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Johnny Cage tried not to whoop with glee as he slid his laptop around on the smooth wooden dining room table towards his wife. He didn’t want to startle her away from the table; if she jumped away, she might not come back. The three of them together in the same place wasn’t exactly rare, but he wasn’t going to risk sending Sonya—or Cassie—running. Instead, he just kept the laptop pivoted, watched his wife in profile as she listened to Cassie work through a problem. Cassie had her tongue sticking out between her lips, and Sonya’s mouth was pressed thin in neutral consideration, every bit of her focus on their daughter.
“Got an opportunity here I think I’m going to go for. Couple of days of actual filming… Call it five with flights, pre-filming briefings, and everything — in a few months.” He aimed for nonchalance despite the grin slowly seeping on to his face.
Across the table, Sonya was leaning over their daughter’s shoulder, now squinting at Cassie’s pencil as it moved. He didn’t remember this much homework when he was nine, but then again, he hadn’t exactly been paying much attention to it, even when it had become important. Theater kid and jock and he’d skated through school by the skin of his teeth, and look where it had gotten him…
Sonya looked up, bright blue eyes narrowing as she focused on the screen. Her mouth thinned as she read through it, one hand settling on the touchpad to scroll down through the short proposal.
Johnny kept his breathing even. Couldn’t show fear. Confidence, pure confidence. He reached for his glass, taking a long drink of the cold water. Not cold anymore; he scowled at it as though it had allowed physics to operate on it out of defiance. He made a face, then turned back to watch Sonya.
“You just came off filming a shark movie,” Sonya said slowly, “and now you want to go to… Baja?”
“Think about it, babe. The marketing, the tie-in!” He couldn’t help it, leaning in enthusiastically. “And I’ll be part of the whole Shark Week canon, then!”
Cassie’s head jerked up from her homework, eyes wide. Suddenly she began to vibrate with enthusiasm in her seat. “Wait. Shark Week? Like the whole thing with the guys and the megalodon stuff and the—”
Sonya pressed fingers to the bridge of her nose, pinching down. Her voice was tinged with frustration. “All those meg-related things were fakes, kiddo. They got into trouble over it.”
“They were so cool,” Cassie gushed, all enthusiasm. “You gotta do it. Wait—can I go?”
“No,” both adults answered simultaneously, meeting each other’s eyes.
“You aren’t scuba-certified, kiddo. Gotta wait a couple more years for that,” Johnny said, ruffling his daughter’s hair. “And anyway, it’s for TV. Lots of cuts, lots of filming, long days. You’d get bored in about three minutes.”
“Johnny,” Sonya said, looking up at him again, “these are real sharks. Not CGI. Not animatronics. Not pictures. Real sharks.”
He swallowed, shrugging nonchalantly. “I can manage real sharks. I can swim, and it’s not like they’ll let Johnny Cage become shark bait.” He grinned at his wife and daughter. “My agent thinks it’s a good plan. The studio’s on board…”
Cassie grinned, pumping a fist. “Totally do it. You should totally do it and it will be awesome. Shouldn’t he go?”
“You,” Johnny pointed out to his daughter with a tap on the nose, “have vacation with Grandma Blade that week—it’s on summer break and we’ve had that set in stone. But maybe I can convince your mom to take some of her hard-earned vacation time…”
Sonya straightened up slowly, an expression flickering across her face. He couldn’t read it, but had a sinking feeling that it was a refusal. She leaned down and tapped Cassie’s homework with a fingertip. “Read the question through again, kiddo. Think about what it’s asking you, not just the answer you think you have.” Sonya stepped away from the table, dodging Johnny’s hand as it reached for her, and headed into their kitchen.
Johnny watched her move, biting down on his tongue in frustration. He gave her a moment, listened to the clattering of glasses, and then followed her in. She was standing on tiptoe, the move accenting the muscle of her thighs and up along her sides, the definition in her upper arms left bare by the tank top she wore. She was gorgeous, and his, and was probably about to wreck all his hopes.
