Two days passed before Mike had a filming day that was what he called a 'reasonable time to be stuck on set'. Which meant he had to be there for at least eight hours, though he'd warned me it would probably be closer to ten. I was fine with that. I had my credit card and my phone—I was prepared.

And ready to see what it was that had kept him from me the last couple of days.

He hadn't been joking about long days. The first one, he'd rolled into the apartment at nine-thirty, exhausted and sweaty. I heated up some food for him—leftovers from my own meal—then watched him nearly fall asleep over it, like an overtired three-year-old. It had been sweet and kind of entertaining, but put an end to any ideas that I'd had to try to inch him closer to coming to bed with me.

Though, even if I had gotten him into bed that night, I didn't think he would have stayed awake long enough for anything to happen. My non-existent virtue was still as safe as if I'd locked it up in Fort Knox.

But today he didn't have to be at Make-Up until quarter to nine, so we had a nice, leisurely breakfast and got coffee to take with us as we drove to the set. Mike had a pass of some sort for me and my name got checked off at the gate as we went through, which was kind of cool. Not that the gate was locked or anything—tourists were roaming the area we drove through like packs of hungry dogs, and their prey was actors and directors.

We parked down a far end behind some buildings and Mike led me through a maze of pathways between buildings, filling me in on the movie history of each of them as we passed. By the time we got where we were headed, my brain was so full of facts and history I thought it would leak out of my ears.

Up some steep wooden steps, Mike led me into a little white trailer. “Hi, everyone. This is Lew, he’s coming to watch the filming today.”

“So this is Lew,” said a woman with deep brown skin and long elegant fingers. “I’m Larisse. Mike, you take your jacket off and go sit in the chair.”

Another woman with pale freckled skin and hair colored a fluorescent pink joined us. “Hi, I’m Martie.” She stuck out a hand and I shook it while she looked me up and down. “Yep, Mike,” she yelled over her shoulder. “He’s a keeper.”

I went red and frowned in Mike’s direction. He looked pained, but all he said was, “Martie!”

“Don’t you pay any attention to those two,” Larisse warned me. “They’ve worked together before and they do nothing but bust each other’s balls.” She took my arm and half-led, half-dragged me over to a chair on the other side of Mike. “You sit there and you’ll get to see me work my magic. I’m sure you think he’s handsome already, but I’ve a baseball bat to loan you to keep all the fans off him when I’m finished.”

“He’ll be wanting to use it on you if you keep that up,” Martie joked. “Trylla should be here soon, I’m going to run get coffee. I can see you boys are both set—you want anything else at the truck?”

“I’m good,” Mike said. “Lew?”

I shook my head, eyeing the two women uneasily.

“Don’t mind her,” Larisse said again, in a more soothing voice after Martie had gone. She patted my shoulder, then started tucking tissues in around the collar of Mike’s shirt. “Now we make your man even more handsome than he already is.”

“Stop,” Mike laughed. He reached out and gripped my hand briefly. “It’s just so I don’t look shiny. Once she’s done, I’m off to wardrobe, then we track down the crew on the set.”

I nodded as if I’d understood more than half of that and sipped my coffee.

There was a lot more to the make-up than I’d realized. The only reason we got out of there as soon as we did was because Larisse’s hands moved like lightning, dabbing here, blending there. Almost before I’d realized it, Mike was standing up and saying his good-byes and we were heading out to another trailer.

“Hey, Mike.” A young man checked something off on a clipboard and then handed Mike a pile of clothes. “Hi, I’m Vic.” He held out a hand to me.

“I’m Lew. Mike and I went to school together.”

We shook hands and Vic laughed. “Yeah, he hasn't’ stopped talking about you since he got back. Nice to meet you.”

I felt my cheeks heat up while Mike protested, but I remembered to say a polite, “Nice to meet you too,” back to him before Mike dragged me around the corner to where he could change.

“What do they do with your clothes while you’re working?” I asked when he came out.

“Oh, wardrobe looks after them,” he said casually. “Come on, or I’ll be late.”

Obediently, I hustled along behind him.

Watching the filming itself was anti-climactic. It reminded me of that thing they said about baseball—long stretches of boredom punctuated by short bursts of panic? That’s what filming was like. They’d set up for a scene, during which there was a lot of talk and people waiting around reading books or chatting or even doing things like crosswords or playing games on their phones. Then they’d all get cued up and for thirty seconds, things would be really intense, then the cycle would start again.

Mike did a lot of running. I’ll admit, he looked pretty damn good doing it too. It was obvious that he was keeping in shape and why he had to. Running along hallways, crashing through doors—fun stuff. But by lunchtime I was ready for the break.

They had it catered, kind of like a mobile cafeteria, but healthier than anything I’d ever been offered in college.

Mike settled beside me at the table. “Fight scenes this afternoon,” he told me as he sprinkled pepper over his plate. “If you’re bored, I can see if I can get someone to take you home.”

“It’s certainly not what I’d expected. Your grandmother always made it sound dramatic.”

“Well, that was Grandma.”

“But you enjoy it?” I knew he did, but it made him glow when he talked about his work and I was just enjoying getting to see this part of his life.

“I love it,” he said with enthusiasm. “But you don’t have to. Tell me when you get bored and I’ll figure something out.”

“I’ll stay,” I said. “I want to see your fight scenes.”

He laughed. “It’ll look pretty fake from here. Once they’ve done their magic in post-production, it’ll look real.”

I nodded and dug into my potatoes. “It’ll be fun to compare the two.”

Mike kissed my cheek, then turned back to his meal. “Thanks for coming today. It means a lot.”

“Thank you for inviting me.” I leaned my shoulder against his and he smiled. My heart fluttered and a wave of warm happiness rolled over me. We could do this. I’d find a job, something to keep me occupied while he was away. And we’d cobble together a life in times in between. “Your days aren’t always this long, are they? This is just making up for being gone for Maddie’s funeral?”

He nodded. “Sometimes the days are long, but it’s mostly kind of choppy. The schedule is never the same. And sometimes we’re on location somewhere else in the country or in another country.” He looked uncomfortable for a moment. “That’s something we should probably talk about.”

“I don’t need an alpha to do everything for me,” I reminded him. “I’ve had my own job for four years now and paid bills and everything. But I’ll probably miss you when you’re gone for those things.”

“We can see if you can come with me for some of them,” he promised. “Other people do it. Anyway, that’s kind of putting the cart before the horse—I have no idea if I’ll ever have a role that takes me out of the country. What do you think of the food?”

“It’s good. Nice not to have to cook.”

The conversation passed on to other topics, Mike’s friends from the movie coming to join us at the table, and I let the location shooting worry drift softly from my mind. There wasn’t much to be done about it right now, though Mom’s comment about how malleable actors were sat in my mind like a stone.

Well, I’d tackle that problem tonight. I didn’t expect Mike not to be malleable, but I damn well expected him to be faithful. The question there was how to make that as easy as possible for him, without twisting my life up in the process?