The unit base sprawled across the disused car park like it had grown there overnight: honeywagons in a horseshoe, costume racks breathing linen and leather, a coffee truck exhaling cinnamon into the damp Dublin morning. Tess O’Rourke stood on a taped cross outside Stage B with a clipboard she’d outgrown years ago but kept because it clicked when she thought—count-in for her brain. Ear defenders hung round her neck like jewellery she’d forgotten to take off. She’d already done the fight-beat warm-ups with Stunts down the corridor and had the intimacy floor ready: mats, modesty garments in labelled bins, fresh robes, a kettle that behaved, a basket of sealed lip balms because certain kinds of care had to look like themselves.
“Phones in the cubbies,” she said, gentling it for new faces. “We’re rehearsing consent, not content. If you’ve told me something is a hard no, it won’t appear. If it accidentally appears, we stop, reset, apologise, and adjust. There’s no quota of bravery. Everyone gets to be sound and safe.”
A few actors laughed at “sound” as if it were a punch line; most nodded, grateful for an adult in the room. Her assistant, Suri, took names and handed out intimacy kits like party favours from a very sane party. The second one down the call sheet arrived without fanfare—tall, hoodie up, cap low, holding a pastry box like a peace treaty. Tess felt her stomach do the stupid, showy clench it had no business doing. He’d cut the beard shorter; the eyes were the same: quiet blue, clear as a cold day.
Jasper Vale hovered at the threshold until she crooked two fingers and he stepped onto the mat like she’d invited him into her kitchen.
“I brought coffee and an apology. One’s hot,” he said, his voice pitched for her alone.
“Grand,” she replied, pretending neutrality as she took the box. “I take both black.”
His mouth tugged. “Copy.”
Suri, who had only ever seen him on screens, recovered first. “Sign here, Mr. Vale. Pronouns, touch preferences, anything off-limits, allergies.”
He wrote quickly, the way he did everything when he was paying attention. Tess watched the way he set his pen down exactly parallel to the edge of the table. The exactness steadied her. Suri slid him a consent map and a lollipop. He looked at the lollipop like he might laugh, then pocketed it as if he understood the ritual mattered, even when the sugar didn’t.
“We’ll warm up with breath and count-ins,” Tess said, back to the room. “We’re building choreography that reads intimate at a camera angle and respectful at a human one. Remember: if you wouldn’t want someone to do it to your collarbone, don’t do it to your scene partner’s collarbone. Specific is kind.”
Heads shook out. She took the room through the basics—palms together, press, resist, release—until breath slowed and spines remembered they lived in bodies. Her own breath found its lane. When she split the pairs to practise high-five to hand-over-hand to a mock embrace that never closed, she ended up opposite Jasper because of course she did. His palms were warm, not grabby; he matched her pressure like it was a dance he’d been waiting to learn.
“Hand over hand,” she said. “We agree on direction before we travel. You lead to the left on ‘and’—don’t snatch, don’t steer.”
“Consent, then chemistry,” he murmured. “Copy.”
She let herself smile at the echo. “Consent, then everything.”
The camera operator stuck his head in, all apologetic curls. “Ten minutes, Tess. They want the rehearsal footage for the EPK—only if you sign off.”
“Only if everyone here does.” She lifted her voice. “If you don’t want your face on the behind-the-scenes, tick ‘no’ on the sheet and we’ll angle you out. No pressure either way.”
Movement at the door snagged her peripheral vision: a car seat, still in its cardboard coffin, borne like an offering by a runner who looked relieved to find the right person. He hesitated, then darted back into the corridor. Jasper’s gaze tracked it and returned to Tess, steady, not asking. She felt heat in her throat that had nothing to do with work. Not yet, she thought. Do it right.
She took the group through a kiss that wasn’t. “Right hand is the only weight-bearing point,” she said, placing her palm a respectful inch from Jasper’s jaw to demonstrate the hover. “Camera wants to believe; we don’t have to. Mics live here”—she touched her own sternum—“so no bumping. If someone freezes, we stop. We don’t breathe through it; we don’t power through it. We stop.”
“Copy,” Jasper said, softer. His eyes didn’t move from her hand.
After, when the room debriefed in a relaxed pile of limbs and foam rollers, she took the clipboard click as courage and said, “Jasper, can I nick you for five in Medic? Won’t pull you from wardrobe.”
He didn’t play at confusion. “Of course,” he said, then to the room: “Back in five.”
It was raining the kind of Irish rain that didn’t fall so much as exist everywhere. The medic tent hummed, warm and clean. A defibrillator watched them like a stern aunt. Tess shut the flap, set her clipboard down, and put both palms on the table to stop them shaking.
“I’m going to say it cleanly,” she said. “I tried for months—in 2019, then again when she was born. I was told you’d changed your number, your team said not to contact you, emails bounced. I believed the worst version of you. That wasn’t fair to either of us. Her name is Nova. She thinks stickers are currency.”
He inhaled once, all the way. His hands didn’t reach for her; his face didn’t fall into theatre. His mouth formed her daughter’s name as if he was testing how it fit. “Nova,” he said. “Okay. What do you need from me today?”
The breath she’d been braced against left her ribs like a weather front. “Today? You need to keep your head on your job while mine stays on mine. No scenes of note until next week for you, which is handy. HR have the union contact for written recusals. We’ll need you formally out of any decisions touching my role or my hours. I’ll send you a copy to review with your lawyer—”
“Done,” he said. “I already asked legal to draft recusals the minute I signed on. I’ll have them on your desk by end of day. I also—” He glanced at the tent flap, sheepish and sure. “That car seat outside? It’s not for optics. If it isn’t the right model, tell me and I’ll return it quietly and get the one you want.”
Tess’s laugh punched out of her, a ridiculous sound at a ridiculous moment. “She’s four, Jasper. She’s in a high-back booster.”