“And to think . . . I thought showers were for getting clean,” she murmured, her mouth moving against her thigh.
The sound of his laughter warmed her more than the steamy water. He leaned down and hugged her tightly in his arms. He kissed her ear.
“I have the feeling that just about anywhere is for getting dirty as long as you’re there, Joy,” he said quietly next to her ear.
* * *
Joy and Everett walked up to the big house for lunch. Rill, Seth, Daisy, Joy and Everett all convened around the large oak table in the kitchen while Katie prepared their meal and Seth placed his sketchbook on the table.
Rill smiled at Katie’s reaction when she took a break from her cooking and looked at one of Seth’s sketches.
“Oooh, it’s amazing,” Katie praised.
Curious as to what Seth, Katie and Rill were looking at, Joy gently passed Daisy, whom she had been holding, to Everett. Everett took the baby without missing a beat and immediately began to talk to his niece about nonsensical matters with utter seriousness.
Joy walked the length of the table, the smell of grilling sandwiches—fresh basil, spinach, mozzarella cheese and thinly sliced prosciutto—tickling her nose. She loved Katie and Rill’s kitchen. They had a beautiful, obviously newly decorated dining room, but seemed to prefer to congregate in the cozy kitchen and eat at the large, weathered oak table. The comfortable, colorful, casual kitchen seemed the perfect symbol of the warmth and intimacy of Katie and Rill’s marriage and home life.
Joy inspected her uncle’s sketch for several seconds and looked up at Seth. “It is amazing.”
Seth’s lips flickered in a smile at her praise.
“How long were you up doing it?” Joy asked her uncle quietly, giving him a sympathetic glance.
“Not long,” Seth replied laconically.
Rill flipped a few pages in the sketchbook, revealing several other eye-catching new drawings. Joy gave Seth a knowing glance.
He’d been up all night.
“They’re completely fantastic,” Rill enthused, staring at a sketch that integrated everything that he’d shown Seth last night, from drawings from the costume designer and some preliminary photos to drawings from the special effects and set departments. “Everett, you’ve got to see these. You aren’t going to recognize yourself.”
Everett stood, coming over to the rest of them holding Daisy. Rill took his daughter from his friend’s arms and nodded significantly to the sketch currently on display.
Everett’s face stared back at them, transformed into a brutal-looking warrior with a crude, S-shaped wooden helmet that curved up an inch at the neck, a bizarre, forked fringe of coal-black hair on his forehead, which was highlighted by upturned, sinister-looking eyebrows and a slick, highly stylized Fu Manchu.
“Badass,” Everett said.
“The makeup is much less complicated than what we did for Maritime,” Seth said. “It’ll require a silicone prosthetic for that slight protrusion on your forehead, but the rest will be hair work and makeup application. Even though Slader is well-known for his unusual translucent, pale blue eyes,” Seth continued, referring to the character Everett would be playing, “Rill has an idea leaving your own color might be just as effective. Your eyes are striking enough, and part of the importance is the contrast with the rest of the features, given Slader’s complex heritage. Besides, Rill says that you have some trouble tolerating contacts.”
“I do,” Everett admitted, flipping a page in the sketchbook. “What would you decide about the contacts if you didn’t know that?”
Seth hesitated. “Slader’s eyes are the windows to his soul—or in his case, his lack of a soul. I know you’re a fantastic actor, but I’m not so sure you can force your eyes into looking like windows onto a frigid day in hell.”
“Seth’s right,” Everett said, meeting Rill’s gaze. “I want to do the contacts.”
Rill nodded once, respecting Everett’s call.
“I’d like to do some sample runs with some different contact tints,” Seth said. “We don’t have to worry about that today, though.”
“Can we see anything this afternoon?” Katie asked enthusiastically as she went over to the large griddle and flipped their sandwiches, which made a hissing sound.
Seth was studying Everett’s face. “I can’t make the prosthetic here, of course, but I brought some hair samples. We can do that and makeup after lunch, if you’re game. Joy can do his body tattoos. You’d have to shave your goatee for me to apply the hair.” Seth refocused his eyes, as if he was shifting between seeing Everett as a human being and not an inanimate model for his art. Joy felt a flicker of annoyance at her uncle and compassion for Everett. It must be hard, having people look at you constantly like you were an object. Guilt swooped through her when she recognized that she routinely looked at models in precisely the same way.
“No problem. Can I use your stuff to shave, mate?” Everett asked Rill at the same time he stole a piece of the yellow pepper Katie was slicing, ignoring Katie’s slap on his hand. Joy’s heart jumped. Everett planned to go and shave the goatee she happened to love. Right now.
“Yeah. In the master bath,” Rill muttered distractedly, not glancing up as he smiled at his daughter’s reaction to his jingling some car keys.
“Seth,” Joy hissed irritably as Everett walked out of the kitchen.