“3D printer?” Dex asks as if the idea is confusing to him.
“My little doll is trying to find a hobby.” Cal grins and then turns his attention to me. “No, little doll, I don't need you to return anything. Buy whatever you want... I've told you this.”
“Yeah, but I didn't know you—”
“It's the business.” He assures me. “Our personal finances are fine. Nothing to worry about.”
My stomach flips a little at the mention ofourfinances. Not his…ours.
“Why a 3D printer?” Dex asks, hung up on that for some reason.
“I'm printing planters for all the babies.” I explain, knowing that it sounds as unhinged as it is.
I could just go to the damn store and buy planters, but I'm not sure I'm ready to go out.
I could order them online, but it's hard to get a feel for dimensions.
“Babies?” Dex frowns.
“The plants.” Cal chuckles. “The hobby ishorticulture.”
“Right…” Dex nods. “You two have some weird fucking hobbies.”
I chuckle at that.
It's not like plants are that weird. They help with oxygen, cleaning the air. They also make me happy, seeing how different they all are, and yet all of them are beautiful.
The most exciting one was the one I brought back from the brink of death... a gift that Cal said had been given to him by a receptionist for his birthday. He claimed he had the touch of death, but I know better than that.
He's touched me plenty in the last few months, and I'm still alive.
“Is there anything I can do to help with this?” I nod at their work.
“I wish you could.” Dex groans.
“We don't have enough capital to afford to launch the film division... not without hiring actors off the streets.” Cal explains. “The overhead is too high, and our competition is outbidding us for all the indie films, which means we aren't making enough profit to sustain us.”
“Indie theaters are really that popular?”
“We provide an experience unlike any other.” Dex reasons. “It's not just like going to see Jaws at the Megaplex.”
“Jaws is older than me.” I laugh. “Of course, no one is going to see that at the Megaplex.”
Dex chuckles, and Cal takes over for him.
“What we offer is more of a curtailed experience… an entertainment complex of sorts. It's not just a single theater playing a single film. We have curated packages, bottle service, an extensive menu, and some of the best chefs in the city.”
“At a movie theater?”
“I'd liken it more to an art gallery.” Dex says. “When we do everything right, bring in the right clients, we've had some incredible sales... movies I couldn't even tell you the names of without breaking our contracts and exclusivity clauses.”
I stifle my smirk. “I can see you guys are really into this.”
“It's a passion project for us both.” Cal shrugs. “And a lucrative business, before fucking Tinseltown opened up and started stealing our customers.”
“So, what do you need to make it work?” I grab a paper off the top and appraise it, but the numbers don't even make sense. There are more zeroes on that paper than there are in the entire phone book.
“Money. Investors. Actors willing to work for pennies so we can produce something worthy of the experience.”
