Page 19 of A Lucky Shot

She tilted her head up to drill him with her gaze. “Is it a faithful adaptation?”

“Yes,” he said, then added, “with gender-flipped main characters.” The genre didn’t need another female main character getting fridged. The dude could go on ice for once.

“Gender flipped isn’t exactly faithful.”

“The core of the story is the same.”

“That’ll piss off the fanboys.”

“Something always does.” He bit his tongue, ordering himself not to offer to flip back the gender roles. Keep your fucking mouth shut.

“Alright,” she said finally. “I want it by Friday. I’ll read it on the weekend.”

Josh swallowed a bubble of panic. Sci-fi was not having a moment. The book was too niche. The Sirius Darker fandom had the worst kind of gatekeepers, testing arcane trivia to see if newcomers were worthy enough to be a fan. He’d picked away at the script since university. It was as much a fanfic as a passion project, half done, with no plans on ever sending it out for spec. Getting it done for the weekend? It would be nearly impossible.

He’d do anything to make it happen.

“Absolutely Mrs. W—I mean Melanie. It’ll be in your inbox on Friday.”

Because so what if he already worked fourteen-hour days? Friday was all the way at the other end of the week. Sleep was for assholes, anyway.

A tidy little pile of coke would’ve come in handy right about now.

“You look like shit, bro.”

“Fuck you, too.” The fuzz clouding Josh’s brain made him feel like he was thinking through wool, and a sheen of nausea coated his intestines. He’d gutted his way through fifteen pages, a pot of coffee, and a packet of instant ramen noodles every night for the last week while Stephen crept in and out of the condo like a shadow. But his completed script had hit Melanie’s inbox at a quarter to midnight that Friday, as promised.

He didn’t even consider scrolling through his contacts to unwind, falling into bed, alone, minutes after hitting send and sleeping a decadent six hours before getting back onto set. He barely remembered getting through the day.

“You could have saved us from your sparkling personality until you actually needed to be here,” Stephen said. “Seriously, go sleep in the trailer. I’ll call you when we need you.”

Josh nursed his third venti Americano of the Sunday afternoon—to the mutual displeasure of his blood pressure and stomach lining—and peered at the call sheets through gritty eyes. The crew wouldn’t miss him for an hour. It was a sign of how under slept he was that he considered Stephen’s offer. He was about to head towards the trailer’s relative quiet when his phone buzzed in his pocket and his already skyrocketing blood pressure jumped a few more points.

Only three contacts were selected to break the Do Not Disturb notification ban on his phone: His mother, who never called during the day when she might be with clients; Melanie, who called whenever the hell she felt like it; and Vivian, who only called at the most presciently inconvenient times. He hit accept without bothering to check the caller ID.

If Melanie was calling him already, the script was either really good or he’d really fucked up.

Didn’t matter. The script was a draft. Draft-lite. It was an uninsulated house without windows level of draftiness. If she didn’t like it, he could revise. Honestly, he knew it had been shit when he’d sent it to her. He shouldn’t have told her he could do it in a week. He should scrap it and start from scratch. He could?—

She didn’t even give him a chance to say hi. “You said it was faithful.”

His blood turned to ice. It hadn’t been unfaithful. The message was the same. Locations, settings. Even half the line readings. Just not the eighties space race backdrop. Or the melodrama.

Did she want the melodrama? Fuck.

“Mrs. Westwood, I’ve?—”

“People will lose their shit if we film it like this, and I don’t know how many times I have to remind you to call me Melanie.”

“Melanie, if you have notes, I can get to work on revisions.”

“Absolutely not. It’s genius.”

Josh stood in stunned silence. Melanie was many things. Prone to hyperbole was not one of them.

She liked it.

Be cool. Josh kept his face neutral, like at any moment it would turn into a FaceTime call. “You thinking of optioning it?”

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