“You can’t come,” he said. Her fingers caught something on the top-top shelf, where it was a reach for both of them. She pulled down a bottle of spiced rum and uncapped it, splashing some in a highball glass.
“I don’t think my CO is going to sign off on me going to the beach for a TV show,” she replied. She waggled the bottle of rum in his direction. He took a cup from the cupboard and set it next to hers, then turned to the freezer. “You can get away with that stuff. I can’t.”
“Take a week of vacation time? You’ve got enough.” He cracked the tray, dropping a pair of ice cubes into each of their glasses. “Then you’re there as a civilian and if the cameras pick you up—and I doubt they will, they’ll be filming, what, for just a forty-minute show? Fifty?—you’re there as a civilian, not on the show. Not being paid.”
Sonya sighed, swirling her rum in the glass and looking up at him. He stepped in next to her, slotting a knee in between her thighs. She shot a quick glance out to where their daughter sat, then turned back to him. “And anyway, if something happens to Cass, one of us should be easy to get. If you’re out at sea filming something, with sharks…”
Johnny made a face, taking a long drink from his glass. He reached around her and topped it up with more rum. He didn’t hate sharks, not exactly, but he didn’t like them. They had too many teeth and those black eyes kept staring and they were too much muscle, too ancient and unpredictable and terrifying. He’d watched Jaws more times than he wanted to count, and living on the southern California coast, shark attacks weren’t unheard of. The idea of getting into the water and all of them around you, looking at you with those dead eyes…
He didn’t understand what the hell she saw in them, why they fascinated her so much. They creeped him the fuck out, even if he had just filmed a movie with them.
But it was Shark Week. And turning that opportunity down would grate at him for years if he did.
Johnny set his glass on the counter beside her and ran his hands down her shoulders. “Like your mother would let anything happen to her one and only grandkid. I bet she’d tell you to go with me.”
“We’re not bringing my mother into this,” Sonya said. “You really think I’d miss the shot at playing with sharks? Come on, Johnny, you know me.”
“Yeah, I know you.” He leaned in, tongue tracing a line along the shell of her ear. “We’d take a week and then after all the filming was done, I’d drag you into the hotel room and wouldn’t let you leave the bed. Waste of a beachfront hotel room, honestly, but I’d make that sacrifice.”
“Persuasive,” she said, with what he was sure was a faint pink high in her cheeks, “but it’s not going to fly. I’ve got to work.”
“We can find an excuse,” he said. “One your CO can’t argue with. Just give me a couple of days.”
Sonya walked a hand up from his belt buckle along the plain white tank top he was wearing, her nails digging in ever so slightly and spiking his nerves with every touch. “You tell them you’re going, that’s fine. Cass’ll be at my mother’s, and I’ll work. Go have fun, Johnny. You can tell me all about it when you get home.” Her nails slid along his collarbones and then up to his jaw. Her hand spread, thumb on his cheek and fingers curling around the back of his head, pulling him down to kiss him.
If she had to crush his hopes, at least she was going to find a way to make up for it.
He tried over the next few months, catching her, when she was flush with success over improving her marksmanship scores, off-guard in bed, distracted braiding Cassie and Jacqui’s hair one night when they were having a pajama party for the girls. Every time he tried to get her to agree to the week off, a wall slammed in place and she shook her head.
He loved her, knew she’d loved marine biology since she was a kid, and had given it all up to serve in the armed forces when her brother had died. Out of anything he could have pushed for, he was surprised she hadn’t found a way to wheedle this out of her command. Particularly with Cass at her mother’s for the annual summer trip, horses and being utterly spoiled rotten in the way a parent never could. Especially since it was Sonya’s mom, and she could get away with things that even Johnny couldn’t.
Sonya’s mother flew out for a couple of days to collect Cassie, and Johnny tried to recruit the inestimable Erica Blade to help convince her daughter. Ice cream and barbecue and mother and husband poking at her, and Sonya still refused. Everything he thought of–even anything Erica proposed–Sonya managed to shoot down. She had an excuse for everything. And not a single one was shitty enough he could successfully argue against.
