The Rom-Commers(23)

Nine

THE NEXT MORNING, all packed for LAX, I tried to make myself some coffee in Charlie’s kitchen.

Big mistake.

“Nope!” He came swooping in. “That’s—You know what? Don’t—” He placed his body between me and the coffee maker. “I’ll get that. She’s temperamental. Did you need some—some coffee?”

Huh. Okay.

“It’s fine,” I said. “I can get some at the airport.”

“No, no—I’m glad to make it. I wanted to talk to you, anyway.”

He set about turning knobs and running water.

“Latte?” he asked then. “Cappuccino? Macchiato?”

“Just—whatever’s easiest,” I said.

Charlie got to work, saying over his shoulder, “This is the only thing my wife ever let me cook.” Then he corrected, “Ex-wife.”

Was he making chitchat with me?

“So, you’re all packed, then?” he asked next.

I frowned. I looked down at my stuff beside me. “Yep. The car comes in twenty minutes.”

“And did you tell your”—he hesitated—“people at home you’re heading back? Husband? Or whatever?”

What a weird question. Had Logan not told him even the most basic facts about my life?

I stood up a little straighter. “I don’t have a ‘husband or whatever,’” I said. “I live with my dad.”

“With your dad?” Charlie asked, a hint of Aren’t you a little old for that? in his tone.

“I’m his caretaker,” I said.

Charlie turned around.

I met his eyes and went on, “He was in a camping accident many years ago, and now he needs round-the-clock care.”

Charlie took that in. “Oh…” Then, “Who’s with him now?”

“My younger sister.” I did not add, An amateur.

I had no idea how they were doing. They’d forbidden me to call them or text them until I was settled. “Don’t even try it,” Sylvie had said. “We’ll fully ignore you.”

In the end, I hadn’t had time to even think about calling. Instead, I’d woken up at four this morning, before my alarm even went off, because my heart was pounding so hard in my chest with so much anxiety about abandoning my dad, I swear it was causing ripples across the mattress.

Then I’d lain awake in bed, worrying.

Had I shown Sylvie where we kept the meclizine? Did my dad take his propranolol? What did they have for dinner? Please, god, tell me she didn’t let him eat potato chips. Was she filling out the chart? Was he okay? Were they at the ER? Was everyone alive?

“So…” Charlie tried again. “Have you told them you’re heading back?”

“Not yet,” I said. And then I met his eyes, to be clear. “I can’t quite face the humiliation.”

Charlie nodded thoughtfully. “Because I was wondering if, rather than going back, you might … stay.”

“Stay where?”

“Stay here.”

“Stay here and do what?” Be his housekeeper? Mow his lawn? Refinish his yacht?

“Stay here and rewrite the screenplay with me.”

I frowned. All I could think to say was, “Why?”

As far as I knew, this guy was dead set against me.

“Because of last night,” Charlie said.

“Because I told you your screenplay was terrible?”

Charlie nodded. “That. And because you were right.”

Huh. How about that. A pompous writer who could admit someone else was right. You didn’t see those every day.

Charlie went on. “You were right about everything. I could see it so clearly after you said it. It’s been a long time since I thought about writing from anyone else’s perspective. It felt strangely good. Good enough that I stayed up half the night reading you.”

That sounded odd. “Reading me?”

“Reading your work. Your writing. The stuff Logan sent and begged me to read that I never read. Your two screenplays and your submission to Warner Bros.”

“He sent you those?”

“Multiple times. But you have no idea how many scripts people send me. Plus I was busy. And an ass. And I thought I knew everything there was to know.” The coffee maker beeped, and as Charlie moved toward it, he added, “About screenwriting—not about life. And of course as soon as he said rom-com my eyes were rolling too hard to read anything.”

I gave him a look. “Of course.”

If Charlie registered the sarcasm, he ignored it. “But then, last night … You were just so…” And then he finished—with a little shrug like he knew the word was too much, but it was the only one that fit—by saying, “dazzling.”

Dazzling. I tried to take it in as he poured the coffee. “You stayed up half the night reading my stuff?” It was so impossible. Charlie Yates … reading my stuff. And saying the word dazzling.

“And it was good,” Charlie said.

“What was good?” He couldn’t mean what I so badly wanted him to mean.

“Your writing.”

Oh, god. He liked my writing.

“Really good. I mean, romantic comedies aren’t exactly my favorite genre—”