The Rom-Commers(25)

“What do I need to do to get you to stay?”

And so I looked deep into his eyes and quoted Charlie back to Charlie: “I just need to do something I’m proud of.”

To my surprise, that landed. Charlie blinked. “Fine.” Then he started nodding. “Fine. Okay. You want to write it for real? We’ll write it for real.”

“I don’t want to write it for real, Charlie. I want to go home.”

“Name your terms,” Charlie said then.

“What?”

“Anything. However you want to do it—that’s how we’ll do it.”

I let out a long sigh. “Why are you doing this, Charlie?”

Charlie squared his shoulders like he was steeling himself to say something true. “Because last night, when I was reading your stuff, I wanted to work with you. And I haven’t wanted anything—anything at all—in a very, very long time.”





Ten

THE UBER DRIVER had just left us behind in Charlie’s driveway when my phone rang.

It was my dad and Sylvie on FaceTime.

My first thought wasn’t even a thought. It was just a stomach flip.

Did she give him the wrong medicine? Did he have a drop attack? Did he catch his walker on the carpet fringe again?

I answered right there in the yard, forgetting both my bags at my feet and Charlie standing beside me.

But as soon as the call started, it was just ordinary: my dad and Sylvie, heads together to squeeze into the frame, my dad playing “Good Morning” on the tin whistle, and Sylvie shaking his maraca as she sang the lyrics.

Panic gave way to relief, and I was so happy to see their faces that by the time the song ended, my dad leaned closer to peer at me, saying, “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

Oh, god—was I crying?

I touched my face. It was wet.

“Nothing!” I said, smacking at my cheeks. “I’m just happy to see you.”

I forced a big smile.

Nothing was technically wrong, right now, after all.

“And is that your writer?” my dad asked, pointing through the camera.

“Dad,” I said, like Come on. He wasn’t my writer.

But as I turned, I saw that Charlie was closer than I’d realized, and as he shifted his attention to my dad’s face on the phone screen, I realized what he was shifting it from was me.

Had he been watching me cry?

Bad to worse.

“Hello, sir,” Charlie said, flipping his charm switch. “I’m so happy to be working with your daughter. She’s a heck of a writer.”

“Well, she certainly thinks the same about you,” my dad said, “judging from all the”—he frowned at Sylvie—“what do they call it?” Then he remembered: “Fangirling.”

“Dad!” I protested.

“I’m telling you, young man,” my dad continued, “if I had a nickel for every time this girl read a piece of your dialogue out loud to me over dinner, I’d have a whole hell of a lot of nickels.”

Charlie’s eyebrows went up, like he hadn’t realized my admiration for him extended to reading dialogue from his works aloud.

I wasn’t even sure how to protest that. I mean, it was true.

“Tell Charlie Yates about your tattoo of his face!” Sylvie called then.

Charlie’s look of surprise contracted into a frown of concern—but I shook my head, like Hell no. “She’s joking,” I said. Then, to be clear, “I do not have a tattoo of your face.”

“You do have a photo of him taped over your desk, though,” Sylvie said.

I should have denied that, too. “But that’s for writing motivation only.”

“Sure it is,” Sylvie said.

“How’s the writing going?” my dad asked, like a proud parent.

“We haven’t started yet,” I said, grateful for the change of topic.

Charlie jumped in, “We’re hammering out details.”

I took the wheel of the conversation and turned the attention off myself. “How are you guys? How’s everything there? What are Dad’s sodium numbers?”

“I knew you’d ask!” Sylvie said, and then she held up a Post-it with the number 716 on it. “Grand total of milligrams from yesterday,” she said, like Boom!, and then put her hand up in the frame for a high five.

I high-fived the phone.

“Stop worrying,” my dad said then. “We’re fine. Mrs. Otsuka’s having us over for dinner tonight.”

I pointed at my dad. “No soy sauce.”

My dad looked insulted I would even say it. “I wouldn’t dare.”

“We’re much more worried about you,” Sylvie said.

“I’m also fine,” I said then, not sure at all if that was true. And then, before I could decide, or god forbid cry again, a car pulled up in the driveway.

Logan’s Beemer.

“What the hell is he doing here?” I asked as Charlie and I stared at it.

That’s when my dad said, “We won’t keep you! You’ve got a fancy Hollywood life to lead.”

I blew kisses at the phone, and by the time I’d hung up, Charlie and Logan were staring each other down.

I walked up to them, and at the sight of my teary face, Logan said, “What did you do to her, man?”