My heart was beating uncharacteristically loud as I walked into the collaboration lab. My script felt heavy in my hands and it felt like the sweat from my hands was dripping like a faucet. I prayed that my fingertips wouldn't leave those gross sweat indentions on the paper. I didn't even know why I was so nervous.
My eyes scanned the large room that was various beanbags, high chairs, and TV monitors situated throughout it. Most people had found their groups already as evidenced by the deafening roar that filled the air, but since the subway had a little delay this morning, I was about five minutes late. Or maybe ten. Fifteen at the latest.
After a few moments, my eyes found the two people I was looking for. Kyra and Tyler were situated at a table near the back corner of the room. Tyler had his laptop open and some headphones hanging around his neck showing Kyra something that made her melodic laughter fill the air. Today Kyra's hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, a rare but appreciated occurrence because I could annoy her by lightly tugging on it every now and then, which would cause her to adorable scrunch her nose in annoyance and whine my name. She had a pencil balanced behind her ear, most likely for the storyboards that were stacked under her closed laptop. My mind wondered how many laughs they'd shared while waiting for me. If Tyler had grown an appreciation for how Kyra shows all her teeth when she really really laughs, or if Kyra had noticed the adorable dimples that push to the surface of Tyler's cheeks when he smiled or the amused glint he got in his eye.
"Hey," I announced as I gently grabbed Kyra's ponytail and lightly yanked so her head was looking straight up at me.
"Addy-" she whined but was cut off by me planting a quick kiss on her lips.
Her eyebrows scrunched together as she tried to remain mad at me, but we both knew she couldn't. I winked down at her before I sat between them in the empty chair they'd saved for me. "Hey man," Tyler brightly greeted as I dapped him up, his skin feeling warm against mine.
"Hey," I said as he patted my back before the embrace broke. "Sorry, I'm late, the subway was delayed."
"Yeah, Kyra told me," Tyler said as the corners of his lips twitched likely due to an amused grin egging on as shown by the way he raised his brow.
I rolled my eyes in faux annoyance as I slung my arm over Kyra. "Yeah, yeah, well, I have the script. I toiled over it for millennia, sacrificed a goat, and fought a demon."
"So, it's decent?" Tyler said as he peeled open the cover page and looked at the story that was meticulously typed in Courier 12-point font.
I scoffed. "It's beyond decent. It better be, I sacrificed my favorite goat."
Kyra laughed as she leaned in closer to Tyler to see the script.
"There," I said as I removed the paperclip that held the pages together, revealing a second copy. I didn't know if it was the jealousy in me or something else, but I didn't like them so close together physically, even if there was an inch of space between their shoulders.
"Why, thank you," she dramatically said as she plucked the papers from my grip.
The thing that gives any creative the most anxiety is watching someone react to your work right in front of your face. It was one thing for someone to tell you they hated your work over text or on a social media post, but to see their facial expressions contort and change right in front of you, then see them quickly try to cover it up was nerve-wracking.
I watched as the furrowed between Tyler's brows became deeper and deeper as his eyes took in the words, and Kyra's tongue poked out between her lips and slowly moistened her soft pink lips in a way that made my heart beat out of my chest.
The anticipation was slowly killing me, eating at me like a parasite as I tried my best to keep a poker face.
They couldn't hate it, right? I combined their ideas into a cohesive story. Papa and Padre liked it. Even Azzy didn't hate it, so it had to be decent, right? Well, the main character could be kind of annoying at times. Did people even talk the way I wrote the dialogue? Padre did always say that writing believable dialogue was the hardest challenge any writer could face--
I was pulled from the storm of doubts in my head when they both put down the script, almost at the same time. They silently looked at each other, mutely tallying up my points like the judges on TV talent contests, holding my very fate in their hands. I literally felt like I was going to explode.
Tyler was the first to break their locked glance and he put his hand on my shoulder. Oh no, people only did that before they were going to deliver bad news. I silently sucked in a breath as all my muscles tensed in an effort to protect my heart against the verbal blow that was about to be thrown my way. "Addison, I, uh...I love it!" Tyler said as he and Kyra cracked smiles.
"Couldn't have said it better myself, Ty," Kyra said with a grin before she placed a quick kiss on my lips. "Good job, babe."
I pushed out the breath that I was holding hostage in my lungs and punched both of them, causing their laughter to fill the air. Some other groups looked at us, but none of us cared enough to lower our volume or stop. "I hate both of you," I said once we calmed down. "You two really had me scared, especially with that telepathic stare off you two had. That was intense."
