“Sorry, you want us to do what?” Alba asked Chase Cooper, our showrunner and enormous pain in my ass. Her voice was panicky enough to make me push off from the portion of wall I’d commandeered by the kitchen of the penthouse the show was providing for me and went to see what he’d said to upset her. Today we were supposed to do on-camera interviews. We’d been told those would be separate—which, given Alba’s extra iciness toward me, I assumed she preferred—but so far they’d only dragged in lighting and set up one camera and microphone in front of the love seat in the living room.

Chase, whose claim to fame was running a successful franchise of reality TV shows about B-list celebrities who seemed to despise each other, was, in one word, an asshole. On that first phone call with Streamflix a few weeks ago I’d been told the showrunner would be a Latina with a great reputation in the business, not that I wouldn’t have signed on anyway. But right as I was set to come to Dallas they’d informed me she’d just taken extended medical leave. Which left us with Chase, who at the moment was standing over Alba, his pointer finger only inches from her face. I could see her almost trying to shrink before my eyes while he glared at her. Alba, who just two days ago had risen to her full height of five feet and five inches and threatened me with bodily harm if I ruined her plans, was cowering under this greasy dweeb who couldn’t even grow a goatee.

“Is there a problem here, Chase?” I managed to keep my voice neutral, but I knew there was no helping how my face looked.

Alba looked nervous. Her face flushed with red and Chase was about a foot too far into her personal space than I was comfortable with.

He did a double take the moment he got a look at me and took a step back. “No problem, Theo. Just going over a few things with the designer,” he said cheerfully, even though I could see from her body language that wasn’t the truth.

He’d tried to get in my face too, and I’d quickly made him aware that he needed to watch his mouth with me. He’d stormed off mumbling shit under his breath, but he’d kept things civil since then. I should’ve known he’d just find someone else to bully. But if he thought that would be Alba, he was in for a very rude awakening.

“You need to take another step back from her, my man.” It sounded like a threat because it was, and thankfully Chase’s sense of self-preservation seemed to be in working order.