When I got home from work on Monday, Ashley was literally dancing around the house, so pleased with how well her interview had gone. All her nervous energy had been converted into a sort of physical expression of her joy, which had her bouncing on her toes, shaking her hips and shimmying her shoulders, while grinning like an idiot. The moment I walked in the front door she rushed up and threw her arms around me, burying her head against my shoulder and squeezing me in her exuberance.

  “I take it your interview went well?” I asked stroking the skin of her bare back after I set down my briefcase.

  “How could you tell?” she asked, her voice muffled by the linen of my jacket.

  “Just a feeling I got,” I said, kissing her forehead. “So, tell me about it.”

  “I kicked ass! It went great! It was with the head of the department herself, and when we were done she said that she was very impressed and that I was by far the best candidate that she’d seen for the position!” Ashley said, letting go of me. “When I asked what the next step was, she said that they had one more interview, then were going to make their decision and make their offer. She said it might take as long as a month!” she said, making a face.

  “You’re welcome to stay here if you don’t want to go back home to DC,” I offered.

  “Emmy already offered,” Ashley said. “You guys are the best!” she said, hugging me again. “So, um, Imogen and James want to take me out to dinner to celebrate- you don’t mind, do you?”

  “Why would I mind?” I asked.

  “What’s this?” Ashley asked, her hands fumbling with my jacket at my waist in back. When I pulled away, reaching back to straighten my suit, she gave me a puzzled look.

  “Nothing you need to worry about, Ash,” I assured her. “Where are you going with the Athertons?” I asked to change the subject.

  “Imogen said they wanted to take me to her favorite Italian restaurant. She said she used to go there with her parents when she was little- it’s been run by the same family for generations,” Ashley said, returning to her bubbly mood.

  “Well, you’d better put on some clothes before going out,” I said, pointedly looking up and down her naked body. “Like the sign says, ‘No shirt, no shoes, no service’.”

  Ashley laughed and cupped her little runner’s boobs in her hands. “It’s not like I have much for a shirt to hide.”

  “I think it’s the principle of the thing,” I said. “Honestly, I doubt very many people would object to seeing you like this.”

  “Do you? I mean, do you like seeing me like this?” Ashley asked, doing a sort of ballerina twirl right there in the hallway.

  “You know I do,” I told her, picking up my briefcase to make my way upstairs. “I think that has been well established.”

  Laughing, Ashley zoomed ahead of me to get to the stairs so she could wiggle her skinny little butt right at my eye level as she ran up the steps. Playing along, I gave a wolf whistle. I probably shouldn’t have encouraged her, but whatever. I was perfectly O.K. with her nudist streak.

  She did dress nicely to go out, earlier than I would have expected. In fact, she’d already left by the time Teddy Bear came over to work through his script some more, so it was just him and me in the parlor going through lines until dinner.

  Emmy excused herself to go up to work in her studio after we ate the lovely risotto that Jeremy and Luisa had made, so Teddy Bear and I found ourselves in the parlor again.

  “When can you work with the fight coordinator?” Teddy Bear asked as I mixed us up some Manhattans.

  “I didn’t realize the production is moving along that quickly,” I said. “When would it happen? Weekdays during the work week, weekends, evenings?”

  “Weekdays, usually late morning,” Teddy Bear replied. “Ten or so. The production has a facility they’re renting right there at the studio for the stunt coordinator. As a bonus, it’s pretty much just over there across the river in Astoria,” he said, pointing out the window at Long Island City across the East River. I didn’t bother to correct him.

  “I’m pretty much done with what I needed to get done at the office here,” I said, thinking about it. “I guess I can start on Wednesday, if that works for you.”

  “The sooner the better,” Teddy Bear said, relieved. “The SC has been on my ass to start working on my scenes. I told him that you’d be the one doing the choreography and he’s not in love with that idea, but it’s in the contract, so fuck him.”

  “Is there going to be a problem?” I asked.

  “Not once he sees what you can do,” Teddy Bear assured me.

  Teddy Bear picked me up in a studio car Wednesday morning. On the fifteen minute drive to Astoria, he explained that in general the studio system really hates outside contractors like me, so for the duration they’d make me official, with all the necessary union paperwork and so on. I’d get paid the standard per diem and get lunch, too.

  It sounded like a pain in the ass, and I said so.

  “You don’t know how many people would love to get SAG-AFTRA membership, and here it’s practically being gifted to you,” Teddy Bear said.

  “You know I have no interest in being on screen,” I protested.

  “Said nobody ever but you,” Teddy Bear retorted.

  We were met by an assistant producer who did indeed have a ton of paperwork for me to fill out before I was led into the space that had been allocated for the stunt team. Teddy Bear introduced me around, starting off with the guy responsible for the fight sequences. The guy gave off a somewhat hostile vibe at first, but when I admitted that I had no idea what I was there to do and had no clue how to choreograph fights and would need to rely on his expertise, he softened up just a touch.

  “Theodore says you’re a professional fighter,” Gary said. “He says he wants you to work though the sequences and fine-tune ‘em to make them more… Well, in line with his character,” he said. “The thing is, we don’t need, like, some Muay Thai type to show us how to fight.”

