Your back aches. Your fingers are sore from wrapping cables. You haven’t eaten since breakfast, but everyone else is long gone—off to bars, bed, or oblivion. You’re still here, because that’s what you do.

You stay.

A “set assistant,” they called it in the job posting. But you’ve been a runner, errand girl, emotional sponge, and literal trash collector for three months now. All for a decent CV line and a recommendation you’re praying will carry you into something that doesn’t involve peeling banana peels off A-list dressing room couches.

You tug a crumpled gaffer tape roll from under a table when your headset crackles. You didn’t even realize it was still on.

Then you hear it. His voice.

Jensen. And he sounds pissed.

“You need to keep that little assistant out of my face, Drew. I don’t care how ‘hard-working’ she is—she’s always hovering, always smiling like this is high school and I’m supposed to sign her yearbook.”

You go still.

He’s in the director’s trailer. You’re sure of it. You can practically picture it: him standing, arms crossed, mouth twisted in that disgusted smirk he’s never failed to reserve just for you.

“I’ve got a wife. I’ve got three kids. I don’t need some college-age intern batting her lashes at me between fucking protein shake runs. It’s inappropriate.”

Batting your lashes? You barely look him in the eye when he speaks to you—mostly because he talks at you, never to you.

“She’s a liability,” Jensen continues. “And I don’t care if she’s God’s gift to production, she’s in the way.”

Silence. Then Drew speaks, calm but cutting:

“She’s not in your way, Jensen. Your ego is.”

“Excuse me?”

“She’s twenty-two, working fifteen-hour days for a quarter of your shoe budget, and still doing more than half the crew. She doesn’t flirt. She doesn’t hover. She works. And frankly, she’s one of the only people on this damn set who hasn’t called you an asshole behind your back—yet.”

Another pause. Heavy.

“If you’re this distracted by a girl doing her job, maybe that’s on you. Not her.”

So this is what he thinks. That you’re a problem. That you’re the threat to his oh so perfect life.