“Last call,” he said the morning of his departure, sitting on the edge of their bed as she pulled on her uniform. “Get sick. Cough cough, y’know. Not good for you to go into the base if you’re contagious.”
“Johnny, I’ve got a job.” She made a face at him as she pulled on her tee shirt. “And you’ve got a TV show to go film, and some sharks to say hello to.”
He shuddered out of habit. She snorted and stepped between his knees. She leaned in, brushing her lips against hers. His hands cupped the backs of her thighs, drawing her in close and deepening the kiss.
“Don’t miss me too much while I’m gone. Promise I’ll be back as soon as I can and I’ll make up for lost time.” He waggled his eyebrows. “I mean, you could also just call me every night and I’m pretty sure we could find a way to keep each other busy…”
She rolled her eyes and kissed him again, then planted both hands on his shoulders and pushed him back against the bed. “Not when you have a film crew around. I’ll see you before you even know it.” She stepped back, then returned to pulling on the parts of her uniform. “Go get on your plane, drink your morning mimosa, hit on the flight attendants. C’mon, you’re going to get to make Cage in a cage comments for days.”
He opened his mouth to deny it, but she quelled him with a look. He stuck out his tongue in a moment of childish pique instead.
She smirked, straightening her cuffs. “Go off and have fun. Enjoy it for me. I’ll survive. You’re coming home to me. What do I care if you go flirt with someone with a cloaca?”
“Somehow,” Johnny said, blinking, “I have a feeling like you think I’ll be flirting with the wrong organisms. And now I’m really questioning your interest in sharks.”
The beach was beautiful, the film crew was reasonable, and it might almost have been fun. He landed that afternoon, settled into his reasonably plush hotel room, and immediately started missing his wife. Dinner with the crew that night was slow and easy, but he kept his hands to himself, signed some cleavage and some tee-shirts, took selfies with the wait staff and the crew, and reminded himself this was going to be fun.
Maybe there was a little too much to drink, he admitted to himself the next morning as he dragged himself out of bed in time for the morning briefing. Just a little too much. Just the wrong side of enough.
“Makos,” the producer, Miles, explained over a very early breakfast that morning. Johnny blinked at him, setting his coffee down on the table.
“Makos?”
“Shortfin, specifically. We’ve got a couple of researchers out here—you’ll meet them in a little bit—and it’ll be pretty straight forward.” Miles speared a piece of egg with his fork. “We’ll record a little piece with you, introduce the researchers, get everyone on board, and do another briefing. Then we’ll see if we can catch any makos—we’ve got some frozen swordfish coming—and tag them, do some skin samples for the research. Maybe, if the weather’s good enough, might dump a couple people in the water. It’d be really good if you’d go in—insurance,” Miles added quickly, “will cover it.”
Johnny’s stomach lurched. “Look, man, I know the whole point of this was that I just finished a movie with sharks, but it’s also—you know, real sharks are different from the puppets and robotics and shit. Wild animals,” he repeated, some of Sonya’s favorite descriptors rolling off his tongue. “Top predators. It’s not like Puppy Bowl.”
“That’s the whole point,” the producer said. “This’ll look spectacular for you and your movie and stuff on our end. We’ve got enough safety precautions after years. It’ll be easy. We’ve filmed things with all kinds of movie stars, fighters, you name it. The biggest risk you’ll have is which one of your best lines get cut. Though ratings might jump if we cut it so you looked like you were scared of them…”
“I’m not,” Johnny lied through his teeth, “scared of sharks.”
“So you’ll go in.” The producer’s eyes gleamed as he mopped up the last of his egg with a piece of toast. “Perfect.”
Johnny knew that look—it was the one he loved to hate, the one that said there were going to be sixty takes if there had to be, just to get the right shot for the trailer. He should have kept his mouth shut. The motto of his life.
