Page 105 of A Lucky Shot

He grabbed two DVDs off his short-listed stack of over a dozen, hiding them behind his back. “Let’s start with these. Left or right?”

She tapped his right arm, and he brandished an early seventies French film with a flourish. She clapped her hands. “Oh, excellent! Subs, not dubs?”

“Obviously.”

“Left or right.” Josh kneeled in front of her, hands behind his back again.

Cass reclined against the cushions they’d dragged onto the floor and tapped her lips in exaggerated concentration. “Left.”

“My left or your left?”

She pressed her lips together, utterly failing to prevent herself from smiling, and nudged his left arm.

“Wait.” He twisted over his shoulder and switched his hands. “Perfect.”

“We’re just on the second movie, and you’re cheating already!”

“Are you going to put up a fight about it?”

Cass huffed. “No. That’s one of my favourite movies of the last ten years.”

“Me, too,” he said, putting it into the DVD player. He sat beside her and held out his arm. “Are you hungry yet?”

She settled into the crook of his arm and let the scent of his sleep and the citrusy sandalwood that always clung to him wash over her.

“I’m starting to get hungry, but let’s watch this first.”

“Right or left?”

Josh chewed his mishmash of leftovers and gestured with his fork. “Wheft,” he said around a bite of mashed potatoes.

“Ooh!” Cass wiggled as she switched out the movies and hit play. She sunk into the couch, settling her plate back on her lap. “Historical costume design isn’t always my favourite, but what they did with this.” She kissed her fingertips. “Sublime.”

He wobbled his head as he chewed. “It’s alright,” he said finally.

“And to think I let this Philistine into my apartment,” she muttered under her breath, and Josh snickered. “It’s a visual masterpiece telling the story of what it is like to be a teenage girl in the public eye. It should be mandatory viewing for child actors.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. It completely inspired me to draw fan art for Tideways.”

A garbled choke erupted from Josh’s throat. “Hold up,” he said, eyes watering as he coughed before he managed to swallow his food. “You know Tideways?”

“Yep.” She motioned with her chin to her bookshelf in the corner. “Two editions.”

Josh hit pause on the movie and turned to look at her fully. “Do you still have your art?”

It had been years since she’d drawn it, but it was some of her favourite conceptual work, and she felt her cheeks warm with pride. She rifled through the desk where her sewing machine sat and passed a stack of loose papers to his outstretched hands.

“The movie adaptation was …” she paused, searching for the right words, shuffling through the colourful pages, “not an artistic choice I would have made. Tideways as a gritty western reboot? Please. It’s like they didn’t bother reading the book. Clearly, it should have been a candy-coloured eye-fest like this,” she finished, waving at the movie paused on the screen.

Josh leafed through pages and pages of colour block designs. “I couldn’t agree with you more,” he murmured.

“Wait. Give me a minute.” Cass closed her eyes and let an enormous smile spread across her features. “You just agreed with me.” She sighed for dramatic effect. “That was beautiful.”

“Don’t let it go to your head,” he said, and slid the designs back into the folder. “Mind if I borrow these? I want to look at them when the light is better.”

Cass glowed. “Your wish is my command.”

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