2. Finn
FINN
A n asshole tax!
The words beat against my skull as I stalked across the parking lot, crumpled receipt and bag in one hand, business card in the other. Leaving the stuffiness of In Stitches behind was a small mercy, but freeing myself of that woman’s company…that was the true miracle!
Who did she think she was? I ran one of the most successful production companies in the country. I was entitled to be an asshole. No one would take me seriously any other way.
Hollywood was a pressure cooker. Producer, director, actress—it didn’t matter. One wrong move. One bad review. One misstep and that valve would blow and you’re back to knocking on doors, instead of the other way around, and no one is answering. Did this woman really not get how it worked?
Sierra Banks, Costume Designer, was living in a fantasy world.
I reached my black Ferrari, threw myself down in the driver’s seat, and slammed the door.
Maybe this was fate’s way of giving me a heads-up before the interview, because no way in hell did I want that woman working on my movie—giving me attitude, making trouble, handing out costumes to everyone with a side of asshole tax.
Sweat pooled at the nape of my neck, and I cranked the air conditioning to max, hoping the sound would drown out the rush of blood in my ears.
I’d only stopped at this damn fabric store because I hadn’t felt comfortable entrusting this task to my new assistant, Brenna, with the interviews being tomorrow.
What if she’d shown up with the wrong samples? Better to handle it myself, so I could be sure it was done right. But after the experience I’d just had, I was starting to think I would have preferred subpar samples.
Just thinking her name—Sierra Banks—sent a rush of irritation through me. I revved my engine obnoxiously, just on the off chance it would piss her off while she tidied and locked up for the night.
I glanced back through the front window of In Stitches and spotted her moving across the store with a broom. She’d pulled her auburn hair into a messy clip at the back of her head, showing off that heart-shaped face. She paused her work, her full lips puckered as she stared at something.
I drummed my hand against the steering wheel. Sierra had what this business called an old-Hollywood look. It was more subtle than today’s standard. The kind of beauty that wasn’t quick to catch your eye but that would hold it effortlessly once you took the time to really look.
Not that I cared.
Judging looks was just part of the industry.
I did it out of habit, noticing the soft curves beneath the eclectic layers she wore.
It didn’t mean anything. It wouldn’t mean anything, because after tomorrow’s interview, I was never going to lay eyes on the exasperating woman again—and good riddance .
I shook those thoughts from my mind as she started digging in her pockets. She had so damn many of them. Something tightened in my chest—frustration and a strange heat—as I tore my gaze away. My phone started ringing again, and I answered it without looking at the caller. “Hello?”
“Hey,” my little brother, Connor, said on the other end of the phone.
“Hey,” I said, trying to sound less irritated than I felt. I wasn’t exactly in the mood for a chat, but Connor was going through hell and a half with his divorce, so I always did my best to answer when he called. “How’s it going?”
“Good,” he said.
“Gimme the phone, Dad! I wanna talk!”
Connor huffed with amusement. “Grace has something very important she wants to tell you.”
My irritation instantly melted into curiosity as he turned the phone over to my eight-year-old niece, one of my favorite people in the world.
“Uncle Finn!” Grace bellowed so loud her voice crackled through the speaker.
“Hey, kid,” I said, leaning back in my seat. I let the car idle and pump out that sweet, sweet air conditioning.
“Guess what? Guess what?”
I laughed. She was clearly excited, like she’d been pumped full of sugar. But that only happened when I babysat because Connor was no fun. “What’s up?”
“You know Kenny from my class?”
“Sure.” I actually had no clue, but whatever .
“He’s having a birthday party!” Her voice turned shrill. “And guess whhaaaatttt ! He invited all the kids in my class!”
“That is so cool.” I couldn’t help but smile at her excitement, imagining her tiny face all lit up.
“Tell him what kind of party it is,” Connor prompted in the background.
“Oh, yeah! It’s a Run ‘n’ Gun party!” Grace announced.
I winced. Did Kenny’s parents not realize how much sex and violence were in those movies? Run ‘n’ Gun was Hart of Gold’s most popular franchise.
