“And they’re into each other.”
He deflated, but before he could talk, I kept going.
“And they’re into me.”
“Okay… well, to be honest, I kind of fail to see the problem.” He folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the kennels.
Explaining my rules out loud sometimes made me feel like a crazy person. Like it was unhinged of me to only have sex at work, for work. To not indulge in it outside of that setting. And when I’d first put the rule in years ago, it had made sense to me. I had things I wanted to accomplish, goals I wanted to reach, and I didn’t want a bunch of relationship drama getting in the way.
Working kept me sane and satisfied, and staying out of my costars’ beds kept my life simple and let me focus on school. Now that I was finished with school, though, and I was working, all those safeguards I’d put in place no longer seemed like protection but instead were obstacles I wasn’t sure how to remove. Or if I should.
“Do you remember how I said I don’t sleep with people when I’m not working?”
Rex nodded. “You said it was to protect your peace.”
“Well, it’s starting to feel less peaceful recently.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “These guys I work with. One I’ve worked with before, and the other has been around for a while working behind the scenes, but he just recently got to film with me and the other guy.”
Rex furrowed his brow. “Are they pressuring you to break your rules for them?”
“No, but maybe that’s the problem. I look at them and think wow, they’d be good together, but then I get stupid and jealous about it.”
He said nothing, he just stood there and smiled at me.
“What?”
“You like them.”
I rolled my eyes. As if that wasn’t obvious by my current state of inner turmoil. And the fact that I was confiding in my boss. But over the course of the year, the relationship between Rex and me was definitely evolving into a solid friendship. Which now included relationship advice, I guess. “I wouldn’t have filmed with them if I didn’t. A girl’s gotta have standards, you know.”
“When we make rules for ourselves, we do it because, for whatever reason, in that moment, they work for us. Or that’s the goal anyway. But if things aren’t working for you anymore, there’s no harm doing things differently.”
“Let me guess; rules were meant to be broken?”
Rex gave me a look that was indecipherable. “Rules were meant to be changed.” He looked like he wanted to say something else, but Mercy, the receptionist, poked her head into the room.
“Rex, your next appointment is here. And, Blue, we have a poodle who needs their anal glands dealt with.”
“If it’s Chew-Barka, make sure Pauline puts a muzzle on her little demon before I go in there.”
“Oh, stop. Chew-Barka is a saint.” Mercy laughed but there was an evil glint in her eye because she knew that Pauline’s dog hated me.
“Tell that to my bite scars. Muzzle, Mercy. Muzzle,” I called after her.
“God, you’re such a baby,” Mercy teased, but I knew she’d make sure Pauline’s little devil dog was properly secured before I went in there.
“Find me later and we can talk more about your boy troubles.” Rex squeezed my shoulder and left the room to go to his next patient. After that, the day got insane. Chew-Barka was his usual awful self, but after him there was an emergency with a dog who got into his owner’s weed stash. A cat that had been missing for three months and returned full of fleas and ticks and definitely skinnier than it had been. The family was happy to have him home and glad to hear he would most likely make a full recovery.
Rex was dealing with health checks on a batch of kittens when I slipped out the back. My shift had ended an hour before, and things had calmed down, and the other tech was still there so I only felt a little guilt at ducking out before Rex could corner me.
Maybe he could change his rules, but when I thought about changing mine, it made my pulse race and my stomach churn. I was well aware of the fact that I had issues, and they were why I had rules in the first place. But years later, I still had issues and having the rules hadn’t fixed them. They’d just helped me ignore them. And I was good with that.
Except it had been nice to have Jax and Asher around after our scene. Curling up with Asher on the couch was one of my recent favorite memories. Plus there was Jax, and the way he looked at me hadn’t changed. Jax had a face that was an open book, and I attributed it to him never having to hide how he felt from the people who cared about him. It’s what made filming with him so memorable. He was open in ways that I couldn’t articulate. Like it was easy for him to just exist as himself, to lay himself bare.
Asher was more like me. More closed off and wary. It was easy to see that Jax liked him. Right now, Asher was hung up on Lukas, but he wouldn’t be forever. And maybe when he wasn’t, he’d find someone better for him. Someone who was more open and more able to share themself with him. Someone like Jax.
FIFTEEN
ASHER
