Page 21 of Flowers To Give

The responsibility of preparing the horses falls on Jeremy as Eneki goes fishing for information from any “adults,” or people in the know of such treasured information, like an assistant director. Tacking the horses and trotting them around the field to wake them up, Eneki finds him on his own horse and tells Jeremy he’s scouted the route with the adults for Clark’s ride. He shows him the way and runs through the course with him, explaining where the cameras will be. The lighting technician has one of his well lit Condors fly up into the sky, a sudden blast of fake moonlight bathing the path.

Time flies and soon the whole set is swarming with the rest of the crew and channel one of the production’s radio is alight with chatter. It’s not much longer until the key PA is calling out over channel one, “Radison flies!”

That means that Clark is on his way, Jeremy silencing his radio on his hip and riding over to the line of Gators to meet him with Haukea. The luxury extended cab Gator that Clark arrives in holds Aubrey and the glam squad, Clark already in costume. The make up girl says to Aubrey, “I still need to do touches.”

“You’ll have time,” she looks over and catches Jeremy’s eye, “Okay good, you’re here. Clark, let’s get you on Haukea. They want you to run through the route you’ll be riding as soon as possible.”

Clark seems tense as he nods and steps forward, hardly glimpsing at Jeremy as he gets up on his saddle and takes the reins from Jeremy’s hand. He leads Clark past the tree line over to the start of the path he’ll run past to get through the brush into the field. There are assistant camera workers lining up shots with the stand-in that pay them no mind as Jeremy tells him, “Alright, you’ll start here. If you head for the left of that tree, we’ve cleared a line for you to run without getting hit by foliage. Then you’ll come out here.”

Jeremy leads him through the narrow path of the brush through to the clearing they’d just come from, pointing westward, “You’ll head that way toward the camera. It’s just a straight break, but they want you to go really fast. Like, as fast as possible. Camera’s rigging one of ‘em cars with a crane arm and the camera at the end-”

“U-Crane,” Clark puts a name to the vehicle.

“Right, they’re getting one of those ready.”

“Copy,” Clark looks behind him to the start and then forward again to the end point.

“They want you to stop just before the other end of the clearing over there,” Jeremy points out, turning back to the actor and asking, “How you feeling?”

Clark shrugs, “It’s fine. Go fast in a straight line.”

“Basically, yeah.”

Gaze wandering over to the bustling crew in the distance, Clark mutters, “Uh-oh.”

Two portly men in button ups and khaki shorts wave to Rezai - the mysterious director that always wears a hoodie and sunglasses no matter the time of day - as they walk across the field toward Clark and Jeremy. They call out, “Radison! You son of a bitch! How the hell are ya?”

“Marty, Greg! Get the fuck outta here!” Clark boisterously calls out, getting down from Haukea to greet the EPs.

The three chuckleheads laugh and shake hands. Jeremy gets down from Kau to take Haukea’s reins, walking them over to the three men. Marty and Greg turn to Jeremy with an expectant smile. Jeremy has a feeling like he should prostrate himself or kiss their feet, instead extending his hand and saying, “Jeremy Munday.”

They shake hands and Clark finishes introducing him, “My horse wrangler. We were just going over the run.”

“Well, it looks really gorgeous from over there. All three cameras got really solid angles,” one of the big wigs toothily grins.

“It’s gonna look even better with me in it,” Clark winks.

“We should do a rehearsal at half speed,” Jeremy suggests, “To get a feel for it and so they can see it.”

“Pfft. Yeah, no shit,” Clark shakes his head and rolls his eyes, “This guy. This is his first movie. When we started he didn’t even know what a call sheet was. Now look at him, telling me to do a rehearsal at half speed.”

The three men chortle while Jeremy’s ears burn with embarrassment. He tries to keep a neutral face, but he’s pissed at Clark for, yet again, showing off how much of an asshole he can be. The stabbing sensation of the cutting comment is very similar to how Clark made Jeremy feel way in the past, and just as sharp. That emotion hangs heavy over his head the rest of the night. The shots end up looking amazing, that handsome devil riding like the wind through the artificially moonlit haze.

Sleeping until five in the afternoon is the only option after wrapping Jeremy’s first dreadful Fraturday. He’s groggy as he crawls out from under the sheets, akin to the living dead. Considering whether he wants to order food or jerk off first, his morning wood has him leaning toward the latter. Opening his phone, Jeremy doesn’t head for porn right away. He chews on his lip as he goes through his messages to find Barry’s blurred picture. Rubbing his thumb over the attachment to reveal the image, of course it’s a dick pic.

Belly down on the plush mattress, Jeremy grinds his hips into the pliant material as he imagines a hard cock inside of him. He’s not necessarily thinking of Barry, or Clark. He’s mad at Clark, after all, the memory of how he’d talked down to Jeremy in front of the EPs infuriating him even in this private moment. He reaches between his legs and under his sweats, roughly stroking himself from the base. Exhaling sharply, he closes his eyes and imagines Clark roughly thrusting into him anyway.

His phone vibrates in his hand with a new message. Peaking up at the notification at the top of the screen, the text is from an unknown number. He presses it without much thought and is brought to a new message thread, the incoming text reading, “hey . come up to mine”

Intrigued, Jeremy pulls his hand out from his pants and types back, “Who’s this?”

There’s an ellipsis that signifies the other person is typing before a new message appears: “clark”

Jeremy rolls over and sits up fully, staring hard at his phone screen. He’s not sure if this is a joke or not, so he responds with, “Do you know who this is?”

“duh,”then another text, “i got ur number from the crew list”

Not sure how to react to all this, Jeremy asks the next question he has without much consideration, “Ok… Why do you want me to come up?”