“Well, you haven’t, but if I continue to be paid for a job I am most definitely not really needed for, well… then I’m going to be no better than a whore.”
Is she fucking serious? “Because I’m paying you for a job that you’re doing, you feel like a whore? How is there any logic in that?”
“You’re exasperating!”
“I am?” Fuming now, I try to calm down before continuing. “You started freaking out the second I mentioned you coming to California with me when we finish here. Looking for a reason to run. I’m the exasperating one? Should I remind you that I’m not the one insinuating her boyfriend is making her feel like a whore!”
She had her mouth open to interrupt me before I stopped talking, but the protest she had been ready to throw back dies on her lips. With the color still high on her cheeks, her eyes are wide with shock. She stands before me now looking unable to form another word when for the last half an hour she’s had no issues with that whatsoever.
“What is it now?” I ask with the anger still present in my tone. I ready myself for whatever ridiculous bullshit she’s going to throw in my direction next and try to think of what could possibly be her next excuse for why she can’t come to California when we wrap at the end of the week for our Georgia filming. Why is she trying to leave me?
I brought this up when we finished the filming at the school two weeks ago, but she easily brushed it off. She said we would talk when filming was over at the next few locations here in Georgia, which just so happens to be now.
“What did you just say?” she timidly asks.
I move from the kitchen counter I had been resting on and stalk toward her. She doesn’t move, and her shocked expression doesn’t dim.
If I didn’t want her so desperately, I would throttle her right here.
“Which part? About you trying to think of anything you can to run?”
Her eyes heat. “I’m not running!” she yells.
“Then what do you call this bullshit about you going back to New York to ‘find a job’ and not coming to California like I asked when I offered you a job?”
“It’s not bull, Kane! Let me paint a picture for you. I was brought here under the ruse of a job. One that you and I both know I really wasn’t needed for. You did what you needed to do to be able to explore what you felt when you met me. I get that, and now, I’m thankful that you did, but you know Kirby doesn’t need me. She might have had a demanding schedule, but between Grant and the other two artists you had come in last week, she doesn’t need me. And, hello! I know nothing about makeup.”
I move to explain myself, but she stops me. Her eyes still hold a little of that anger when she continues. “I’m here, Kane, but besides a few comments when you ask my opinion about a scene and helping out whenever I can find a place to help so I can pull my weight, the only thing I actually seem to be doing is sucking your dick and begging you to have sex with me! Which, I might add, you keep refusing me. So how do you figure that isn’t me being a glorified whore when the paychecks you sign hit my bank?”
My anger drains from my body instantly when the real reason for her resistance becomes clear. “Willow,” I breathe. “Come here, baby.”
She lets out a loud sigh before she walks around the island she’s been using as a physical barrier and stops in front of me. I reach out and lightly hold her biceps, holding her gaze so she can hopefully see the honesty I feel for her.
“First and foremost, you’ve been invaluable, Willow. You’ve spent every day for the almost whole month running between helping Kirby maintain her schedule and helping me keep my shit together. Don’t you dare undervalue yourself and make light of just how much work you’ve put into this. You might not see the enormous help you are, but trust me, others do. Myself included.”
“Kane, be reasonable.”
I tighten my grasp, making her shut her mouth and see how serious I am.
“Let me paint you a picture now, Willow. You’ve been running the call sheet schedule, catering orders, production schedules, and at the same time you’re doing all of that, you also make the time to see if Kirby needs help, and if she does, you do everything in your power to make it happen. When Alessandra was struggling to find the emotion she needed to hit the big breakthrough scene, the most important scene in the whole film, who helped her work through it? When we couldn’t figure out what was missing in the scene from yesterday, who offered the one piece of advice that actually helped? You do a lot more than you can even imagine. Don’t insult yourself and say you don’t. I saw early on that you were effortlessly, and without direction, making my life easier. Why do you think I’ve been having you chat with Sam, syncing up with him and learning all you could? I had done that way before I offered you his job.”