Chapter One
Every day this week, the air conditioner on set has woken up and chosen violence. Simon is not prepared to work in tundra conditions. He isn’t built for Siberian gulags or ice fishing huts.
A production assistant brings him a blanket—actually just kind of tosses it in his direction and runs, because possibly some of Simon’s discontent is showing on his face, and in his body language, and in the fact that he’s said, “I guess this is how I’ll die, not that anyone cares,” fifteen times already—but the blanket is made of something scratchy, and his fried nerves can’t take one more entry in the Bad column.
“You look like you’re in a nursing home,” Charlie says when Simon has the terrible blanket wrapped around his shoulders. “Or, like, you’re doing a fashion shoot where the concept is sexy assisted living facilities in outer space.”
After seven years, Simon shouldn’t be appalled by the things that come out of Charlie’s mouth. But before Simon can present Charlie with an itemized list of everything wrong with what he just said, the assistant director shouts that it’s time for yet another take of this godforsaken scene.
He’s spent the past three hours huddled up with Charlie behindthe fuselage of a crashed spaceship. He’s said the line, “Wait, I think they hear us,” so many times the syllables have unraveled into a meaningless series of noises.
They shoot another take. And another one after that, Charlie’s enormous arm a heavy weight around Simon’s shoulders, his body a hulking and weirdly familiar presence against Simon’s side. A disheartening percentage of Simon’s career has been spent hiding behind spaceships, alien temples, and gigantic fungi with Charlie Blake.
There is not a single person on this set who wants to be here. They should have wrapped two hours ago. Lian, the showrunner, looks like she could light the entire set on fire using only her eyes. That would at least warm them up, so Simon’s all for it. He catches her eye and tries to silently communicate that arson is a valid choice right now. She shoots him an extremely unimpressed look, which is unfair because it’s not like this shitshow isSimon’sfault.
They shoot yet another take, but when the actress playing the bounty hunter finally delivers her line the way the director wants, a piece of the prop tree thuds to the floor. Simon’s never heard a more demoralized “Cut.” There’s an ominous throbbing behind his left eye, but maybe if he ignores it, it won’t turn into a full-fledged migraine.
“Just fucking calm down,” Charlie hisses while the crew sets up for another take.
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.” Simon pitches his voice to maximal dickishness. Which, for Simon, is about twenty times the amount of dickishness a normal person can summon up. He knows his strengths. “That never occurred to me. You aresoright. Ishouldcalm down.”
Charlie clenches his jaw, a sure sign he’s pissed. Anytime he isn’t grinning vapidly is a sure sign he’s pissed. He is not a man of nuance or depth. A little more work and Simon can get that vein in his forehead to pop.
“I mean,” Charlie says, “you’re stressing everyone out. I’ve worked with you long enough to know this is just your usual C-minus personality, but they think you’re mad at them.” He flicks a glance at the empty circle of space surrounding them. The crew has cleared a blast radius. “Maybe if everyone settles the fuck down, we can get out of here before midnight.”
“That has nothing to do with me,” Simon says. “Maybe they’re afraid you’re going to dump coffee on them.” This is probably unfair, because it’s been years since the coffee incident, but nobody’s ever accused Simon of letting go of things too easily.
The vein in Charlie’s forehead pulsates, and Simon’s hit the jackpot—bells ringing, lights flashing, coins all over the floor.
Charlie opens his mouth but snaps it shut before saying anything.
“What?” Simon asks.
“Crew’s watching,” Charlie mutters.
Obviously everyone on set knows that Charlie and Simon loathe one another—after all this time, there isn’t much the crew doesn’t know—but Simon tries to keep it professional. Or professional-adjacent.
They aren’t touching anymore, but they’re still sitting close enough that they hardly need to speak above a whisper. They’re basically huddling for warmth, after all. Simon wishes he’d taken advantage of the downtime to go someplace—anyplace—else. But the props people are nearly done fixing the tree, so there’s no point in getting up now.
For the hundredth time in the past hour, Charlie slides a hand under his shirt and scratches his shoulder. To call it a shirt is an exaggeration. It used to be a shirt, but now it’s some shredded fabric attached to Charlie’s chest with double-sided tape in a way that’s somehow more lewd than just taking the whole thing off. In theory, the shirt was shredded when they were attacked by knife-wielding aliens. In reality, it’s because one ofOut There’s real creative innovations is coming up with excuses to show as much of Charlie Blake’s torso as possible. Simon would bet there’s nobody in the history of network television who’s spent as much time topless as Charlie has.
“Just take some Benadryl,” Simon says.
“What?”
“You’re allergic to the tape.” It’s happened before with mic tape and other adhesives. Just last fall Charlie got hives from the clear film they put on new tattoos. How on earth is Simon the only one who remembers this?
“I swear to God you’re fucking telepathic when it comes to things that embarrass me,” Charlie says under his breath, which makes no sense because the man is scratching himself in public. That’s what he should be embarrassed about, not the allergy.
“Can you please just ask a PA for some Benadryl so I don’t have to watch you paw at yourself?”
Charlie scrubs a massive hand over his big stupid jaw. “If I mention I have hives, we’ll be here forever. Somebody will have to fill out paperwork. Fuck’s sake, it’s just a rash. Some of us don’t have riders in our contracts about which brands of hairspray they’re allowed to use on us.”
“Okay, and stay with me here for a minute, Charlie, but allergies areliterallywhy people have riders about that sort of thing.” Something wonderful occurs to Simon. “Wait, you do know that allergies aren’t good for you, right?” Charlie used to think New England was a state. There is no limit to the things he doesn’t know.
“I fucking know that hives are—”
“Stop that,” Simon hisses, swatting Charlie’s hand away from his shoulder. “You’ll be scarred for life.”
