25. Finn
FINN
“ T his is a big day for you,” I teased as I threaded my fingers through Sierra’s. “You’ve finally graduated from staged restaurant dates to staged excursions.”
“Is that what we’re calling the Santa Monica Pier?” Sierra joked as we wandered our way down the boardwalk, walking off our lunch. “An excursion?”
“That’s what Jillian’s plan calls it. Do you want to argue with her?”
Sierra grinned softly, her cheeks pink, and I squeezed her hand, tugging her until she bumped against my side. “I think an excursion requires more exertion. Like a hike.”
“Maybe Jillian has one of those on the list too. We could hike Runyon Canyon or something.”
“Not as likely to randomly bump into photographers out there,” Sierra pointed out.
Maybe I didn’t care all that much about bumping into a photographer.
I knew they were around today, not on Hart of Gold’s dime, but I’d largely been able to put that from my mind, letting myself forget for long stretches that this was all pre-arranged for the tabloids or to get articles about Every Day trending.
It didn’t feel like putting on a show. Not at all. Sierra had been entirely relaxed with me today, and I didn’t have to work nearly as hard to keep her from overthinking where the cameras were. Our conversation flowed as naturally as if I’d planned this date for us myself.
“Oh!” she said excitedly as we came upon the Pacific Wheel.
“Are you about to ask me to go on the Ferris wheel with you?” I said, kissing her cheek.
Her smile turned coy. “Don’t you think that would make the perfect publicity shot?” she said. “It’s the height of romance.”
“Mmm, I don’t know about it being the height of romance,” I said. “Though I agree it wheel make for a very cinematic shot.”
“Was that supposed to be a pun?” she said, her mouth forming a tiny O .
“Did I succeed?”
“I will accept it,” she said.
I tugged her toward the Ferris wheel.
She tugged back. “No, we don’t actually have to. I was kidding.”
“I don’t think you were,” I said. “I think you want me to kiss you at the top of the Ferris wheel, and I intend to do just that.”
“Finn,” she said, catching her lip between her teeth for a beat. “Seriously, we don’t have to. It’s so busy. And I didn’t really mean?—”
“We do have to,” I said. “You wanted to. I can tell by how excited you got when you suggested it. ”
“We don’t have time. We’re supposed to be done and over with this date in fifteen minutes so we can go back to?—”
“We’re going up there,” I insisted. “Even if I have to buy out the whole damn wheel to get us on it before this date ends.”
The corner of her mouth quirked as she shook her head. “No need to do anything crazy.”
“I just want you to be happy,” I said, noting the way her cheeks flooded with color. “Just because we’re putting on a show for the cameras doesn’t mean we can’t have a little real fun.”
“That’s very sweet of you.” She stepped closer, threading her arms around my neck as she looked up at me.
“Sometimes I’m a sweet guy.” I kissed her temple. “But keep that to yourself.”
“Who would believe me?”
I gave a husky laugh. “Exactly.” It was crazy to think how far we’d come since that first fake date where she could hardly stand for me to put my hand on her knee.
“But tell me more about this real fun,” she said, her eyebrows lifting.
I wrapped my arms around her waist, bunching her shirt between my fingers. “Well, it involves getting very horizontal.”
“Mm-hmm,” she said. “And then?”
“Getting a little naked,” I whispered in her ear.
“I see. And after that?”
“Then I’m going to take my hand and—” My phone rang.
“Hold that thought.” Her lips twisted as I pulled my phone from my pocket, frowning as it displayed the name of one of the assistant editors.
“Hello?” I said. I had a meeting to review some of the film tomorrow, so I hadn’t expected to hear from them today.
“Finn, glad I caught you. There’s a problem and we need to see you back at the studio.”
I frowned. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“It would be better to explain it to you face to face.” I could hear the panic in his voice and I was getting annoyed at his evasiveness.
The team was working on the edits for the final fight sequences and worry shot up my spine. I suspected I knew the answer but I wanted to hear it from him.
