“Bee’s pancakes? Is that like a sexual thing or—”
He grunted out a laugh. “Just regular old pancakes... this time.”
“Kallum?” the voice called again.
“Coming!” I yelled back.
I hung up the phone and stuffed my AirPods back in their case before walking out to meet the production assistant, a short girl not much older than Topher with light bronze skin and freckles.
“Hey, I’m Kallum,” I said.
“I’m Cammy.”
I held out my fist for her to bump.
She looked at my hand for a minute before knocking knuckles.
“Let’s make a fucking movie, Cammy.”
For my very first day on set, we shot in a red-painted barn, which served as our fake sleigh parking garage. My character, who went by Nick when outside of the North Pole, was sowing his wild oats in an effort to find his very own Mrs.Claus so he could follow in his father’s footsteps—or bootprints.
“Kallum!” Gretchen called as she jogged over to meet me. Her long box braids bounced as she came, and she had flurries slowly melting on her long eyelashes and her medium brown cheeks. A nose piercing winked in the light beaming from the tungsten lamps. “I’m so sorry we haven’t formally met yet.”
“Gretchen,” I said. “Come on now. We’ve met.”
She covered her face. “Me licking your face on a dare at some premiere afterparty hardly counts. I was really hoping you’d forgotten about that.”
“Are you kidding?” I asked. “I didn’t wash my face for days.” I thought about that for a minute. “Actually, to be honest, my skin care game didn’t really kick it up a notch until we got that Neutrogena deal the next year. I wash my face a lot more now.”
“Well, whatever you’re doing these days, keep it up.”
I held a hand to my cheek. “This is what I call pizza oven heat therapy... and big beard energy.”
“Which is closely related to his big dick energy,” Jack said with a whistle as he breezed past us.
“I don’t think that sort of language coming from our intimacy coordinator creates a safe work environment,” Gretchen called after him in her best I’m-trying-to-be-chill-but-you-make-me-feel-not-chill voice.
“Morning,” Winnie said as she stepped up beside me, her shoulder briefly brushing against my arm.
“Good morning, Winnie Baker,” I said, before motioning to my costume. “I wore clothes for you this time.”
Winnie’s cheeks flushed. “Good job with the clothes. You look great in clothes. Not that you didn’t out of—”
“I’m just going to go ahead and stop that sentence before it gets any worse,” Gretchen said with a sympathetic smile.
Winnie held a thumb up. “Thank you.”
I forced back a laugh. God, I loved watching Winnie squirm. I bit down on my knuckle as that thought blossomed into something much, much more.
“Okay, follow me,” Gretchen said. And as we approached the video village where a cluster of director chairs and monitors were set up for producers, a few crew members, and our screenwriter, she added, “This is Pearl, my girlfriend, and the woman behind our script.”
Pearl, a pale, willowy woman with lavender hair, stood up from where she’d just finished placing a grid of crystals around her chair. She held her hands to her chest and closed her eyes, like someone told her we were playing charades and her word wasgratitude. After a moment of silent gratitude, Pearl opened her eyes and approached me, her hands reaching up to brace my biceps. “You’re more jolly than I even dreamed you would be.”
“Uh, ho, ho, ho?”
Gretchen laughed, and then Pearl. I looked at Winnie, who shrugged as she joined in, so I chuckled along with them.
“The script is great,” I said as we all quieted down.