"I was just following his lead," Kyra confused before she stuck out her fist.
He laughed as their hands met. "I know how much you hate anticipation and you already looked so nervous, I couldn't pass up such a golden opportunity."
"Ha, ha, ha," I dryly stated before I flipped him off.
"Alright, alright, let's talk about shots and make a mood board," Kyra said as she sobered up and cracked open her computer. "We can play with color a lot in this film, and give it a gray grade. Oh, we can use a lot of dutch angles, especially when he encounters the Headmaster. Ooh, my department just got a new rig, so I can use it at the top of act two."
Tyler and I blankly stared at her, her film lingo going far above our heads. She looked at us. "What?"
"To be honest, Ky, ya lost me at 'mood board'," Tyler confessed as he picked up a storyboard. "Is that what these are? How do you put moods in these?"
"No, stupid, those are storyboards," I said as I took it from him, causing Kyra to grin.
"So you understood what I was saying right?"
My confidence fell into my toes. "Uh...you lost me at 'grade'."
She groaned and put her hands in her hands. "Love you both, but I literally got paired with the two most clueless film people ever."
"That's why I'm a writer."
"And that's why I'm a producer. See, if I threw around words like bus and automation and flexes you wouldn't have any idea what I was talking about either," Tyler jabbed.
"I will not argue with you on that," I said as I put my hands up in surrender.
"Touche," Kyra agreed as she opened a website that was all too familiar to me. As she typed and clicked on various things, layouts that looked like the aesthetic boards in her room popped up.
"Ooh," I said, things suddenly falling into place. "Those are mood boards. I get it now."
"Yeah," she said in a tone you'd save for a baby, causing me to playfully shove her.
"What are they for?" Tyler asked, his shoulder pressing against mine as he leaned in closer to see the screen.
My heart skipped.
"I use these to kind of layout the color scheme that I want. Like this one," she said as she clicked on a board that had a lot of flat, muted frames from various movies, "was for a project I did earlier in the year that was dystopian. The colors on these are very muted without a lot of color. That's called a color grade, aka, how the picture looks. Different color grades mean different things. The lack of color for this one, for example, symbolizes the oppression and lack of individualism the people have, thus the colors are taken out to make the audience feel trapped too. Colors play a huge role in films, a role too big for me to explain in one sitting, but yeah. I also use them for shots I might want to re-create or sets that I like. It kind of helps me collect my thoughts before I storyboard, which are what those are," she said, motioning to the paper Tyler had had. "Those are used to sketch out the shots so the director and camera operators know what they're doing before they do it."
"Woah," was all Tyler could say, causing Kyra to chuckle.
"Yeah, woah. And that's not even the half of it."
"That's crazy. I didn't even realize the color graze until you just said it."
"Color grade," she politely corrected. "But yeah, not many people do, that's kind of the point: to affect people without them realizing they're affected. The same way with music, right? You want people to feel a certain way with the music without them realizing they're being emotionally manipulated."
"It sounds really devious when you put it that way," he chuckled, showing off those adorable dimples--no stop! You can't think like that, nothing about him is adorable in the slightest. "Okay, and what is this?" Tyler asked as he pointed to something else on the screen, causing Kyra's eyes to light up.
"Okay, this is going to make me sound like a nerd, but this is..." Her words faded into the background and all I could focus on was how good they clicked. Their conversation flowed naturally through their shared passion for electronic arts.
I realized how hard it was going to be to keep my two worlds apart.
Especially when the butterflies in my stomach didn't cease as both of their shoulders rubbed against mine.
***
Hey y'all, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and if so, make sure to comment and vote! Addi is really struggling with Kyra and Tyler. What do you think he'll do? Do you think he'll do nothing? Comment down below! As always, the next chapter is available for free on Inkitt, so click on the link in my bio! By using the link, not only do you get to read chapters for all of my books early, but it also allows me to get paid for doing what I love (especially now since I don't work due to COVID-19). Did I mention it's 100% free for you? It's literally a win-win! Also, the Fiction Awards are now open and I would love it if you nominated this book or any of my other books! To nominate, just click on the "Fiction Awards 2020" book on thefictionawards page and follow the directions. I myself have nominated others and it's honestly so cool!
I will see you all next week and remember to stay safe and healthy!
Love y'all- Jordan.