“These research dudes know what they’re doing?”
“Some of the tops in their fields. Not always big name people, but they’re good at what they do. We help fund their research, get eyes on it, and then they get to do more. We get to shoot, rinse and repeat over the years.”
“Names I might know? My wife’s kicked around in that field a little. I can shoot her a message. Maybe she’ll have some tidbit that’ll spark something good for the cameras.”
Miles shook his head decisively. “Nope, part of all this is filming you getting to meet people, learn about what they do. Authenticity, y’know? Helps draw the audience in, makes you more relatable. No calling your wife for an extra briefing. Get the rest of what you need—cover yourself in sunscreen, by the way, we’ve got industrial stuff—and then meet you down at the docks in twenty.”
“I need to do a last will and testament?”
“If I didn’t know your history,” the producer said wryly, “I’d ask if you were joking. But no, man. You’re fine. Seriously. The biggest risk you’re gonna have is…” He slowed, shook his head. “Nah. You’ll be fine.”
“What?” Johnny’s eyes went wide, and it wasn’t just the caffeine kicking his heart into overdrive. “What is it?”
“Gotta keep one or two little secrets. But your agent, and your insurance, are cool with it.”
Johnny reached for the last piece of bacon on his plate, pushing out his jaw with irritation. “What’re you planning, man?”
Miles shook his head, walking away from the table. “Twenty minutes at the dock, Johnny. Bring your shades. It’ll be worth it.”
“Somehow,” Johnny said, “I don’t believe you.”
He did as the contract demanded and listened, heading back up to his beachside hotel room and lathering himself with sunscreen, changing into tight swim trunks that would fit under a wetsuit, pulling on a pair of shorts over them. He wavered between shirt or no shirt, then ended up pulling on a bright Hawaiian shirt and leaving the top few buttons artfully undone, just enough to bare some of his tattoo. Sunglasses completed his camera-ready look. He was coming close to forty, but he still looked damn good… or so all the magazine covers attested.
And so did the wife who had totally blown off a week beachside with him to go do paperwork or test-fire missiles or… something.
He slid his phone into a waterproof case. He was definitely going to take photos to tease the hell out of Sonya.
Minutes later he was down by the docks and glad-handing with the researcher, a clean-shaven man with a faintly Caribbean accent and an immense vocabulary and a passion for sharks that carried through in the first few minutes of meeting. Dr. Connor Carmichael was also unfairly attractive; Johnny felt his confidence waver for a heartbeat. Scientists weren’t supposed to look that good.
The cameras were rolling, someone was getting a drone in the air to take some footage, and the morning briefing went off almost without a hitch. The second researcher was still missing; Carmichael and the producer didn’t seem to care at all. It still worked for Johnny: they were getting good footage, he was able to go through his dive gear and dive plan without a problem, and it let him build a rapport with the people he’d be working with.
Seagulls screamed in the air above them, occasionally dropping down towards the surface of the harbor in search of easy pickings. He helped haul gear down into the boat, setting up the equipment as much as memory allowed him, mounting BCDs onto tanks but letting the professionals do the final adjustments. It was almost too crowded while they set up between the dive crew and the camera team and the researchers; the diesel fumes and salt spray whipping at his nose didn’t help settle his stomach.
Great. He was going to get seasick on camera. Just great.
Johnny inhaled, immediately regretting it, and let out a breath. He wanted to get out into the open water, instead of this harbor surrounded by other boats with the constant low-level smell of rotten fish and kelp. This was never the part they showed. Ever. He wrapped a hand around one of the posts for the shaded awning over the back of the boat, trying to hide his nervousness.
“And here’s our second researcher.” Miles shaded his eyes and turned into the sun. “Once she gets out here, we can get aboard and get going.”
She? Well, if Sonya was too busy with her saving the world, he was going to do his best to enjoy himself. Whoever was walking to the boat had long legs and a swagger almost as good as Sonya’s. A ponytail bobbed from side to side at the back of her head, golden and gleaming in the morning light. Shit; were they after a little drama, him mooning over some hot shark nerd, or trying not to?