The first movie had been a megahit that had made me an overnight success, and the movies had basically been printing money ever since. But sex, sexy cars, and sexier women did not make for an appropriate birthday party theme for a bunch of third graders.
I doubted Grace wanted to hear that, though, so I rallied to match her enthusiasm.
“No way, kid!”
“Way!” she cried, making me chuckle.
“What are you bringing as a present?”
Grace paused. “Can you get me something special from the movie?” she pleaded. I knew in person it would be accompanied by an adorable little pout that would have had me prepared to say yes to anything. She had me wrapped around her little finger and I was okay with that.
“We were thinking maybe Uncle Finn has some cool Run ’n’ Gun stuff lying around the studio somewhere?” Connor added .
Oh, so much crap , I thought. And with every production, we accumulated more. “Sounds like this is my chance to yank the title of favorite uncle back from Liam,” I said. My older brother and I had a friendly little competition going, and he’d recently usurped my position.
Connor snorted. “I don’t know. Liam still shows up to play that farming sim with her.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I’ll buy her an actual sheep farm.”
“Don’t you dare,” Connor said. I could tell he was grinning.
“Can it be something really cool?” Grace asked.
“Cool, huh?” Lord knew I understood the desire to look cool in front of her classmates.
Growing up, our mom had struggled with chronic depression, and we became those kids.
Everyone knew we were the ones whose mom flaked out on parent-teacher conferences and who didn’t have anything ready for the bake sale and who forgot to sign the permission slip for the field trip.
And that was just the stuff people could see.
Behind closed doors, it was worse. Bad enough that Liam started finding part-time jobs when he was thirteen for money in his control, because the grocery store didn’t mind us shopping by ourselves when we were just kids, but they drew the line at letting us use Mom’s credit card without her.
Bad enough that Connor learned to cook when he was ten. Bad enough that I could still—to this day—perfectly forge Mom’s signature, thanks to years of signing checks on her behalf to make sure the bills got paid and the power didn’t get cut off—again.
It wasn’t like that all the time. She had good days. Good weeks. Sometimes even good months. But then something would trigger her again, and she’d just go blank. And when that happened, we were on our own .
Over the years, I’d gotten good at making myself the center of attention in a way that drew the spotlight off my crappy home life.
I’d perfected my smile and my schmoozing, however much it annoyed me to turn it on, because people who projected that kind of confidence were automatically seen as successful.
I was an expert at projecting a glossy veneer of “nothing to see here” that kept people from looking closer. And if it made me feel incredibly fake sometimes, then…well, this was Hollywood. We were all a little fake, weren’t we?
All this to say, I understood Grace’s need to make an impression with her gift. The divorce had been tough on her, and I couldn’t blame her for wanting to up her cool factor so that if people whispered behind her back, they did it in a good way.
“What do you want to bring?” I asked. “A prop from the movie? A poster signed by the cast?”
Grace hummed. “Do you have anything signed by Violet?” she asked. “She’s the one on Kenny’s lunch box, so I think she’s his favorite.”
Damn, I didn’t realize we had lunch boxes.
“You can ask her when you see her!” Grace added.
“When I see her?” I repeated, confused.
“Yeah, I saw you guys on all those magazines at the grocery store!” Grace said. “You were holding hands.”
Christ! I rubbed my eyes.
“Yeah, Uncle Finn will get you something,” Connor cut in, clearly taking the phone away from her. “Why don’t you go play your game for a bit, then get ready for bed, okay?”
“Aww,” Grace whined, her voice drifting farther away .
“Sorry about that,” Connor said. “I thought I’d hustled her past the tabloids fast enough to keep her from spotting you. I normally don’t do the shopping, but Grace needed something for school at the last minute, and it was easier just to swing by ourselves.”
“Great,” I muttered. “ Another Violet story.”
“Scandal sells,” Connor said.
“I just don’t know why it’s still a scandal,” I said. “It’s been months. Something else has to be brewing in Hollywood by now.”
“Because it’s Run ’n’ Gun !” Connor said. “It’s huge. That makes this story huge, and you know how the press likes to milk these things.”
