The Rom-Commers(10)

Also? He had a habit of grabbing the front of his hair while he was talking, and squeezing it in his fist so tightly that when he let it go, it was all pointing in another direction.

Come on. Irresistible.

It was the kind of thing I’d think about sometimes, idly, while making dinner. What was it about his face that I liked, exactly? Some hidden geometry that clicked with patterns in my brain? The plumpness of his mouth, maybe? Or the angle of his jaw? Or—and this might betray how many times I’d rewatched some of those videos—something about the shape of his nostrils? Is that a weird thing to say? That a man has appealing nostrils? But he did. Friendly, straightforward, symmetrical nostrils that kind of dimpled down a little when he was suppressing a smile.

Writers, in general, aren’t exactly the best-looking subsection of humanity. Like if aliens came down and said, Show us the most perfect physical specimens of your kind, we wouldn’t go searching for the coffee-stained writers of the world, hunched over their laptops in their basement efficiencies. The bar for writers, looks-wise, wasn’t exactly high. Charlie might be a normal person’s eight—but he was a writer’s ten, for sure. That, plus his early success—the quirky indie movie that he made in college was a sleeper hit and launched his career—made him a media darling. Most screenwriters? No one’s ever heard of them. But we all knew and loved Charlie Yates.

He had a perfect storm of talent, charm, and irresistible nostrils.

And I really, really hoped I would not accidentally say that out loud when I met him.

A nightmare vision of my pumping Charlie Yates’s hand and gushing, “I love your nostrils!” flashed through my mind—and then, at the frozen horror of his expression, my trying to make it less weird by explaining: “It’s that teardrop shape they have, and how they kind of lean back against that tippy-top part of your upper lip, like they’re James Dean about to smoke a cigarette. You get it, right?”

Oh, god. I really was my own worst enemy.

Logan reached Charlie Yates’s front door while I was still wincing at that, and so there was nothing to do but drag my suitcase and carry-on through the gravel of the driveway at top speed to catch up.

As Logan knocked, I tried to settle my breathing.

God, I was nervous. Should I visualize the ocean? Try a power stance? Do a quick meditation? I tried to assess how much time I had before Charlie Yates opened that door.

But he didn’t exactly open the door. Not in the usual way, at least.

In response to Logan’s knock, the knob turned a little and then the door cracked, leaving maybe a four-inch gap. It was clear from the voice inside that Charlie was wrapping up a phone call and not answering the door so much as just unlocking it. So Logan held his finger up at me, like, Give me a sec, then handed me his phone and keys to hold, and slipped inside.

Leaving me standing alone on the front steps with Logan’s phone and keys, my bags, and my backpack full of favorite pens and notebooks.

Huh.

Looking back, Logan must’ve thought he shut the door behind him. But it didn’t catch. Which meant, minutes later, I was accidentally eavesdropping on their conversation through the slit at the doorjamb.

A conversation that got very dark very fast.

“Got a present for ya, buddy,” Logan said to start off, seasoning his voice with as much bro-ish camaraderie as the Queen’s English would allow.

“What do you mean, ‘a present’?” Charlie asked. His voice was more gravelly in real life than through my computer speaker.

“A writer,” Logan said. “I’ve brought you a writer.”

Charlie wasn’t following. “How did you ‘bring me a writer’?”

I tried to assess their relationship. There was something in Charlie’s tone—nice, but not warm—that made it seem like Logan was trying too hard.

“Outside,” Logan said. “A rom-com writer. To work on It Happened One Night.”

“You brought a writer here? To my house? Right now?”

And then I knew.

Charlie Yates had no idea I was coming.

Oh, shit.

Whatever was happening right now, it was not Charlie Yates approved.

I held my breath. Once I knew it, I couldn’t unknow.

“Yes,” Logan went on, clearing his throat like it was beading with flop sweat. “She’s here right now. She’s here—and she’s ready to help.”

I could tell Logan thought that if he made it all seem reasonable enough, it would actually just be reasonable.

But this was Charlie Yates. He wasn’t going to be Jedi-mind-tricked by his manager. And he had exactly one syllable of response for this situation: “No.”

“No?”

“No. I don’t need help.”

“Of course you don’t need it,” Logan backtracked. “Just to make things easier.”

But Charlie Yates wasn’t buying it. “Working with other writers never makes things easier.”

“A consultant. Of sorts. It’s my friend. The one I told you about last time.”

“I don’t need a consultant.”

“Of course you don’t. More like a secretary. A typist.”

A typist!

Logan was trying to push past this initial resistance. “I’ll just bring her in, and we can—”