Die Hard - RTSA 54

Yippy-ki-ya, motherfucker

Rocking the Second Act is a live, evolving draft — I tweak, polish, and occasionally rewrite chaos in real time. If you’ve just arrived, the Chapter Index will get you up to speed.

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Zack

The first time Jasmine dragged me into a scoring session I’d assumed I’d be bored rigid.

Turns out I was an idiot.

There was something strangely addictive about it. A scene could stay exactly the same, but move the music back half a second and suddenly it landed differently. A joke hit harder. An argument felt colder. A look that barely registered became heartbreaking.

It wasn’t about telling the audience what to feel. It was about giving them permission to feel it.

I’d never realised how much storytelling happened after everyone thought the storytelling was finished.

Jasmine sat cross-legged in the oversized chair, Stella asleep against her chest in one of those baby carriers that looked suspiciously like mountaineering equipment. Her laptop balanced on the armrest beside a mug of tea she’d forgotten to drink, while the second monitor showed the latest cut of episode four.

“Again,” she said.

I rolled the timeline back a few seconds and hit play.

Rose stared at Gary across the workshop, both of them too bloody stubborn to say the thing everyone else could already see.

Jasmine stopped it halfway through.

“Too early.”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

I reached for the mouse and dragged the piano cue three beats further down the timeline.

“Leave them alone for a bit.”

She watched without saying anything. The silence stretched. Gary looked away first. Then the piano crept in.

Jasmine smiled.

“There it is.”

“Now it feels like she’s disappointed.”

“Instead of?”

“Instead of the soundtrack telling us she is.”

“Again.”

I groaned loudly enough to make Stella twitch. Jasmine didn’t even glance up.

“If you wake my daughter, Salinger, I’ll charge you by the hour.”

“You’ve always been this fucking bossy.”

“And yet you keep coming back.”

She was right.

Somewhere over the last few months she’d stopped treating me like the ex husband and bandmate she’d reluctantly allowed into one of her scoring sessions and started treating me like another pair of ears. We still argued constantly. Usually she won. Occasionally I did. The important bit was she’d started asking.

We watched the scene through one last time without speaking. The scene played exactly as it always had, but somehow it felt different now. The piano slipped in exactly where we’d left it, and instead of announcing the moment, it simply honoured it.

Jasmine smiled to herself and finally reached for the mug she’d abandoned twenty minutes earlier.

“I think that’s it.”

“Yeah.” I sat back in my chair, stretching until something in my spine gave a satisfying crack. “Bloody hell, they’re good together.”

“Mm.”

“People are going to lose their minds over those two.”

Jasmine laughed into her tea.

“They’ve already started, thanks to your lives with Bash.”

“I can’t wait, actually. The second someone starts banging on about Rose and Gary instead of the kaupapa, I’m going to poke her with a stick.”

Jasmine laughed.

“You are such a dick.”

“Oh, she’ll hate it.” I was already looking forward to it. “She’ll rant for ten minutes about media literacy, tell me I’m impossible, then stomp off pretending she doesn’t find me funny.”

Jasmine shook her head, smiling into her tea.

“I’ve said it before, in studios, tour busses and outside courtrooms, but you really are a fucking wanker.”

“Yeah. But she’d miss it if I stopped.”

“Mm.” She watched the screen for another moment. “At least Alasdair and Rebecca backed her.”

I snorted, wondering what on earth Lark had done now.

“...what? Backed her? How?”

Jasmine met my eyes. Ah, hell. I’d known her long enough to recognise the exact moment she realised she’d said something she couldn’t take back.

“You... don’t know?”

“Know what?”

She stared at me for a long moment before letting out a slow breath.

“I thought she’d told you.”

I frowned. “Told me what?”

Jasmine stayed quiet. Fuck, she was really stuck with something. Stella stirred against her chest and she rested a hand over her back, gently patting until she settled again.

“The day we were going through the rough cut.” She smiled faintly. “Pool table scene.”

“What about it?”

“Alasdair snuck in this close-up of Veronica’s hand. She was making little circles on your chest.”

I stared at the monitor. For a second I couldn’t hear the score anymore.

That tiny, stupid movement had belonged to us. Or at least I’d thought it had. Something she’d done without thinking whenever conversation replaced silence.

I’d never questioned it because it had never occurred to me anyone else would notice it.

Apparently an entire editing suite had.

“What about it?”

Jasmine looked at me as though she wasn’t quite sure how to answer.

“She lost her shit.”

“About her hand on my chest?”

Jasmine sighed and looked down at Stella. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Jas, I swear to God...”

She was quiet for a long moment, trying to decide what to tell me. “She saw that shot and it just... knocked the wind out of her. She completely freaked out. Then she started talking about slowing the romance down, and the kaupapa, and your recovery...” She shook her head. “Honestly? I don’t think she’d gone in there planning to have that conversation.”

