Page 66 of He's The Reason Why

“Charming? Helpful? Incredibly supportive?” Blake flashed her a flirty look over his shoulder.

“Incredibly…obnoxious. I’m going”—she sniffed and pointed to the back corner of the room—“over there. You’renotallowed to come with me.”

“Come on, Princess,” Blake cajoled. “Youneedme and my magic compass. It always points true. Let’s work together.”

“I need to save my sister. You don’t care about that.”

“I do,” Blake said with a sincere nod. “You have no idea how much.”

“You don’t even know my sister,” she protested.

“But I know you, and I like you. I’m sure I’ll like her too.”

“I’m rescuing her from an evil sorcerer, not setting you up on a date.”

They argued back and forth, with Jesse trying to convince Jewel he was the man to solve all her problems, while Jewel tried to convince him she didn’t need a man to save her.

Suddenly, Blake’s eyes widened, and he pointed. “Minions!”

A touch of actual panic rushed through her, and she squeaked. “Minions? Where?”

Blake beckoned to her. “Run, Princess, run!”

“We’re stuck between them and a raging river! How do we get across that?”

“Can you swim?” Blake asked.

“No. Can you?” Piper asked.

“Sure.” He looked doubtful. “Maybe we can make a raft.”

It was such a ridiculous thing to say that she put her hands on her hips. “Right. We’ll just run to the hardware store and buy rope and logs and hammer and nails. I’m sure the minions will wait.”

“Bad guys always lie in wait. It’s their defining characteristic,” Blake said. His lips twitched.

She burst out laughing.

“Okay, that was fun until it fell apart,” Blake said with a chuckle.

“Hey, every kingdom should have a hardware store.”

The intercom clicked on.

“Delightful,” Tamar said. She beamed at them through the glass. “I like this take. A lot. Let’s take a break. I want to get Paul in here.”

The intercom clicked off. Tamar spun in her chair and appeared to be texting.

Piper and Blake exchanged glances.

“What’s that about?” Piper asked.

It had been a silly warm-up exercise, not an actual take. So why did Tamar look so excited?

“If I had to guess…” Blake sighed. “I’d say she wants to rework the scene.”

“Rework?” The way he said that it sounded like a bad, bad thing. But Tamar had seemed excited. “It was just for fun, right? We were just warming up.”

“Itwasfun.” Blake grimaced. “But more than that, it was really good. You can feel when a scene just works, and what we just did…it worked.”

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