“Tell me what the fuck is going on,” I snarled.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Sierra asked. She couldn’t hear Anthony, but my rising anger wasn’t hard to miss.
I turned the phone away from my mouth to speak with her. “He won’t say, but they’re working on the big fight sequences and there’s a problem or he wouldn’t be calling.”
“The shootout?” she asked, her eyes widening. “Where Tommy dies?” I could see the worry in her eyes. There’d been so much detailed costume work that went into that sequence—and thanks to the fake blood, none of those costumes were wearable anymore.
Fuck . “Just say it, Anthony. Is anything usable?”
“X is here now,” Anthony replied. “He said you need to come in and see it for yourself.”
“Just tell me if we’re gonna need to do reshoots,” I snapped. Double fuck . This was my worst nightmare as a producer. Anthony’s silence said it all. “I’ll be right over,” I growled. I hung up, glancing at Sierra. “We need to go back to the studio right now. ”
“Are they sure it’s unusable?” Sierra asked, jogging along beside me as I stalked back down the boardwalk toward the parking lot.
“He wouldn’t say. We should plan for that, anyway. I need you to figure out how to handle costuming if we redo the sequence,” I said.
She groaned. “We used so much fake blood, Finn. We couldn’t get it all out even after running some of the garments through the wash multiple times.”
“Figure out what you need from me and how long it’s going to take to have the costumes ready.”
She whipped her phone out, pulling up Paisley’s number.
Meanwhile, I got on the phone with Brenna. “Have you heard yet?”
“I’m just getting read in by X now,” she said. “Where do you want to start?”
“I need to see the footage before I can say for sure, but I’m assuming we’ll be doing reshoots.
I need cast and crew back on set ASAP,” I told her.
“Third act shootout up until Tommy’s death.
That’s all the leads. Some background. Can you start reaching out to agents now to figure out availability? ”
“On it,” she said. “I’ll make the calls and get back to you within the hour.”
“Just meet me in post-production. Sierra and I are headed back now.”
When I hung up, Sierra was on the phone with Paisley, discussing how to remove the fake blood and which scraps of material were salvageable. I heard her say a few things about a seven-day turnaround that had me grimacing.
We did not have time to wait a week for new costumes. I ran my hand down my face. I hadn’t watched the dailies for this particular sequence because I’d left early to take Sierra on one of our fake dates .
Dammit!
Frustration surged through me. This was what happened when I took my eyes off the prize and let my lines get crossed between what was real and what was a PR necessity.
Because what use was Every Day trending over that damn war movie if we now needed to push the release date because of unexpected reshoots?
If we didn’t get this sorted ASAP, this movie wouldn’t make it to theaters before the end of the year, and we could kiss the upcoming awards season goodbye. That would mean we’d been doing all this PR bullshit for no reason.
By the time we reached the car, my jaw ached from how hard I’d clenched my teeth. Sierra caught my eye over the roof of the Ferrari. “Maybe it’s not as bad as they think.” The tense look on her face said otherwise. “Maybe it’ll be salvageable.”
“I fucking hope so.”
“Is that your mother’s car?” Sierra asked when we pulled into the studio lot fifty minutes later. She was right. It was.
“What the hell is she doing here?” I was already seething; I didn’t need to add dealing with her today to the long list of shit I now needed to tackle.
“Do you think X called her?”
“I don’t know why. We don’t need the historical consultant for a couple of reshoots.
Those scenes are locked.” Frankly, it was about time for her to be getting back to San Francisco.
I didn’t know why she was still hanging around LA other than to annoy the hell out of Liam and Mia.
That was a later problem. I got out of the car, slamming the door a little too hard as I set off for post-production, Sierra chasing at my heels.
When I stormed in, I found X and my mother deep in conversation with Anthony and several other editors.
“Mr. Lockhart!” one of the assistants said, jumping to her feet. She rolled a chair out for me. I waved it away.