Johnny blinked behind his sunglasses. Her backlit silhouette looked a hell of a lot like Sonya. Body was almost as good as his wife’s, on closer inspection; maybe a little softer in the thighs and belly. Her face was shadowed by a baseball cap, but for TV they’d at least have—hopefully—made sure she was camera ready. Shorts and a tee shirt, the hint of a string bikini tied around her neck—ready to go swim and look good for the cameras, at least. He’d had worse co-stars; he could handle this for a couple of days.
He glanced sidelong; the cameras hadn’t stopped rolling. All of this was juicy live footage they could use, probably would use, and he needed to keep his head in the game. Good movie tie-in, good marketing. Sonya had even encouraged him, hadn’t she? She wouldn’t get pissed off.
The woman paused at the edge of the dock. “So we going to get moving, or did I roll my ass out of bed for no good reason?”
She sounded a hell of a lot like Sonya, too.
Nope, he corrected himself as she stepped into the boat and under the awning, it was Sonya.
“Babe? What the—” he stopped abruptly, looking at the cameras, the four letter word dying behind his teeth. “What are you doing here? And why didn’t you tell me?”
“Work,” Sonya said succinctly. “Funny, really.” She adjusted the black wet bag over her shoulder, a sly little smile playing across her lips. God, she was hot, even in shorts and a clingy olive drab tee shirt. “We had a research project—the Army did—doing some research with mako sharks.” She was half speaking to him, half to the cameras, as she kept walking towards him along the boat. Pacing like a lioness sizing up her prey. “They’re fast fuckers,” she added. He knew it would bleeped—and so did she, and didn’t care. There was his lady love. “Anyway, somebody knew somebody who knew somebody and twisted my arm a little.”
She stopped just in front of him, hip cocked and head tilted up. She was exuding confidence. Definitely his Sonya. “You got the briefing. We’re gonna go out and try to catch and tag a couple of makos. Do a little swimming.”
He inhaled deeply, breathing in the smell of her, savoring the smug grin and the self-assurance rippling off her in waves. Hot as hell, and his. Johnny hooked fingers into her belt loops, pulling her lithe muscled body towards him. Pushing the boundaries of her limits on public displays of affection, but it was worth it. “You realize I just got off months filming a movie with these things?”
“Not real ones,” she said, still grinning. “That’s the whole point of it, isn’t it? This thing.” She gestured to take in the cameras, but her eyes were on him and him alone.
“I saw those things, the animatronics, the CGI. I’ve watched Shark Week! I know how this shit works!” He pushed out his jaw slightly, hamming it up for the cameras. “Look, I’m not afraid of sharks. I’m just… conscientious. Healthy self-preservation instincts.”
She poked him lightly in the chest. “C’mon, Johnny. I got your back. You telling me you don’t trust your wife?”
“We did the whole to have and to hold thing,” he pointed out, wiggling his eyebrows, sliding a hand up to her waist. Yup, definitely her, and people were going to eat this up with a spoon. He was going to have to hope to hell that they didn’t stray too far into shooting footage of him in his swim trunks, because if she stripped off those shorts and shirt and had on what he thought she did… He was going to have one hell of an undeniable and not all-ages response. “I didn’t think you were actively going for the ‘death do us part’ line, though. How long has this been in the works?”
She shrugged, taking off her baseball cap and crimping the brim between her hands. “About an hour since before your agent forwarded you that email. Did you really think I would let you go off and have all the fun without me?”
“Maybe a little.” He slid the hand from her waist down to the back pocket of her shorts. “You actually got the go-ahead for this from your bosses?”
Her mouth quirked up at the corner. “Dotted my i’s and crossed my t’s. Let’s get this show on the road… chum’s not going to make itself, and you always brag about how good you are with a knife. Let’s see how that matches up on the water.”