  “I’m not a competition fighter,” I said. “I’m more of a… let’s call it ‘freestyle’ fighter, and, well, realism is kinda my thing in the whole ‘fight to the death’ thing.”

  Gary stared at me for a long moment, then said, “Go get suited up and meet me over there,” indicating an area with mats on the floor.

  “I’m ready to rock right now,” I said. “This is in line with what TB said his character will be wearing,” I said, indicating my blazer, slacks and wing tips.

  “You’re gonna tussle in those clothes? he asked, astonished.

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” I assured him, following him to the area he’d pointed out.

  “I don’t even know what the fuck…” I heard Gary say under his breath as I followed him, Teddy Bear and a few others trailing behind.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “Alright, have you at least read the directions for the first scene?” Gary asked.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “So, it’s a knife fight. Theodore’s character- that’s you for now- draws a blade and kills three guards,” Gary explained.

  “Right,” I said, sliding my hand back and pulling the plastic Fairbairn-Sikes training blade from the small of my back and assuming a fighting stance.

  “You had that ready?” Gary asked, surprised.

  “As one does,” I replied.

  “As one does,” Gary snorted, pulling a plastic training Ka-Bar from his gym bag, before tossing his bag aside and facing off against me.

  “O.K.,” he said, “Come at me like you want to kill me.”

  Predictably, that ended about one point eight seconds later with me dragging my dull plastic knife across his throat as I rotated him away from me, twisting his wrist.

  “What,” Gary said, rubbing his wrist when I let him go.

  “O.K., that’s not gonna work,” said one of the bystanders. “That was too fast. No drama. Yeah, realism, awesome. Filmmaking, sucked.”

  “She took me by surprise,” Gary protested.

  “Do it again, then, but Gary- before you do, I want to show you a video,” the new guy said, pulling out his phone.

  While the two went off to the side to presumably watch the Atlanta video, this well-built woman came over to talk.

  “I’m Susan,” she said. “Stunt double. What you did just now, that was so fast! I’ve never seen anything like that.”

  “I’ve been told I’m fast,” I said.

  “Have you been told you’re huge?” she asked with a flirtatious smile.

  “It’s been mentioned, yes,” I admitted.

  “So how do you know Theodore?”

  “We’re driving buddies,” I said.

  “You look really familiar,” she said.

  “I get that a lot, too,” I told her. Susan got the ‘not interested’ hint and was just making her graceful exit when Gary and the new guy came back over.

  “Was that video real?” Gary asked.

  “Atlanta?” I asked in return. When the new guy said yes, I said, “Yeah, that was real.”

  “You killed seven people in less than two minutes, barehanded?” Gary asked, just to make sure we were talking about the same thing.

  “Six,” I sighed. “In a minute and a half.”

  “That’s why I wanted her,” Teddy Bear said.

  “Yeah, O.K,” the new guy said. “But, like, we’re still making a movie for entertainment purposes here, so the fight scenes need to be entertaining. Stepping in and cutting somebody’s throat like that,” he said, snapping his fingers, “just isn’t gonna work on film.”

  “So, slow it down,” I said. “Allow a little back and forth, before cutting his throat?”

  “Yeah,” the new guy said. “Try it again.”

  Gary had something to prove, so at the restart he lunged in but was easy enough to deflect. I went for a return stab, slowed down to give him time to react. This went on for a few seconds (which is really an eternity in a knife fight) before he left himself too open and I drew my fake dagger across his belly just below his rib cage, ending the fight.

  “That was a lot better,” the new guy said, pleased. “The knife fight in ‘Under Siege’ was forty-seven seconds long. We don’t need that, but…”

  “Forty-seven seconds long?” I asked, dismayed. “I could kill everyone in this room with this plastic knife in that amount of time!”

  “You fucking see that?” Teddy Bear crowed, pointing at me and looking around to make sure everybody had heard. “That is why I brought Leah here!”

  Gary wasn’t so thrilled, but after a few more mock knife fights he had to admit that my moves were in a class of their own.

  “O.K., I get that you know how to do this in real life,” he said as we took a break away from everybody else. “I’ve worked with genuine, like, Navy SEALs and that kind of guy before, and they’re some scary dudes, but you… After what I’ve seen here today, I wouldn’t give any of those guys odds against you.”

  “I work with some of the best in the world,” I told him, sipping my Coke. “In fact, the head combatives instructor for the UK’s intelligence services outright told me that he finds me frightening.”

  “So I guess here’s where you tell me you’d have to kill me if you told me what it is you do, right?” Gary joked.

  “Nah,” I said with a shrug. “That’s well documented. I’m a real estate investor and property manager. Feel free to Google me.”

  “A real estate investor?” Gary asked, unsure if I was pulling his leg.

  “I also own a bunch of restaurants and nightclubs, and a few car dealerships in Southern California. You know, just the usual stuff.”

  “The usual stuff,” Gary said, shaking his head in disbelief.

  Day two started out better, but there was one heck of a crowd there in the rehearsal space. They’d heard that there was something worth watching, so even though it was just the start of us choreographing the moves and blocking them out, lots of the crew and other cast wanted to see.

