How to End a Love Story(77)
“Then I pick that sandwich place everyone likes,” Helen says. “Let’s go.”
He drives and she sits in the passenger seat as she updates him on the work that the others have done since this morning—Owen’s delivered his outline, Tom and Eve have delivered their first draft, Nicole’s sending in her revision, and Suraya sent the first three episodes along to production.
Helen mentions she’s getting nervous about them reaching her episode, the penultimate one of the season, and he covers her hand briefly with his while the car idles at a traffic light. She looks over at him, a fond smile in her eyes, and his heart squeezes in a way that’s becoming altogether too familiar.
They order a variation of the same combo and sit outside in the sun as they wait for their orders. Helen sips from a glass bottle of sparkling water, and as she sets it down on the spindly round metal table on the sidewalk, he thinks sharply—I could love you.
She eyes him warily.
“You look like you’re about to say something stupid,” she says.
“You’re a mind reader now?” He lifts a brow.
Helen shakes her head and the waiter brings them their sandwiches in red plastic baskets.
“I’m a Grant’s face reader,” she says, opening her bag of chips and dumping them into the tray. “You get this look in the room sometimes, right before you say something like, ‘Wild pitch, what if we change everything and toss all the hard work we’ve been doing for the past six hours out the window.’”
Grant laughs. “I’ll keep it to myself, then.”
Helen sips her water, then sets it down again. “Why didn’t you tell me your birthday is next week?”
Grant frowns and squeezes a packet of ketchup into a corner for his fries. She steals one of them deftly, popping it into her mouth.
“I saw it on the tax forms on your desk,” she adds.
“Okay, creep.”
“You shouldn’t just leave those out,” she answers. “What do you wanna do for your birthday?”
“Nothing,” he says, biting into his sandwich. “You.”
Helen rolls her eyes. “Do you have a favorite cake? Or a restaurant?”
He leans back in his seat, considering. “You’d go with me to a restaurant?”
“We’re at a restaurant now.”
“We’re at a sandwich shop on a lunch break,” he mutters. “I mean an actual restaurant, with snooty waiters and tiny plates and dressed-up people on dates.”
“Sure.” Helen pauses. “We could invite the whole room.”
Grant chuckles lowly as he wipes his mouth. “Right, the whole room. And drive home in separate cars?”
Helen shrugs.
Grant studies her. He feels like maybe there’s a way to solve this, but he hasn’t hit upon it yet. Maybe he needs a room full of professional screenwriters to workshop it out. He laughs at the thought, then something occurs to him.
“I know what I want,” he says slowly. “I want you to throw a birthday party—a dinner party—at my house. Invite everyone from the room. Come early to help set up. Stay late to break it down. And I get to touch you whenever I want, until you walk out the door.”
Helen flushes. “What, like, in front of people?”
Grant lifts a shoulder. “You asked me what I want.”
“That man is in love with you,” Nicole says, reading over a draft of Helen’s email inviting everyone to Grant’s birthday party. “What even is happening here?”
Helen flushes. “A birthday party invitation, that’s all.”
She would be lying if she didn’t suspect some feelings—she’s caught him looking at her with that warm, soft expression a few too many times, and there was that moment on her balcony last week, talking about hypothetical girlfriends he should be dating instead, when her heart had jammed into her throat—What about you?
“Which you’re sending, because you’re . . . such great pals that you’re hosting it at his house?” Nicole sips her wine skeptically. Helen is starting to regret accepting the invitation to come over to her house for “wine and whining.” “If I’m wrong, then he’s a psycho for asking. Are you in love with him?”
“No,” Helen says firmly. No. “We’re having fun, it’s easy and convenient for now, and then it’ll be over. It’s just . . . I think sometimes it gets confusing. Because we knew each other before, under kind of intense circumstances, and it’s impossible not to see each other all the time when we work together.”
Everyone in the room knows about Grant and Helen’s tangled connection from the past by now. It seems silly to her in retrospect that she thought they could keep it a secret for so long when Google exists. Helen still remembers the day they realized everyone else knew—some stupid plot point about a deadly car accident had come up in the room. A thick silence had descended over the table. Owen shot Tom and Eve a meaningful look, Saskia coughed lightly, Nicole was being suspiciously silent, and Helen suddenly realized, everyone is avoiding eye contact. She remembers looking up to see Grant having the same realization and sharing a private, laughing look with him. Suraya had been the last one still obliviously staring at the dry-erase board, only to turn around and instantly snap, “What the fuck did I miss?”