“Where’s Pedro?” I snapped. I wanted the best on this fix.
“He’s on his way in,” Anthony said. “But I don’t think there’s anything he can do.”
“Show me the scene,” I said.
The assistant jammed her hand down on a button, and the ruined scene played on the massive screen in front of us. The scene itself was fine, but the audio was a nightmare, because overlaying the dialogue was X and my mother, flirting like they were the only ones on set!
“…just want to get you alone,” X said.
Oh, God!
“Lucky for you I can make that happen,” my mother replied in a tone I’d never heard before. “Liam’s place should be free tonight.”
What the absolute fuck was going on? Were they seriously planning to hook up?
“We had fun there last time,” X said.
They’d already hooked up? Jesus Christ!
Sierra latched onto my arm like she was trying to stop me from exploding as I whipped my head around to face my mother and X.
Mom had gone so red it looked like she’d attempted to tan on the surface of the sun, and X had covered his face with his hand.
They were acting like a pair of teenagers I’d caught on the couch .
It felt like my brain was oozing out my ears. Why the fuck was X flirting with my mother? Why was he doing anything other than his job, which was directing this goddamn movie?
“Finn,” Sierra started, but I yanked my hand out of her grip.
“What the hell happened here?” I finally snapped.
“I think it’s obvious,” X started. “The audio didn’t pick up the dialogue for the scene.”
“Yes, I can hear how goddamn obvious it is!” I seethed. “I can’t believe you’d be so unprofessional!”
X’s jaw clenched.
“Is this our only take?” I demanded of the editors who all jumped.
“It was the best take,” Anthony said, wheeling around to skip through the other options. “We could try splicing some of the other ones together, but it’s going to look choppy regardless of how we do it. And I don’t know if that’s how you want your climactic scene to look.”
“So you’re telling me reshoots are our only option?” I said, looking from X to Anthony.
“Yes,” they both said.
“If we want the sequence to be as effective as possible, that’s what I would suggest,” X continued. “We could attempt doing a voiceover, but it might not sync well. Plus, I think we’d fail to capture the same emotional impact of the performance.”
I’d seen what can happen with voiceovers. What was fine for high throttle movie simply would not work for this. The audience would know. I would know .
I huffed out a breath between my teeth. This was supposed to be our award-winning moment. And I wanted the authenticity of a real performance, not something captured in a sound booth. If we didn’t pull it off right, I might as well kiss the Oscar goodbye now.
“This is absolutely ridiculous.” I glared at my mother. “I knew having you here would end up being a disaster.”
“Finn,” she began. “I didn’t mean for this?—”
“Just stop,” I said, cutting her off. This was always how things with Mom ended.
It’s how they’d been since I was a kid, with me and my brothers left on our own to figure out how to deal with all the stuff Mom hadn’t been able to handle—which had been everything .
I’d never been able to rely on her back then. And I clearly couldn’t rely on her now.
“There were two people at fault here,” X said, but I threw my hand up. I didn’t want to hear it from him, either.
“I didn’t want you here in the first place,” I told my mother. “And this was exactly why. Because here you are, once again, screwing me over.”
“Finn,” Sierra said, her voice cutting through the throbbing anger in my mind. But it wasn’t enough to stop me. I bit my tongue around my mother all the time, worried about pushing her over the edge, but this was too much.
This was my movie, my company…The entire rebrand was at stake, and my mother had ruined it all by putting herself first, fooling around with my goddamn director on the sidelines.
“I’m sorry,” my mother said, blinking hard, her eyes turning glassy. I didn’t want her apology. For once, I just didn’t want to have to clean up after her .
I shook my head, overflowing with frustration and defeat and so much annoyance I didn’t even know what to say next. She made that easy for me, though, and fled the room in tears. I stuffed down the wave of regret that rolled through my chest as I watched her go.
Sierra knocked my shoulder as she surged after her.
X started after her too, but I stepped in front of him. “We have reshoots to plan,” I growled. “And that comes first.”