in time? Part of me didn’t think it would happen, but my feet carried me toward the cutting table, pulling out a durable, lightweight cotton, my mind already crafting some sort of time-period-inappropriate but invisible underlayer to build the bare bones of the dress ontop of. For this plan to work, I was putting all my trust in Finn to deliver.
“Where do you want us?” Paisley asked at the same time Trin said, “What can I do?”
I stopped unraveling the cotton, shoving aside all my panic long enough to give directions. My instinct was to try to do everything myself, but the whole point of having a team was so I could delegate—which was exactly what I needed to do if we were going to have any hope of pulling this off.
“Okay, Carter,” I said, glancing down at Shaw, our leading lady, in complete shambles on the floor. “I need you to deal with that.”
“Got it,” he said, passing off the fabric information to Finn, who disappeared into my office.
“Trin, I need you to find our original references for the dress and start cutting out a pattern. Paisley, can you start working on the embellishments?” They nodded. “We’re not going to have time to fuss around with all the layers, so my thought is to build an underlayer to give the new dress the same shape while using less fabric and therefore requiring?—”
“—less time to construct,” Paisley finished.
“Exactly.”
“Good plan.”
“I don’t know if it’s good, but it’s the best I’ve got right now.” Would the dress be completely twenties accurate? No. Were we cheating the design? Absolutely. But it was the only way we were going to get this dress done before tomorrow…if Finn magically conjured up a supplier that could get the material to us.
I took out my favorite pair of fabric scissors and started cutting while Carter scooped Shaw off the floor and got her seated in a chair with a cup of tea to help calm her nerves. She apologized over and over, her eyes red-rimmed and blotchy.
Thank the Lord she was done filming for today because there wasn’t a makeup artist on earth that could have done anything about those puffy, reddened eyes.
Once Carter had Shaw settled, Brenna turned up and spirited her away for some much-needed rest. My head turned toward my office where Finn was staring intently at a laptop, phone pressed to his ear. I tried not to listen too hard as he called in every favor he had. Judging by the number of calls, there were a lot, but my stomach dropped each time he hung up, scowling down at the computer screen.
Just focus, I told myself.Focus and let Finn do his thing.
“Here,” Carter said, dropping a case of RevX on the cutting table next to me. “Craft services just dropped these off.”
“Thanks,” I said, cracking one open. I passed the rest around, knowing it was about to be a very long evening. Even Finn couldn’t hassle me about my energy drink addiction right now.
Hours later, we’d gotten the underlayer pinned, sewn together, and up on the mannequin. A new pattern for the top layer had been cut out, and the embellishments were prepped. What we needed now was the actual dress fabric to incorporate into the costume.
“I’ve got news,” Finn called.
“We’re changing the schedule?” I asked, turning to him.
“No.” He emerged from my office, hair disheveled. He’d ditched his suit jacket and shoved his sleeves up, leaving the top two buttons of his shirt undone. It was the most casual I’d seen him since that day in his sculpture studio. He brushed his hand through his dark hair, smoothing the locks back, the muscles in his forearm tensing, and my mouth went a little dry.
