Page 54 of A Lucky Shot

Libby

I can work around water damage or site hazards but that means an equipment overhaul - different circuit interrupters, grounding, everything

Terry

No dice. It will take weeks to clean.

Stephen

this is going to crank scheduling

How much time will we lose? Continuity? This is our first week of shooting

Cass

Is it the lab scenes?

my friend’s fiancé leases a lab in an industrial park. He might know of something?

Stephen

ur brilliant can u send Terry his contact info

Cass

Let me text him

Terry

Cass’s friend came through. Location scout said it’s perfect! We’re back on schedule.

September evaporated under them as a polar vortex blasted over the city and delayed the second unit filming. Nothing they couldn’t reschedule without issue. For all of Brynne’s declaring diva status, the California native had been an absolute champ filming her outdoor shots, gesturing into the frigid temperatures with bare hands at a green screen that would eventually comp in a faster-than-light space vessel to bring her and Dawson to Sirius. Still, neither she nor Dawson argued when it was time to move filming indoors to the lab.

That had been weirdly easy. Cass’s friend knew of a vacant space just a couple of doors down from his lab in the industrial park. Would the location scout eventually have found them a space? Probably, but with Cass’s help, there was only a one-day delay.

His lucky charm kept bringing luck.

At first Josh had thought the casting director had made an error putting Dawson in the male lead role. The sandy-haired actor looked more like a farmhand than an astrobiologist, all brawny corn-fed sweetness, but he and Cass’s friend could have been cousins.

Dawson peppered Alex with questions as he trailed him through the lab, studying how he interacted with equipment, rolling up his sleeves, and aping how he leaned on the counters. Alex went so far as to hand over a few of his pristine lab coats for their wardrobe, insisting he didn’t need to be paid.

“Not like I’m going to wear them,” he’d said to Cass, who’d returned his easy grin like there was some long standing inside joke.

Josh forced himself to smile along. If Alex was engaged to Cass’s friend, he wasn’t likely to make a move on her.

No reason to be jealous. Not that he was.

“Cut!”

Josh hunched over the director’s monitor. Dawson had inched into Brynne’s frame—again—the broad expanse of his loaned lab coat blocking half the shot.

“You getting what you need here, Hoss?” Dawson asked, massive arms crossed over his chest.

Josh bit back a sarcastic comment about him being a scene stealer wasn’t supposed to be taken literally. “I need you to give her space,” he gritted out.

Dawson nodded. “I hear you, but these two were lovers, right? Unresolved? He’s drawn to her. He can’t help but get close to her.”

Cass wandered up to adjust Dawson’s lapels, the bright red of her nail polish dancing over the folds of the wrinkled white jacket, carefully distressed to look like he’d just chased Brynne through a farmer’s field and straight into the lab. That scene wouldn’t be shot for another month, at least. If the weather cooperated.

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