“May I suggest something?” Despina asked.
“Please.”
“Consider waiting to tell Chase about the baby until your part in the movie is over.”
That was a fresh perspective. She didn’t have to tell him right now. In fact, it would be better for them both if she didn’t. Knowing would mess up his concentration and interfere with the stunts. And waiting would give her time to think. Time to get her head on straight. Besides, she was still inside that ugly miscarriage window.
“Yeah,” she said, breathing a little easier. “That’s a really good idea.”
9
Chase and Despina dropped to the cement in the employees-only area inside the Oakridge Center, a mall in downtown Vancouver, to complete what he hoped was their last fifty pushups. The third set over the last hour.
Wes, the slave driver, stood over them, clapping and chanting, “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”
Chase and Despina glared up at him and said “Shut up” at the same time, as if choreographed.
The crew burst out laughing.
“That’s going in the bloopers,” someone said.
He and Despina finished the set and pushed to their feet.
Despina shook out her arms. “I’m not going to be able to move tomorrow.”
Chase glanced around the set for Zahara, but she wasn’t standing off to the side watching like usual. In fact, he hadn’t seen her all morning.
“Hey,” Chase caught Despina’s attention, but kept his voice low. “How’d the doctor’s appointment go?”
She gave him the deer-in-the-headlights look.
“Z,” he clarified. “Her doctor’s appointment.”
Despina’s brow wrinkled in a frown. “She told you?”
“I’m the one who suggested she see one. When she’s not exhausted, moody, or pissed, she looks green. She said she was going to see your doctor.”
“Oh yeah.” Despina’s expression slid into something guarded. Something he couldn’t quite read. “She did. She’s fine.”
“Pete, Mark,” Andy, the stunt director, cut off their conversation. “Come on in.”
The movie’s bad guys strolled in and dropped to their positions on the floor for the postfight scene. Chase and Despina faced off.
A member of the crew stepped into the middle of the room, called the scene, and snapped the clapperboard.
“Ready,” Andy said, “and action.”
“No more bullshit, Greta,” Chase yelled, stepping over Mark’s body to approach Despina, his breathing still heavy after all those fucking pushups, just the way it should be. His voice echoed off the hard surfaces. “I’m taking you in. You’re not safe with this guy on the streets, and you know it.”
“If I go in,” Despina shot back, “I’m dead, and you know that.”
He approached her cautiously, a hand out to calm her. “I know people. Good people. People I trust. Please, Greta. Enough already.”
“It’s my life. I say when it’s enough.”
“And cut,” the director called.
Chase and Despina relaxed. She smiled and offered her fist for a bump of accomplishment. They’d filmed the scene three times over the last hour. The crew had cameras on every angle to make sure they had enough footage to splice with the stunt portion and create the full sequence.