Jasmine kept talking. I knew she did because her mouth was still moving, Stella wriggled against her chest, and every now and then she’d look at me as though she was trying to work out whether I was still with her. I probably nodded once or twice. Couldn’t have told you what to. There was only one thing my brain had decided to keep.

There was a meeting.

Veronica had called a meeting.

About me.

Without me.

*

I wandered through the kitchen without bothering to knock.

“Oi. Dickhead.”

Noah’s voice drifted from somewhere deeper in the house.

“In here.”

I followed it down the hallway, then stopped.

“Jesus Christ.”

Noah was crouched beneath a television roughly the size of a small country, one hand disappearing into a tangle of cables while the other held a torch between his teeth. Every few seconds he’d mutter something under his breath before disappearing behind the cabinet again.

He glanced over his shoulder.

“What?”

I looked around slowly. Dark walls. Proper surround sound. Shelves lined with Blu-rays. A couch big enough to lose a child in. Soft strip lighting tucked into the ceiling.

“What the fuck is this?”

“The TV room.”

“No, I gathered it wasn’t the laundry.” I kept turning in a slow circle. “Kelly know you’ve joined the Illuminati?”

Noah snorted. “She picked half of it.”

I dropped into the enormous leather recliner and let out an exaggerated sigh.

“So, how much did this little midlife crisis cost you?”

He gave another cable an experimental tug.

“Less than your weekly hair product bill.”

I ran a finger along the shelves.

“You’ve actually bought physical media.”

“Yep.”

“Streaming not good enough for you anymore?”

Noah shrugged.

“Streaming’s fine. This is better.”

I snorted. The fact that I agreed with him wasn’t about to get in the way of taking the utter piss.

“Christ, you’ve turned into an AV wanker.”

Noah looked exactly as unconcerned as he always did whenever I gave him shit. The only concession I got? One eyebrow lifted about half a centimetre.

“Yeah.”

He slid the disc into the player.

“But now nobody can take Die Hard off my shelf.”

The room got christened exactly the way every decent television room should.

Noah insisted on giving me a guided tour of speakers I’d never asked about, while I insisted on reminding him that none of this stopped him being a massive fucking nerd.

Frankie and Nicky waited all of thirty seconds before leaning around the doorway to yell, “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!” at the top of their lungs, dissolving into laughter and disappearing before either of us could catch them. Noah complained that they were quoting the only line from the film they actually knew. I pointed out that was probably because he’d spent half their childhood telling them they were too young to watch it.

He claimed that was responsible parenting. I suggested it was emotional abuse.

Noah waited until the opening credits had rolled before settling back into his seat with the sort of quiet satisfaction usually reserved for men who’ve successfully built decks or fixed leaking gutters.

“Laugh all you want,” he said. “I built this because everyone ended up watching different things in different rooms. Figured it’d be nice to have somewhere we all had to sit together every now and then.”

We’d seen Die Hard enough times that watching it wasn’t really the point. We quoted half the dialogue before Bruce Willis got the chance, argued over things we’d been arguing about since we were teenagers, and spent far more time taking the piss out of each other than we did actually watching the film.

I wasn’t sure exactly when I’d checked out. Somewhere between Hans Gruber arriving and John McClane crawling through the ventilation shafts, I stopped following either.

A handful of popcorn suddenly exploded across my chest.

“Ah! Cunt!” I glared at Noah. “The fuck’s your problem?”

He was looking at me instead of the television.

“You missed your line.”

Another few bits of popcorn bounced off my shoulder.

“Fuck off.”

“You always say it before McClane does.”

“...Yeah, maybe I grew up.”

Apparently that was funnier than Alan Rickman’s American accent because Noah had to pause the movie while he laughed himself stupid.

“Yeah, well, I hope you choke on your popcorn,” I muttered, brushing it off my T-shirt.

Noah finally got himself under control, wiped at the corner of one eye and picked the remote back up.

He didn’t press play.

Instead, he looked at me.

“Alright.”

“What?”

“What’s up?”

“Nothing.”

He gave me the sort of look only an older brother could manage.

“Bullshit.”

“I’ve had a long day.”

“You’ve had longer.”

I shrugged.

Noah settled back into the couch with a sigh.

“Mate, I’ve spent the better part of fifty years watching you stumble through life.”

“Couldn’t give less of a fuck where this is going.”

“And after all that time, I’ve come to a startling conclusion.”

“Congratulations.”

“You’ve only got about four or five settings.”

I lobbed a handful of crisps at him. The bastard caught one, ate it, and carried on as though I’d merely contributed to the conversation.

“There’s Cocky Zack.”

“Best one.”

“Same bloke as Normal Zack.”

“Rude.”

“Then there’s I’ve Done Something Stupid Zack.”

“Bit broad.”

He considered that.

“Fair. Then there’s I’m Pretending Everything’s Fine Zack.”

“That’s the same fucking setting.”

This time he threw a Tim Tam at me.

“Exactly.”

He let the silence sit for a moment, John McLane still frozen on the screen in front of us.

“Then there’s Quiet Zack.”

