Page 2 of The Cuffing Game

Thad and Brent joined the rest of the party while Noah remained behind. The live streamer ended the video and handed the phone over to Noah.

Mia wasn’t drifting closer to eavesdrop. Okay, she totally was.

“You’re so cool, man,” the other boy was saying to Noah. “That backflip? Wow.”

“Thanks, Kyle,” Noah replied. “Appreciate you.”

“No problem,” the other boy replied. “Hey, what are you doing for the rest of the party? There are so many hot girls here. We did good!”

Noah ran a hand through his hair as he scanned the area. He did a double take when he saw Mia, standing by herself in the middle of the yard.

Oh, no.

She froze, like a deer in headlights waiting for imminent death.

His eyes widened.

Her cheeks flushed.

“They’re all right,” Noah said, turning back to Kyle. “Not really my type, though. I’m going to head back upstairs and call it a night. Best of luck with rush week!”

Not really my type.

Noah had looked at hertwicebefore saying those words.

Indignation rose up inside Mia, a cold tightness that gripped her chest.

This is why some crushes are better off a secret,she thought.

Inside her brain, a fuse lit, rapidly growing into a fire of an idea. She had to go back to her room to write it down, ASAP. But she couldn’t resist doing one more thing before she left.

Mia cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled, “Put a shirt on!”

A chorus ofoohs erupted from the crowd.

Noah turned back around to face her, raising his eyebrows. He’d said nothing but had somehow still got the last word.

Cheeks burning, she spun and ran as fast as she could back to her dorm.

And then, in the safe comforts of her own room, she dealt with her crush on Noah Jang by doing what she did best: she planned out a TV show.

Part One

Pre-Production

Chapter One

Noah

Mia Yoon hated Noah. Or at least, he was pretty sure of it.

He and Mia sat across from each other in the lecture hall, and Noah was grateful for the distance between them. Any closer and he’d surely explode into a thousand pieces from the force of Mia’s glare.

“Short-form video is like cancer,” she was saying, looking at him likehe’dsomehow given her cancer. “It’s causing the death of cinema as we know it, since, these days, fewer people are interested in real stories and are obsessed with clickbait-y, dopamine-chasing content instead.”

Noah furrowed his brow. Well, hehadjust been thinking of explosions. So maybe Mia had a point? But there was no way he was letting her win this easily. Not when she was on her high horse again.

He raised his hand, and before Dr. Thompson, their perpetually frazzled professor, could even finish nodding, Noah cut in, “On the contrary, one can argue that short-form video is one of the only things keeping movies alive in the first place.”