Chapter Eighteen Mia
Chapter Eighteen
Mia
The crew gathered in the production room for lunch, but Mia was too excited to eat. Leaving her breakfast burrito untouched,
she crushed her can of iced coffee and tossed it into the recycle bin.
Kallie gave her a disgusted look as she ate her own burrito. “Mia, it’s barely past noon and you’ve already had two of those
today.”
Mia put her hands up in a gesture of innocence. “Hey, I’m just trying to stay awake.”
Damien jabbed a forkful of salad in Mia’s direction. “Try sleeping next time.” He waved his fork, causing a piece of lettuce to fly off. “And eating food. Like normal people.”
“You won’t feel it now, but wait until you’re older,” Kallie said. “All that exhaustion is going to hit you like a ton of
bricks.”
“Oh, believe me, it’s already hitting me,” Mia replied. “Which is why I’m on my second can of coffee. I thought sleep deprivation
was just part of film school, though?”
Alex groaned from where they were eating a half-unwrapped Uncrustable to “prevent any sticky disasters” while working on their computer.
“You definitely can’t sleep if you specialize in post,” they said. “Everyone’s always sending you the footage last minute
and expecting you to magically clean it all up overnight.”
Mia shot them a guilty look. “Sorry, Alex.” She turned back to the rest of the crew and said, “Let’s finish discussing logistics
quickly so we can help Alex before we head to the slopes. So it seems like every crusher is now cuffed with their crush. Which
is good!”
“Is it really good that everyone’s successfully cuffed with their crush already, though?” Kallie asked. “Maybe we need to
spice things up a bit since it’s only Day Three.”
Mia bit her lip. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to “spice things up,” but she figured it was worth hearing what her friends
had to say.
“We could bring in some new people to challenge the established cuffles,” Damien said. “Kind of like how they have bombshells in Love Island. We’ll have to be careful, though. Since we have limited space in the lodge.”
Mia followed Damien as he walked over to his laptop. “Was there anyone who wanted to be in the show that lives close to Big
Bear?” she asked.
After rapid-fire strikes of his keyboard, he replied, “Yup. There’s one. His name is Kyle Yoshida.”
“Will one guy be enough, though?” Kallie asked. “Maybe it’s worth searching for more girls, too?”
“We can ask a few other people, since we don’t know if Kyle or anyone else can even make it,” Damien reminded her.
“It’s less than a week before Christmas.
There’s a good chance everyone who originally applied is now out of town or busy doing holiday things.
I’ll contact Kyle right now and reach out to some others, too. No guarantees, though.”
“Thanks, Damien,” said Mia.
Kallie thoughtfully crossed her arms. “You know, worst-case scenario, we can bring people back, right? I was thinking of Caleb’s
crush, Carlos? He seemed interesting. He just didn’t have enough time on the show to form any connections. And he has a greater
chance of still being in town, unless he booked a last-minute trip.”
“Good idea,” Damien said. “I’ll contact him as well.”
Mia settled back into her seat and finally bit into her breakfast burrito. The egg and bacon inside were now disgustingly
lukewarm, so she dropped it back onto her plate and pondered upon what her friends had said instead. They definitely had some
interesting ideas. Not ones she would ever have come up with herself, but not so completely out of pocket that she didn’t
want to go through with them.
“All right, then,” Alex said as they finished eating their Uncrustable. “Adding more people sounds great, but let’s keep it
at a maximum of two or three. I don’t want to run around like a headless chicken again.”
“We can definitely do that,” Damien replied. “As always, thanks, Alex. Let us know if you need anything.”
To Mia’s surprise, he looked up from his computer to flash the editor a smile. They returned it with a sheepish grin, which gave Mia pause. Damien and Alex didn’t normally ignore each other, but they also didn’t not ignore each other. So this little interaction was . . . unusual.
Mia cocked her head to the side, wondering if she should say something, but decided to remain quiet for now.
“While Alex is doing that,” Mia said, switching gears, “Kallie, let’s go look at some of the responses to the latest episode
and gauge the viewers’ reactions so far.”
Kallie nodded. “Yup. Come take a look.” She scooted to the side so Mia could pull up another chair to her laptop.
With how chaotic the second episode had been when they were filming it yesterday, Mia had no idea what to expect. To her surprise,
one of the most common discussion topics in the comments was Matías and Noah’s new friendship.
That moment with Matías and Noah in their room! ?? Noah’s so sweet!
I LOVE that they have each other’s backs!
“I think that’s one of the clips that Alex added in from the camera in their room,” Kallie explained. “Apparently the two
of them had a bro moment. We can watch it real quick if you want.”
Mia nodded, and Kallie scrolled through the episode. She stopped at a moment when the screen was completely black. Mia would have thought there was an error with the video if it weren’t for the subtitles Alex had added in at the bottom of the screen.
NOAH: . . . if anyone gives you a hard time for liking guys or anything like that, you let me know.
“Go, Noah!” Kallie said. “Who knew he’s such an ally?”
They went back a bit more and watched the scene from the beginning. Much to her chagrin, Mia couldn’t resist smiling by the
end. She had to admit it: Noah could really be charming sometimes. Just not to her.
“Let’s go through the rest of the comments,” she said.
New responses had popped up by the time they scrolled back down. Romantically, the most popular couple seemed to still be
Noah and Celine. In fact, almost every other comment was now talking about them and their fireside date.
They’re so cute together AHHH
It’s like watching a K-drama!
That kiss!!
Mia frowned. Thankfully, before she could dwell on her own personal feelings about the date, Damien announced, “Okay, Carlos said he can come back up tomorrow. I’m still waiting for other people to reply.”
“That’s great,” Mia replied. “Thanks, Damien!”
She went over to sit by Alex, who was editing an extremely chaotic and hilarious clip of Noah accidentally flinging snow all
around himself.
She laughed, and Alex grinned. “I’m never trusting Noah with a shovel,” they said.
“Nope,” Mia agreed.
This was going to be a very fun episode.