I looked back at the television.

Noah’s voice softened, just a fraction.

“Quiet Zack only ever turns up when something’s gone properly sideways.”

I didn’t answer.

Noah waited beside me with the sort of patience only an older brother could get away with. He wasn’t trying to fill the silence. He knew better than that. If fifty-odd years had taught him anything, it was that I’d rather chew my own arm off than answer a direct question before I was ready.

“Jasmine said something today,” I said eventually.

Noah didn’t look at me. He just reached for another handful of popcorn.

“Mm?”

“Apparently there was a meeting.”

Saying it out loud made it sound ridiculous. Production companies had meetings all the time. I’d sat through hundreds of the bloody things over the years. Half of them could’ve been emails. This one should’ve been no different.

Except...

“It was about me.”

That got his attention. He glanced across at me, one eyebrow lifting.

“What sort of meeting?”

I found myself explaining it in fits and starts. The rough cut. Veronica seeing the close-up of her hand on my chest. Her panicking. The conversation she’d had with Alasdair and Rebecca about slowing Rose and Gary down because of the kaupapa. Because of me. Jasmine assuming I’d known about it all along.

By the time I finished, it sounded even more ridiculous than it had in my own head.

“So...” I rubbed a hand across the back of my neck. “Yeah.”

Noah was quiet for a while, watching John McClane drag himself through another ventilation shaft.

“And?”

I frowned.

“What do you mean, ‘and’?”

“Well...” He shrugged. “I’m trying to work out why you’re sat over there looking like someone just kicked your dog.”

“She had a meeting about me without telling me.”

“Mm.”

“Doesn’t that strike you as... I don’t know...”

I waved a hand vaguely through the air, hoping the right word might float past.

“Fucked?”

Noah didn’t answer straight away. He reached for the remote, muted the television, then sat back again.

“No,” he said quietly. “It strikes me as someone trying to protect someone else.”

“That’s… fuck you, that’s not the point.”

The words came out sharper than I’d intended.

Noah nodded once.

“Alright.”

He left it there.

Which was irritating as fuck, because now I had to work out what the point actually was.

*

She was already wrecked.

Face-down on the bed, arms curled tight under the pillow, her back slick with sweat. I’d braced one hand beside her shoulder, the other slipped underneath her, fingers working her clit in slow, filthy circles that had her gasping into the sheets.

“Do you like this?” I murmured, breath ragged as I pushed deeper into her from behind.

“Yes,” she moaned, voice muffled but desperate.

“You like it when I fuck you like this?” My fingers didn’t stop, and neither did my hips. Every thrust dragged a new sound out of her, low and guttural, like she couldn’t quite catch her breath.

“Yes,” she choked, then whimpered. “Fuck, Zack – yes.”

That was all I needed. I swore under my breath and thrust into her harder, pulling something from her she couldn’t hold back, keeping her right on the edge. Her body was trembling, her hips pushing back to meet mine like she couldn’t bear the gap between us.

I felt her unravel beneath me, and it did something to me; this mix of control and reverence, the trust of it, the need.

She came hard, hips bucking, legs shaking, her voice breaking apart as she cried out into the mattress. I held her steady, fucked her through it, whispered her name into the heat between us.

I wasn’t far behind. A few more thrusts, and I was groaning into the curve of her neck, buried deep, every muscle in my body pulled tight as the world blinked out for a second.

We collapsed in a tangle, both breathless and slick, the room thick with heat and something heavier I didn’t want to name yet.

She didn’t speak right away. Just rolled onto her side, eyes closed, lips parted, her cheek pink from the pillowcase.

I drew her into me, and we lay there in that perfect state of the well-fucked, neither of us saying much, just listening to the sound of each other breathing while the room slowly cooled around us.

Then I felt it. Her fingers making those tiny circles against my chest. Everything I’d been trying to hold off, trying to avoid, came crashing straight back.

“Hey, V...”

“Mmm?” Her eyes stayed closed, the corner of her mouth lifting into that sleepy, self-satisfied smile she swore black and blue she didn’t have after sex.

She wasn’t even aware she was doing it. Her fingertips drifted lazily over my skin, tracing that same unconscious little pattern she’d been making for months, the ones she’d watched back later and apparently couldn’t bear to see.

Why didn’t you tell me?

The question had been sitting in my chest ever since Jasmine opened her bloody mouth. I’d carried it through Noah’s lounge, through Die Hard, through the drive home, and now here it was again, sitting between us while the woman I loved lay curled against me, completely unaware there was anything in the world to ask.

I could have done it then. There wasn’t anything stopping me except the small, terrifying possibility that I wouldn’t like the answer.

Instead, I bent and kissed the top of her head.

“Nothing.”

She smiled without opening her eyes, giving my chest one last absent-minded stroke before her hand came to rest.

“Liar.”

I laughed softly into her hair.

“Yeah.”

“Tell me tomorrow.”

I held her a little tighter.

“Yeah,” I said again.

Three chapters to go.

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