Kissing Me Harder, Stepbrother novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Blacklist

Nobody answered.

The phones buzzed in the sand until they stopped.

Then sound picked his up, read something, and laughed.

"He texted me too," he said. "In case I missed the call. With a sad face."

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I've been blacklisted by better. I'll mix your show."

The gaffer raised his beer at him.

"He can't blacklist a gaffer off a show that's already lit," he said.

Everybody laughed, and it sounded braver than it was.

The editors were another story.

I'd booked two freelancers from Izzy's group chat to cut the show in a week.

At eight the next morning, the first one texted me.

"So sorry. Can't risk it. Good luck."

At eight-fifteen, the second one sent the same thing with a heart.

"Fine," Izzy said, standing in my kitchen with a coffee in each hand. "We cut it ourselves."

"Thirty-eight episodes in six days."

"I've done worse for less."

"Where? My kitchen table's the size of a pizza."

That afternoon Mom handed me the key to the salon.

"After closing," she said. "Not the color, not the good scissors, and not my chair."

"Which one's your chair?"

"All of them."

So we edited in Cheryl's on Main after hours.

Izzy set up her laptop on the front desk and plugged the big monitor into the TV over the waiting couch.

I sat in chair two with the scripts in my lap.

Lennon brought tacos and sat on the shampoo sink.

For three nights we cut until two in the morning.

Izzy cut. I fought her on every frame.

"She doesn't look at him yet," I'd say.

"She looks at him. She's in love."

"She doesn't know it yet. Cut before she looks."

Izzy would groan and cut before she looked, and it was always better.

Lennon couldn't read the timecodes.

He didn't need to.

On the third night he stopped eating and closed his eyes.

"Run that again," he said.

Izzy ran episode twelve again. The bait shop.

He listened to it with his eyes shut, his head tipped back against the mirror.

"There," he said. "You cut her breath."

"What breath?"

"Before she tells him about her dad. She breathes in first. On the day, she breathed. You cut it off. Now she sounds like she's reading."

Izzy ran it back.

She put the breath in.

We watched it.

The girl took one small breath, and then she told him.

← Chapter 14 · All chapters · Chapter 16 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend