Page 20 of Flowers To Give

“I had a crush on you. Duh,” Clark says like it’s plain as day. Jeremy looks over his shoulder but Clark isn’t looking at him anymore, continuing on to the sea, “It freaked me out, you know? So I just decided to stop being your friend.”

Jeremy chews on that, searching Clark’s distant countenance. Suddenly, those green eyes flick over to Jeremy’s gaze and locks him down. There’s an obvious tension between them, air thick and choking Jeremy. Clark finishes by saying, “That’s why I owe you.”

Sitting on that, Jeremy suddenly feels sad as he looks out to the ocean once more and asks, “Is that why you asked me out here? Out of pity or some shit?”

“No. I asked you out here so you could save my hide, like you did today,” Clark tells him.

“So,” Jeremy sits back again, drinking down the rest of the bourbon in his glass and setting it on the table between them, “How are you planning to pay me back?”

Clark looks over to Jeremy, but not his eyes; he starts at Jeremy’s bare toes, eyes working up his calves and thighs, over his torso, skimming his neck and gazing at every inch of his face before meeting his eyes. Jeremy gets goosebumps, groin reacting to the intense observation. Clark slowly licks his lips and Jeremy instinctually flicks his eyes down to follow the movement.

Smirking, Clark starts standing and says, “Keep the bottle. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Shaken to his core, Jeremy sits like a statue as Clark brushes past him and exits. The door clicks closed behind him and Jeremy exhales in one big whoosh. He inhales deeply, tipsy from the top shelf liquor and the proximity to Clark Radison’s charm. Confused, he collapses back in the chair and with great wonder, staring up at the sky.

CHAPTER FOUR

CONSIDERING HIMSELF A hardworking man, Jeremy is beat down from the first week of principal filming after their week of prep and practice. Finishing an eighty hour work week, Jeremy isolates in the hotel’s lush room all weekend. He collapses in the massive bed and catches up on any sleep he can manage. He feels bad for the crew members staying at the La Quinta, undoubtedly not having the same delicious room service options or illustrious views as him. Regardless, he luxuriates in his amenities and recuperates as best he can.

The next work week is just as intense. Even when Clark wraps early or is off the schedule, Jeremy is still assigned to help the other horse wranglers for the day on set. Somehow, this week is shaping up to be even more difficult. Call time for Monday is six AM and wrap is nine that evening. But by the time Friday rolls around, they’re starting at five in the afternoon and set to work through the night. The other crew have informed Jeremy that this is referred to as a “Fraturday” and is unanimously disliked by crew and cast alike.

Catching Golden Hour as the sun sets over the water, they continue shooting as the moon rises behind the Condors holding massive light panels above the production’s head. It’s eleven PM when “lunch,” or their first meal, is called and Jeremy runs into the first team production assistant, Aubrey, as he waits in the catering line.

“How’s it going?” He asks the ragged twenty year old.

“Best day of my goddamn life,” she grumbles, going through the stack of actors’s food orders. She opens one and calls out to a caterer, “Hey! What kind of fish is this?”

“Halibut,” he says.

“I need cod. I asked for cod.”

“No, you said ‘white fish.’ Halibut is white.”

“Look,” Aubrey squares up, “Clark Radison doesn’t eat halibut, he thinks they’re ugly. So go get me an alternative fish that looks like cod right now.”

She hands the food order back to him and he mumbles under his breath as he walks away to go cook up something else. Jeremy asks her, “Clark’s here? I didn’t think he worked today.”

“Ugh, you didn’t hear? EPs showed up so they pulled Clark’s scene.”

“Oh,” Jeremy’s confused, not knowing what an EP is or which scene was being pulled ahead of schedule. But he’s learned that the proper response to any new information isn’t more questions, it’s saying, “Copy that.”

After he goes through the food line, Jeremy finds his safe person, Eneki, and sits with him and the other horse wranglers at the Lunch Box - a trailer hosting a large portable cafeteria - asking immediately, “What’s an EP?”

“Oh, yeah, that,” Eneki shakes his head and takes a sip of his lemonade, “It’s an executive producer. The big wigs are here. Clark and Haukea’s moonlit run is up after lunch.”

“But that’s on the other side of the ranch from where we were shooting,” Jeremy points out.

“Yep. Teamsters are working through lunch to move the forties,” Eneki explains through a bite, “Good thing you got your food in a box and not a plate, come on. We gotta go tack up Haukea.”

Jeremy hasn’t even taken two bites, closing his to-go box and following Eneki out of the Lunch Box. They go to their department’s assigned ATV Gator and Eneki drives them through the night while Jeremy nibbles on his food in his lap. He asks between bites and over the rushing wind, “So, what’s the big whoop about these EPs?”

“Think of them as the ranch owner. Or, who owns a ranch owner?”

Jeremy shrugs, “God?”

“Yeah, okay, EPs are the gods of the film industry,” Eneki laughs, “They’re very important, that’s all you need to know. And when they show their faces on set, that means we gotta dazzle ‘em. Clark’s moonlit run is one of the money making shots, so it’s really important the EPs see that.”

They arrive at the new location and other people are also working through lunch to set up the new area - locations department putting out trashcans and setting up canopy tents, camera utility workers computing the new video village, and teamsters lining up the trucks and trailers for the crew to access. Jeremy and Eneki park the Gator with some others before walking through the throng of crew members to the horse trailer. They greet their driver before getting out Kau and Haukea.