Page 23 of Soar

“Ohhh, gotcha.”

“Anyway, he’s arguing with me about this. He wants more of this, more of that, and I’m arguing back with him because what he wanted was insane. It would have blown up the whole set. I’ve never in my life raised my voice at someone like I did with him. He was being so stupid about the whole thing. I shut him down and told him I wasn’t adding anything more to it. Like, I’d walk and break contract if he didn’t let this go. He stomped off, fuming, and I thought that was the end of it.”

Salem rolled his eyes. His mouth was full of pizza, but his expression said it all.

“Yeah. He didn’t listen. Good guess. The bastard snuck back onto the set and added another twenty barrels of kerosene. Basically another two hundred gallons, as they were ten-gallon barrels.”

“Oh my god!”

“I had no idea. I thought it was a done deal, right? I was only on set again the next morning to oversee everything, as I was still under contract. So we’re all set up for filming, they get some cameras up close and running, but under protective bulletproof glass just in case. The action director was far closer to the set than he should have been, directing a camera, and I thought about saying something to him, but I just didn’t want another argument. I figured, he’s an adult, he’s responsible for himself. And then it’s lights, camera, action. Whole thing went kablooey.”

Gregori spread his hands wide as he made an explosive noise. “Never mind having a burning plane and truck, they blew sky-high. Everyone was knocked down due to the shockwave, including me. The director and cameraman were so close, they took almost a direct hit. I scrambled up to my feet and immediately used ice magic to suppress the out-of-control fire.It damn near burned down the whole set before I could get it contained.”

“Oh. My. God.” Salem had stopped eating, riveted now. “Were they okay?”

“Well…mostly? The cameraman was largely protected by the camera in front of him and the protective shield, so he wasn’t too bad off. Just a little scorched around the edges. The action director had been outside the shield, though, ’cause he kept popping in and out like a jackrabbit. He did not fare as well. His face and hands looked like he’d been on the beach cooking all day, he was so red. Eyebrows were clean burned off. As was some of his front hairline.”

“Wait. Wait. He’d steppedawayfrom the protective shield?”

“I didn’t say he was smart.”

A startled laugh erupted from Salem. “He must have looked comical.”

“Oh, for sure. All the while, he kept babbling about how he hadn’t added that much kerosene, it shouldn’t have done that, yadda yadda. Honestly, if he hadn’t confessed, I might have suffered the fallout. All of the evidence was burned, after all.”

“Did he keep his job?”

“Oh, hell no. Man was promptly fired. Then sent to the hospital for treatment. No one trusted him afterward. I understand he had a hard time getting hired again.”

“What, no one wanted to risk him blowing them up?”

“Hard to imagine, right?”

Salem snickered and sipped his wine. “It’s damn lucky they hired you, above anyone else. You were able to put the fire out, after all. A human expert would have struggled to keep people safe.”

“I am a favorite for them to hire for this reason.”

“I bet.”

He really did look entertained by this. In fact, this was the most relaxed Gregori had ever seen him. It made him want to capitalize on the whole situation.

“I’ve got the movie saved on my cloud drive, if you want to watch it.”

“Wait, did they actually use the footage in the movie?”

“They did. Director said no sense in wasting it.”

“Ha! That’s hilarious.” Salem paused, glass in hand, his expression one of temptation. “I don’t understand Portuguese, though.”

“I can turn on English subtitles.”

“Oh, in that case, you’re on.”

Looked like his home date was going swimmingly. Gregori hid a smile behind his pizza. See? Pushing Salem was not the right choice. If he kept laying out breadcrumbs for the man, though, Salem would come to him in no time.

Gregori would bet on that.

Stuck in rush hour traffic, Salem let his mind roam. He didn’t need many brain cells to switch from gas to brake and back again. It had been almost two weeks since he and Gregori had struck the “roommates with benefits” deal, and honestly? Salem hadn’t expected Gregori to last the two weeks. No one ever did. It was actually a little alarming how well things were going. Gregori seemed happy to feed him, and of course they were having sex on the regular because, well, obvious reasons. Gregori had stopped pushing about the mate thing and now they were just hanging out. Salem had been surprised by how much he’d come to genuinely like the dragon. He was a very interesting man who was competent at a lot of things—something of a weakness of Salem’s; he adored the competent—and his brand of humor was so akin to Salem’s, he’d gotten Salem to laugh quite a few times. When Salem did get snarky, he snarked right back.

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