Chapter 12 - THE SIX DRAFTS
The six drafts were not secret prank videos.
In one, she cried after losing a board game.
In another, she argued with Caleb about turning off a camera.
Caleb watched the clip beside Joshua.
“I forgot this.”
Joshua believed him.
That was what scared him.
Boundary violations had become so normal they were forgettable.
Caleb said:
“I thought if I wasn’t uploading the bad part, it didn’t count.”
Joshua looked at him.
“That’s the whole problem.”
Caleb nodded.
No argument.
Then he said something Joshua did not expect.
“I don’t want to do Rivas Rewind like this anymore.”
Joshua laughed bitterly.
“You finally lose a sponsor and discover ethics?”
Caleb accepted the hit.
“Maybe.”
Then:
“But I also don’t like who I am in these clips.”
That mattered.
Caleb proposed restructuring the channel:
fewer family members,
more scripted adult comedy,
no minors without project-specific consent,
no pranks involving children,
no hidden cameras at family events.
Nicholas hated it.
“That kills the brand.”
Caleb answered:
“Then maybe that version should die.”
Victoria stayed quiet.
Joshua asked Lily what she wanted.
She said:
“I like baking videos.”
“Do you want to do them with Uncle Caleb?”
“Sometimes.”
“Do you want money for them?”
Lily shrugged.
“I want a dog.”
Everyone laughed.
Then Joshua stopped.
Money.
He asked Priya how Lily’s reserve would actually work.
Priya recommended a custodial account structure with independent tracking and no company access once transferred.
They set it up.
The thirty-eight thousand four hundred twenty dollars attributable to Lily was funded over ninety days as the company restructured cash.
Joshua did not control it for household spending.
Caleb did not control it.
Nicholas did not control it.
Then Priya found one accounting surprise.
Rivas Rewind had been paying Joshua’s contracting company for set construction on sponsored shoots.
Nine invoices.
Total:
$31,600.
Joshua knew about the work.
He had forgotten the scale.
Caleb looked at him.
“You made money from this too.”
Joshua stared at the invoices.
The moral distance he had built between himself and the media business narrowed again.
Then Priya pointed to one invoice.
SET BUILD — LILY BEDROOM MAKEOVER.
Joshua frowned.
May you like
He had never built a bedroom set for Lily.
So whose room had they filmed?
