Page 6 of Take Two

‘He’s nice,’ Callie said.

‘You don’t sound sure,’ Brian said.

Callie let out a soft laugh. ‘Don’t you start.’

Brian laughed. ‘Guess I’m a natural drama queen.’

Callie felt in that moment oddly fond of the man she’d barely met before today.

‘Brian,’ Christine said sharply. Heaven forbid Callie get to know the man.

‘What?’ he said, confused.

‘Don’t… We like Sam.’

‘We do?’ Brian asked.

‘Yes. We want them to end up together.’

It wasn’t hard for Callie to translate that.

We want Callie to win and get that payment that winners get that they have to share with their broke-ass mothers.

Callie wondered if Brian had been properly briefed on that. Or if he knew about the regular payments from Callie at all.

Callie had never known how much Brian knew about the reality of her mother. But it wasn’t for Callie to say. She wasn’t part of any of this.

The boom dipped lower.

‘Can we stop now?’ she said.

‘One more minute,’ Neil murmured.

Callie gave him a pleasant, lethal little smile. ‘You’ve had enough drama for one morning.’

‘Callie—’

‘Cut,’ she said, standing up.

He looked at Callie like he might want to tell her off. But he just said, ‘Fine. Cut.’ The red light died.

The room exhaled. Brian rubbed his beard. ‘That was awful. Sorry if I flubbed it somehow,’ he said with a quick glance to his wife.

‘You did fine,’ Callie said.

Neil leaned in, all soft urgency. ‘This was great. But it might need a little punch-up? Maybe it’s a bit… tight in here. Hard to forget that cameras are present. Maybe we could do a second location, somewhere you can all relax a bit.’

Fuck. Callie really hoped this particular mini-hell was over. She should have known better. ‘OK. Fine.’ Then her brain kicked in. ‘Wait. What second location? The pub?’

Neil nodded. ‘I liked that location.’

Callie, stupidly, thought the statement ended there.

‘But it was a tad dark and small,’ Neil went on. ‘I was thinking of that bakery.’

Callie froze. ‘The bakery?’

‘It’ll look great. Proper local heart.’