Page 55 of A Lucky Shot

She smoothed her hands over his chest, adjusting the number of wrinkles to fit the scene. “You’re fiddling again, Big D.”

Big D? When the fuck did that start?

“Hands off,” she continued, and Dawson dutifully dropped his hands to his sides.

Much better. No hands. Hands-free. If it wasn’t her literal job to fix clothes, he’d have personally stapled Dawson’s lab coat in place. Or maybe hire Cass another assistant, so they could grope the actors instead.

Especially now, with Dawson giving Cass moon eyes every second the cameras weren’t rolling.

Josh forced his attention back to the director’s monitor and scrubbed a hand over his chin. Maybe they did need to get the two of them closer. Dawson and Brynne, that is. Fuck Big D and Cass getting closer.

He let out a heavy sigh. Not because Dawson was right, but because he hadn’t thought of it first.

Everyone pulling in the same direction, he reminded himself. We’re all a part of this.

“You’re right. Get in her space, but wait until she finishes her line so you aren’t cutting her out of frame.”

Dawson looked surprised at the ease with which Josh agreed and gave a slow smile. “I can do that,” he said, and walked back to his mark.

Cass turned an exaggerated shocked face to Josh. “You haven’t yelled at the crew in three whole days. You used your big boy words to talk to Dawson, although he’s such a sweetheart”—a foreign twinge pinched his gut—“I’m sure he’d take it in stride. And no one cried during after-work drinks yesterday,” she finished, leaning in to press her full lips to his cheek. “I’m so proud of you.”

A not-so-foreign twinge tugged his groin, and he pulled back with eyebrows raised. “What happened to being professional?”

“What? I kiss everyone’s cheek. Ask around,” she said with a wink.

If she was thinking about the dance studio, she didn’t show it. Alright, maybe he was overthinking it. Josh gave her a quelling glare and turned his eyes back to the monitor. “I owe you one, Lucky Charms.”

“You spent an entire afternoon with me doing an impromptu photo shoot as a favour. I think we can call it even.” Cass gave him a curious look. “Where’s this ‘Lucky Charms’ thing coming from?”

The fact that everything just falls into place around you. He brushed past her question. “I have photos for you.”

Of the dozens he’d taken, he’d deleted anything straight away with her eyes closed or out of focus, narrowing it down to a short list of twenty shots. Only the photos of her in the jeans and crop top; the photos he’d taken of her in the black dress wouldn’t be developed until he got back to his home set up in Vancouver. Those would have to wait.

She was flouncing away from the camera in his favourite photo, arms swinging and peeking back over her shoulder, curls bouncing as she beckoned him to join her with a saucy grin, the blue top swishing up to show just a tease of her belly. She looked devastating. He couldn’t imagine who would swipe right on that photo.

Which he now had to add to her profile, because he was lining her up for five more dates over the next few weeks before filming broke for Thanksgiving.

Five more guys who would spend time with this gorgeous woman. Instead of him.

He sucked air between his teeth and held out his hand.

“Homework time.”

She surrendered her phone, and he tutted at her on seeing it not on silent. He Airdropped the photos to her phone and uploaded them to her profile.

One with her head tilted back, arms thrown behind her as if she were getting ready to embrace the sky. One where she sat on the steps, chin on her palm, eyes sparkling down at him through the lens.

A woman of many talents. Maybe I’ll show you some. Probably not going to sleep with you, but you’ll lose sleep over me.

“You haven’t been swiping, have you?” he admonished, scrubbing at the bags under his eyes and trying to swipe left on at least a few of the chumps littering her feed. Tinder needed to set up an option to filter out assholes.

But that was the point of all this. Set her up with assholes so she would learn who she shouldn’t fall for. Might as well feed her to the wolves.

Fuck that. He couldn’t do it.

“Nope. No swiping, sir, that’s your job,” she confirmed, then tried to grab her phone back as he swiped right on a heavily tattooed twat-nozzle posing in front of a truck. “Hey, he was cute.”

Case in point. The dude was good-looking but oozed sketchy vibes. Probably had a pic of himself posing with a fish in his profile somewhere. A definite right swipe.

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