Page 80 of Business or Pleasure

It also means, though, that I’m not ready to tell him what I did on the plane. When we were finally able to get back to Columbus and on a flight to Pittsburgh, just in time for Finn to make his last panel of the con, I did something I haven’t done since before I left Seattle: I opened up my old cozy mystery manuscript. Just for a few minutes. Just to read through some of the setting details, since now I’d been to Florida—for a reason I can no longer remember, I’d decided it would take place at a tiny fictional beach town on the southern tip of the state—and could make it seem a bit more authentic.

In the book, a customer drops dead on the opening day of my main character’s stationery store—coincidentally named The Poisoned Pen, a choice she regrets when she’s implicated in the crime. But something about it still didn’t feel quite right, and those setting details didn’t seem to fix it.

So I switched over to the memoir and started work on a chapter about Finn’s search for a therapist and how he loves therapy more than he ever thought possible.

Big Apple Con is also when I meet Hallie Hendricks for the first time. I’ve been worried it might be awkward, in part because I’ve spent most of my free time watching her decade-ago self fall in love with Oliver Huxley, and because I’m sleeping with her ex—though of course, she doesn’t know that—but she shines a genuine smile on me after Finn introduces us in one of the con’s green rooms.

“It’s so fantastic to finally meet you!” she says, holding her hand out to shake and then withdrawing it, pulling me in for a hug instead. “Finn’s told me so much about you.”

“He... has?” I glance over at him. Finn gives me a sheepish shrug.

“Only good things. I cannot wait to read the book.”

Hallie’s even more captivating in person, having traded her long Meg Lawson hair for a choppy bob that perfectly frames her face. She wears thin-rimmed oval glasses over striking blue eyes, and a patterned jumpsuit and satin Chanel bag. That Boise Med money must be pretty great, because everything about her gleams, from her hair to the buckles on her heeled booties.

“I’m sure you’ve heard this a thousand times,” I tell her, “but I’ve been watching The Nocturnals for—well, for the first time, and I really love it. You’re actually my favorite character.”

I’m certain Hallie will wave this off, a compliment on something she did ten years ago. “Thank you. Meg’s always been my favorite, too. No matter how many scripts I read, I can never fully get her out of my head.”

“I can imagine,” I say, liking her instantly. “It’s like how they say the music we listen to when we’re teens continues to resonate with us the most, even as adults, because we heard it when our brains were still developing, or whatever.”

“Ah, is that why I still get emotional over Avril Lavigne?”

I grin back at her. “No judgment.”

Finn seems pleased that we’re getting along. I can’t help imagining the two of them together, the relationship that ended six years ago.

Six years, and nothing serious since.

I thought the panels might feel repetitive, but Finn is completely in his element here with the rest of the cast, and it’s impossible not to admire the way he interacts with the fans, all of them sharing this pure love for a show I’m starting to fall for, too. I can understand now why he hasn’t given all of this up, why his first instinct was to soldier through it even when he was sick. Each fan, he treats like they’re the first person asking that question or paying him that compliment. He makes each person feel special, and it’s an incredible talent. He makes you believe he cares about each of them—because I truly think he does.

Somewhere between Tennessee and Ohio, I started seeing the appeal of Finnegan Walsh, too.

After a joint photo op with Hallie and before we meet up with the rest of the cast for dinner, Finn takes a detour through some back streets.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” he calls back, leading me through a maze of shops and hole-in-the-wall restaurants. When he finally stops in front of a luggage store, I give him a quizzical look.

“I’ve asked around,” he says, “and it turns out, it’s customary to get your ghostwriter a gift when you finish working together. In fact, it’s pretty nonnegotiable. Written into our contract in tiny print.”

I lift my eyebrows at him, biting back a smile.

“I know we’re not done yet, and I would have loved to surprise you, but I think it’s really important you pick this out for yourself.” He opens the door, gestures to all the stacks and stacks of bags and suitcases inside. “You’ve already traveled more over the past couple months than you ever thought you would. So... pick a suitcase. Consider it an investment in your future, and all the traveling you haven’t done yet.”

For a few moments, I just stare at him helplessly, unable to comprehend the generosity of such a gesture. “I couldn’t. It’s too expensive.”

“I told you, it’s in the contract. Paragraph 12, clause B, subsection 7C. That’s why you always read the fine print.” He bumps my hip with his. “I have a feeling you don’t want to keep borrowing your parents’ luggage for the rest of your life.”

He’s not wrong. My mom’s suitcase, with its glue residue and battered stickers that now halfheartedly declare ay groo, isn’t lasting much longer. And some of these are really quite lovely. I’m already gravitating toward a sleek mauve.

“Then I think I’m out of excuses.”

The restaurant is trendy, dimly lit, and entirely out of my price range. Upscale tapas, the kind of place where you pay $18 per plate to share five roasted balsamic-glazed carrots and a few spears of artisan bread and leave hungry. And maybe they’re the best carrots you’ve ever tasted in your life, but you refuse on principle to spend that much.

When we dropped the suitcase off at the hotel, I told Finn that maybe I should skip the dinner—I remembered what Ethan said a while back about not trusting the press. “If it’s just cast,” I said, “I should probably stay behind.” Finn just looked at me in this way I couldn’t interpret. “I want you there.” Then he straightened his spine, collected himself. “If you want to be there, that is.”

After dodging some paparazzi hoping to catch a glimpse of post-con celebrities, we settle into a booth with Hallie, Ethan Underwood, Bree Espinoza, Juliana Guo, and Cooper Jones. I’m a little starstruck after watching The Nocturnals in most of my spare time over the past couple months. Finn introduces me as someone on his team, and no one asks any other questions about it.

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