17. Gavin
Gavin
“Bree, can you crack that egg one more time?”
I watched Bree squint over at Lavi. She was trying her best to show him exactly how she felt about that request, but Lavi being Lavi went about smiling, completely oblivious to her facial hints.
I’d completely misread Lavi, honestly, back when I first met him.
Off the clock, the guy really was exactly what he looked like.
Rainbows and confetti, a walking halo. But the second he was actually behind a camera, directing a shot, that whole rainbow burst apart.
Sprinkles scattered everywhere. He turned into this deranged rodeo cowboy, about as far from a gentle unicorn as you could possibly get.
But his heart was always in the right place. That’s exactly why Bree had cracked the seventh egg into that bowl, all so Lavi could get his perfect shot.
She slowly poured the egg into the pan. “Is that good enough for you now, Lavi?” she said through her teeth.
Lavi didn’t catch a single ounce of her irritation. “All good. Yes, perfect. But don’t talk. This is just a shot of your hands.”
Bree opened her mouth like she was about to say something, then shut it right back and kept working the omelet.
For the past three weeks, Lavi had been shadowing Bree pretty much everywhere she went, so much so that the two of them had turned into genuine friends.
They’d started going to the spa together.
Sometimes his fiancé, Danny, came along too.
Lavi had gotten close to Bree, sure, but somehow he’d also gotten close to me, in this way that felt almost like having a brother around.
And his actual footage? God, it was gold. Every single time I’d asked him to show me a full cut of what he had so far, he flat-out refused. He wanted me and Bree to watch it together, all at once, once it was finished.
But from the pieces I had seen, whatever he was putting together was exactly what I’d pictured.
Honestly, it was better than anything I could’ve imagined myself.
Dreamy little shots of Bree walking through her regular day, no posing, no staging, just her, being herself.
Her drawing at her desk, tongue poking out slightly in concentration.
Her sliding trays of pastries onto the counter at the deli, sunlight cutting in sideways through the front window.
Everything stripped down and simple, genuinely capturing exactly who she was.
Lavi was shooting it like it was some kind of bestselling memoir that had somehow come to life right in front of the camera.
And every time I pushed him to show me more, he shut me down, same answer every time.
Whatever ideas Lavi had, he ran every single one of them past Bree first, exactly like I’d asked him to.
“Darling, just pretend I’m not here,” Lavi said now.
“But you are here,” Bree said. “With your big ass camera.”
“Pretend I’m the wall.”
“An impatient wall?”
“Yes, a wall, Bree. A wall.” He straightened up behind the camera. “I’m a big wall. Not talking anymore. I’m dead. Not here. Now go. Action.”
Bree went back to finishing the omelet.
It had taken a few days to actually convince her to agree to any of this in the first place.
She kept insisting she didn’t want to be in it, that the whole point was supposed to be a documentary about me.
I told her the truth. That the entire reason I’d agreed to do this documentary to begin with was that I wanted something for my legacy after I retired.
Something the world, or anyone curious about my life, could look back at, forever.
Something that actually showed people who I really was, and it had taken me way too long to understand that who I really was had everything to do with who she was.
As a person. As my partner in this whole life.
I owed every single bit of it to her, and I couldn’t think of a better legacy to leave behind than the world finally getting to know the woman who’d stood behind me, holding everything together, through my entire career.
Who, even after everything I’d put her through, still showed up as my lucky charm.
Who always put my wellbeing first, no matter what.
The least I could do, after everything, was put her first. Finally. Out loud. In front of the whole world.
I was so glad she’d finally agreed.
Because these past three weeks, with Lavi behind the camera, and me sometimes standing right there next to him, I’d started seeing Bree in a completely different light.
I noticed how her eyes picked up this little tint of brown in them whenever she laughed too hard at one of Lavi’s jokes.
I noticed how she licked the sides of her fingers first, not the tips, whenever she taste-tested one of Melvin’s new recipes.
I noticed her forehead, how it creased into exactly two little lines when she was deep in thought, and three lines when she was arguing with Lavi about how a shot should go.
In every single one of those little moments, I found myself silently thanking God for giving me another shot at winning her back. And I was determined, all the way down, to keep doing exactly that, slowly, steadily, no matter what it took.
“When are you going to let me see this, Lav?” Bree asked. “Do I ever get the golden ticket?”
“Yeah, girl, don’t worry,” Lavi said. “You’d think you were dying to see yourself on screen.”
“I’m dying to see just how horrible I’m going to look. That’s all.”
“I’ve made you look perfect, exactly the way you already are, darling.”
“Awww,” I said.
Bree laughed.
“Except for the blooper section,” Lavi added.
“No way,” Bree said. “You are not putting bloopers in this documentary.”
“Of course I am,” Lavi said. “Gavin gave me full creative freedom.”
“You cannot abuse that freedom, Lavi. With great power comes great responsibility. No. You can’t do that.”
Right then, Melvin and Lauren wandered in.
“What’d we miss?” Melvin asked.
“Lavi wants to keep the bloopers in the final cut,” Bree said.
“You must,” Melvin said. “In fact, I insist you add mine too.”
“Dad,” Bree said.
She looked over at me, and I threw both hands up like I had absolutely nothing to do with any of this.
“It’s all Lavi,” I said.
“Okay, okay, jokes aside,” Lavi said. “I’ve got one more night of editing left.
I want to show you guys the first cut tomorrow.
I might have to pull an all-nighter, but I’m doing it, because I love you, Bree.
” He blew her a kiss. “And I love you, boss.” He blew me one too.
“And I want you both to watch it on a special day.”
“What special day?” I asked. “What’s tomorrow?”
Bree looked just as confused as I felt.
“Bree mentioned once that you two first met the night of your very first game with the Redcoats,” Lavi said. “So I looked it up. And it turns out, tomorrow’s the exact date.”
“So the first cut,” he said, pointing around the room at everyone standing there, “will be watched, first, by all of you lucky people. And Danny, obviously, if that’s okay with everybody.”
“Have you thought of a name for it yet?” Bree asked him.
“Gavin came up with it,” Lavi said.
“It’s called My Lucky Charm: The Bree Blakley Story.”
I looked over at Bree, and I could see it hit her, right there, that same little knot rising up in her throat that she always got right before she tried too hard to swallow it back down.