Page 50 of Mr. Fixer Upper
“Well, I was just telling Paige here that the network has instructed me to fire Tony—”
“The fuck you are,” Gannon cut him off. He was scary when he was pissed, and hell if he wasn’t furious right now.
Cat stepped between her ticking time bomb of a brother and the messenger. “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. I don’t think that’s a good idea. See if you fire Tony, Gannon and I are going to quit right here, right now. And then we’re going to spend the next year doing interviews talking about what dipshits run the network and put footage above human life. Right, Gan?”
Gannon nodded. “Yeah, that sounds about right. Did we mention that we got an offer from Netflix? For an original show where we call the shots?”
Cat crossed her arms over her chest. “So what’s it gonna be, Eddie?”
Paige looked at Eddie. “Does that work for you?” she asked him.
He took off his hat and mopped his brow. “Oh, yeah. They’ll be pissing their pants.” He took out his phone and wandered a few paces away.
Paige grinned. “Nicely done, Kings.”
“You diabolical little puppet master,” Gannon said, glaring at her.
“Eddie wanted a reason to keep Tony. You guys gave him a big one.”
“Good to see the head injury didn’t screw with your manipulation capabilities,” Cat said, looking impressed.
Eddie returned, shoving his phone back into the pocket of his jeans. “Good news, Tony’s staying, and I think it would be better if we didn’t let him know how close he came to the chopping block.”
“Agreed,” Paige said.
Gannon and Cat nodded.
“Now for the bad news,” Eddie said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “In addition to your in-depth interview, they’d like to see shots of your injuries.”
Gannon stepped in on Eddie, and Paige put her hand on his arm. “Don’t roundhouse the messenger,” she told him. She turned to Eddie. “If it puts this whole stupid thing behind us, then fine. I’ll bawl for the camera, give you a close-up of the stitches, and that’s the end of it.”
“Taking one for the team,” Gannon scowled.
“The guy pulled me out of a ton of rubble. I think I owe him.”
Eddie, sensing an argument brewing, slapped Gannon on the back heartily. “While I’m here, why don’t you show me around,” he suggested.
They started to walk off toward the house when Paige saw Eddie sniff the air.
“Do you smell piña coladas?”
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Between filming scenes, Gannon stayed glued to Paige’s side. He dumped an entire kitchen scene on Cat and Brunelli so he could stand sentinel off camera while Eddie interviewed Paige on camera.
She had every right to be miserable and whiny with the amount of pain she had to be feeling. But he’d yet to hear a complaint. It was impossible not to admire her for that. And now, watching her walk through what had to have been an incredibly traumatic moment without bursting into tears, he was impressed.
Paige was toughing it out, answering the intrusive questions with humor and sincerity and giving a shout out to the brave little girl Regina who hadn’t left her scared friend behind. He caught a wince every now and then when she shifted in her seat. She had to be in pain, lots of it, judging by the bruises she revealed to the camera. But she was a consummate professional through the entire thing.
Gannon on the other hand wanted to grab the camera out of Rico’s hands and smash it over Eddie’s head. It wasn’t either of their faults, but he couldn’t help lumping them in with the network assholes demanding Paige’s humiliating recount of “the incident” as Eddie called it.
“You’re doing great,” Eddie said, peering at his notes through his glasses. “Couple more, and we’re done.”
Gannon shook his head as Eddie asked her what her biggest relief was.What the fuck did they think she’d say? That she got a few hours off work? Assholes.He’d meant to say the words in his head, not actually mutter it under his breath, but Paige caught it and gave him a nearly imperceptible shake of her head.
“My biggest relief is that Ashton is okay. He was a tough little kid.” She kept her face neutral, her voice steady. She wasn’t about to parade around some emotions just so the network could exploit her and Gannon had never respected anyone more than Paige St. James in that moment.
“Do you feel lucky to be alive?” Eddie asked.
