Page 31 of How To Plot a Payback

Finn Masters. I know I know this name.

Stage 2 crackles. The electric noise of 250 laughs in the air chases Kye’s zippy line, pumping the studio audience with even more serotonin after five hours of nothing but free candy, coffee, and jokes. They’re a particularly good group today. Quick to laugh. Quick to sigh. Quick to let you know you are on the right track. Frankly, even if you’re not, you wouldn’t notice because their laughter just picks you up under the arms and carries you.

Patient. Cheerful to no end. This is when I love my job the most. It’s like being six and standing in your living room, very seriously performing something you are making up on the spot for your mum, and believing wholeheartedly that your series of twirls and leaps is so extraordinary that you’ve actually tricked her into believing this has taken weeks of nonstop practice. And all the while she sits on the edge of the couch, beaming and clapping heartily while video recording you, making you believe you possess a never-before-seen talent.

That’s what filming days are like when you have a good audience like this one. But instead of one mum, it’s 250 of them.

I have a line coming up, shortly after that a whole paragraph of lines that for the life of me I haven’t been able to get just right. A thick blond curl keeps sliding into my eyes, and no matter how trendy Chloe says this curvy, red-headed, smoky-eyed Jessica Rabbit doppelganger look is, and no matter what “magic” it does to my jawline, it’s about to kill me. I don’t know where Sonya’s puppy is, and I have this nagging fear that someone’s mixed something up and he’s gone forever. I’m sitting on the swiveling barstool on set that—mark my words—is going to collapse under me any second. A literal screw is coming loose. And I can’t get the new guy’s name out of my mind.

Finn Masters.

My awareness of exactly where he’s standing in this vast room swarming with people, lights, and panning cameras is equally as distracting. Just off stage right. Arms crossed over his chest. Script in hand. Glasses on. Concentrating with a not-so-unhandsome, bookish face. Broody brows top pale blue-green eyes that are the exact color of the blue-raspberry macarons in this lovely shop I somehow always fall into on morning strolls. Careless, wavy brown hair that curls just below his ears. A long coffee stain down his shirt. A curious missing shoelace I’d like to ask about. And a voice that sounds like home.

Finn Masters.

I know I know that name.

His eyes catch mine.

A tiny squint creases his temples—not at all akin to that last bloke in the audience my eyes accidentally gazed upon, who started mouthing Will you marry me? and then lifted his T-shirt of a cat riding a shark in space to reveal the question on his stomach in case there was any doubt as to his intentions. Security immediately escorted him out.

No, Finn’s macaron eyes are giving off an entirely different look.

One would almost think—this is absurd, really—it’s a look of . . . revulsion.

Aimed at me.

But of course, that can’t be right. I’ve only just met the man. Maybe.

I blink and redirect my attention to the scene.

“I’m too nervous. Ashley, you read it.” Lance Lewis, aka Kye, sits on the barstool beside me and slides the phone over.

I nearly miss catching it. No pressure, except that we’ve already had to work through lunch on account of reshoots, many of which, unfortunately, were due to my blunders. (And one due to Kye throwing the scene to wrap his arms around me and declare his undying love, which, of course, the audience died over. He loves getting them riled up.) I’m off my game today, thanks to dog-induced sleep deprivation. Well, and my concentration that keeps slipping out the window. Finn Masters. But at the last second my fingers wrap around the phone successfully, and I pick it up.

I wrinkle my brow as I pretend to read the email.

Then pretend to read it again.

This is where I’m supposed to be delighted.

“Cautiously delighted” more specifically, according to the script.

Because, of course, Ashley Krane is rooting for him.

Ashley Krane has always believed in him.

Ashley isn’t shocked at all that Lance gets the (totally impossible) opportunity to go to NASA to train for the possibility of leading a deeply important mission (which he, as a midrange engineer, is no more qualified to lead than an eight-year-old with a dozen astronaut posters on the wall). But then, Ashley also accidentally got herself locked in the boot of a neighbor’s car last week while trying to eavesdrop on said neighbor and ended up in Vermont. Miracles abound on Neighbors. Audiences gladly suspend their disbelief in exchange for a happy twenty-two-minute escape.

I like that part of the job. It isn’t all lilacs and daisies, of course, but making people laugh, helping them see the world through a slightly rosier lens, I do enjoy—even if I’m tiring of the revolving door of shenanigans.

“You got in.” I take a heavy breath, letting that sink in. A small smile forms on my lips as I repeat, “You got in.”

We stare into each other’s eyes for an exaggerated length of time.

We do this, for the record, a lot.

Somebody in the audience sighs.