I grumbled. My on-again-off-again friends-with-benefits fling with Violet Stone, the lead actress of the Run ’n Gun franchise, had landed us in hot water when she was photographed leaving a hotel with me after reportedly being in a relationship with her new Run ’n’ Gun costar.
No one was actually cheated on, but that sure wasn’t how it looked to the public at large. So now I was Hollywood’s number-one playboy.
“At least you can say you’re the hottest topic in Hollywood.”
“Right,” I said, deadpan. “Because that’s a title I want.” My breath left me in a huff. “The only bright side is with everyone talking about me and Violet, they’re not bringing up the article where Mom panned my movie.” I managed to keep my words light, but my jaw tensed.
Thinking about that UC Berkeley article still left a bad taste in my mouth. My mother was earning her PhD in history there, and when the paper interviewed her, she’d talked about how brainless action movies like Run ’n’ Gun would be the death of real art.
“You know that quote was taken out of context,” Connor—always Mom’s biggest defender—said quickly.
He’d called me right after the article circulated and explained that Mom had mixed up film franchises.
So even though she was critiquing my movie, she didn’t realize it was my movie. “She got confused.”
That didn’t make me feel any better. “She called action films a plague to creativity.”
“Finn—”
“Oh, wait. Another one of my favorite lines: ‘mindless drivel leaving the youth of today with nothing to aspire to except gratuitous violence.’”
“I know it was shitty,” Connor said. “But it really was just a misunderstanding.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. I was pissed at Mom, not Connor, and I wasn’t going to take my frustration out on the wrong target.
“Seriously, Finn,” Connor continued, his voice softening. “You know Mom’s proud of all you’ve done.”
“Sure sounds like it,” I muttered. “Don’t worry, though.
It’s not like I’m gonna call her up to talk about it.
” I’d never be so stupid. Mom was in a better place now than when we were kids, but she was still…
delicate. “The last thing any of us has time for right now is to drag Mom out of a depression spiral.”
“She’s been doing all right,” Connor said. “Did I tell you she’s about to defend her dissertation?”
“Awesome. Well, when she’s finished with that, you can let her know I’m officially done making forgettable art. This next production is going to be my award winner.”
“You can tell her that yourself,” Connor pointed out.
“You’ll see her before I will.” Not only did Mom live in San Francisco, she was also a frequent babysitter for Grace.
She was a part of Connor’s daily life in a way that wasn’t really feasible with Liam or me.
“Anyway, I think Every Day Is Sunday will actually make her proud. It should be right up her alley with the nineteen-twenties setting.”
Connor chuckled. “I still can’t believe you’re doing a period piece.”
“Why?” I bristled. Because I didn’t look like a guy who could pull off something more than explosions and car chases? I was more than capable of making meaningful art. I’d forced the industry to take me seriously as a power broker, but now I was going to force them to take my work seriously, too.
“It’s just…different from your usual stuff,” Connor said. “That’s all. Don’t get huffy.”
“No one said that to Liam when he veered away from his usual brand for End in Fire ,” I grumbled.
Our older brother’s streaming platform had been built on reality TV shows.
End in Fire was his first scripted series, and it had been a massive hit on every level—huge viewership numbers and lots of critical acclaim.
“That’s true,” Connor agreed. “I guess period films just sound boring in my head. Won’t it be less fun making that type of film?”
“A period piece can be more exciting than you’re imagining,” I said. “Think less Little Women and more gangs and prohibition.”
“I guess,” Connor said. I could hear Grace calling for him in the background. “Talk to you later?”
“Yeah, bye.” I hung up, and my gaze drifted to the bag of fabric samples sitting on the passenger seat. Sierra’s face resurfaced in my mind, her dark blue eyes somehow fiery up close. She certainly hadn’t thought period costuming sounded boring.
I remembered how passionate she’d been rambling about the fabrics, how determined she’d been to show me up, how infuriating . I had to stop thinking about her because this project required my full attention, and the way I responded to her was a distraction I definitely didn’t need.
I scowled as I threw the Ferrari in reverse, already dreading having to see her again when she turned up for the interview tomorrow.