  Teddy Bear introduced me around during one of the breaks, but everybody already knew who I was. A few wanted to ask me about Emmy, but I mostly kept my answers to a minimum.

  On Friday I started leading Teddy Bear through the moves. He was very good about taking coaching and a quick study, but none of it really came naturally to him. I kept having to correct his hand position, adjust his stance, tell him where to keep his eyes, and so on. We drilled the first sequence over and over until it started to look fluid, but even at his best he was only ever at about half speed. Still, as Antonio (the director) had said, that made for better entertainment.

  After wrapping up on Friday afternoon, James and I subjected ourselves to the rush hour exodus from Manhattan, fully expecting to arrive at Watkins Glen around midnight.

  Emmy and Imogen had made plans to drag Luisa and Ashley for a round of gallery-hopping while we were watching Porsches travel at high rates of speed, and avoiding that suited the two of us just fine.

  The clerk at the hotel we’d booked seemed surprised when the two of us checked in separately, and it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out why. The hotel gave off a definite ‘couples getaway resort’ vibe, which got some chuckles from the two of us as we rode up in the elevator.

  Saturday morning’s qualifying didn’t go great for Maddie, leaving her in twenty-third place on the grid, ensuring that she’d never be able to make it into the top ten. As she’d shown before, she was very strong on the brakes and picked up a few spots in Saturday’s race, particularly in turns one and eight. She’d gotten as high as sixteenth place, by my count, when another driver clipped her and sent her off into the grass on turn seven on the twelfth lap. She rejoined near the end of they field, finally finishing in twenty-fifth.

  Madison was surprisingly calm about it, mostly just unhappy with herself for her poor qualifying.

  “It’s freaking chaos in the middle of the field!” she said while we watched the mechanics sort the car out, replacing the damaged bodywork. “Remind me to go faster next qualifying session.”

  James and I went to a local microbrewery about a block from the hotel for dinner that night. We mostly talked about the race and how mature Madison had been about the setbacks, and debated whether it was too soon to think about extending anybody’s contract- stuff like that. Nothing particularly serious. It was good to have a friend who could keep it light.

  Madison had a better race on Sunday, but her poor grid position did her no favors. She finished the race in seventeenth place, which was the exact middle of the field of finishers. On the bright side, that was six places better than she’d qualified. There was no real downside, as I pointed out at the team dinner on Sunday night.

  “Look,” I said to all assembled. “Going in, we knew, as complete newbies, that it would be a moral victory to finish in the top half of the field in our first year in the series, right? Well, look at us now. More than halfway through the season, and that same benchmark we were hoping for now seems to be a disappointment. This shows that we set our expectations too low from the start. Even with this weekend’s results, Madison has a solid lead in the Rookie Of The Year race, and the team is in twelfth place overall- that’s right inside the top third of the field. The car has been working really well, and our driver has shown very solid speed. Speaking for James and myself as team owners, we’re very, very pleased with everything you all have achieved.”

  James gave his own speech, essentially mirroring what I’d said. Madison stood and said that her biggest disappointment this weekend was letting her team down, after all the hard work they’d put in to get the car ready for such a high-speed track, which she admitted wasn’t her strongest suit.

  Reggie, in turn, said that he spoke for the whole crew in saying that they were having a lot of fun and were enjoying the ride.

  All in all, it was nice but ran late. This meant that James and I would get back to Manhattan in the early morning hours after our long drive, but that was the price we knew we had to pay.

  Imogen called at about ten o’clock to tell James that she was over at our house, and had accepted the invitation to stay another night instead of going back to their hotel.

  “She’s really enjoying this visit,” James said after the call ended. “Having you and Emmy here in New York has made it much better than our usual stay here in the Big Apple.”

  “You two need to come down to Los Angeles. Bring a car- Imogen and Emmy can do their shopping or whatever and you and I can go out and hit the canyons.”

  “We’ve talked about that,” James admitted. “I suspect that this visit will make it far more likely to happen.”

  “Good,” I said.

  Mia was the only one awake when we got to the townhouse. She led James up to the guest room on the fourth floor while I headed straight to our bedroom. It had been a long couple of nights and I missed my snuggle bunny.

  “Welcome home,” Emmy mumbled, more than half asleep as I slipped into bed as quietly as I could manage.

  “I’m happy to be home,” I said softly as I kissed the back of her neck, drawing her into my big spoon. She sighed in pleasure and wriggled herself in as close as she could, pulling my arm across her chest.

  During the time it took my mind to settle down after the long drive, I pondered on how the townhouse really did feel like home, even though we really didn’t spend all that much time there compared to our place in Los Angeles.

  It was back to working with Teddy Bear the next few days. The studio rehearsal space during the day for the fight scenes, then our place in the evenings for the dialogue.

  We had a fairly full house in the evenings, since Ashley was sticking around and Imogen and James came over more often than not. Normally a fan of quiet evenings, I found that I enjoyed the increasingly comfortable familiarity of friends over every night.

  Of course, right when things were calm was when events just had to take a turn.