Page 111 of The Rom-Commers

I pulled up a chair next to him and made him watch them all. The waterfall kiss inEnchanted Forest. The in-front-of-a-whole-stadium kiss inCan’t Win for Losing. The rooftop kiss in Donna Cole’s magnum opus,The Lovers. We watched the scenes on my laptop while I physically leaned up against Charlie, trying to pin him in place. We watched people kiss in lakes, in snowstorms, in burning buildings, and while transforming into werewolves. We watched lens flares and misty mornings and pouring rain. We watched slow, tender kisses that felt like melting candle wax and passionate wall-slams that felt like possession. We watched mouths and hands and tilted-back throats.

Then, for a grand finale, I made him do a close read with me of Ji Chang Wook executing a perfect Korean drama cool-guy kiss—slowing the clip down frame by frame and pausing to point out “nuances, subtext, and emotional body language of the kiss journey.”

By this point, Charlie was too exhausted to fight me. “First he pretends to tease her,” I said. “Then he puts his hands in his pockets and strikes a conversational yet masculine pose. Then she steps closer, and then he steps closer. And the whole time, he’s acting like he’s not all that interested. But now look: he’s stepped so close that his thighs are touching hers, and his torso is touching hers—but the genius is that his hands are still in his pockets.”

Charlie looked at me likeWhy could that possibly matter?

“There is nothing sexier than a man starting a kiss with his hands in his pockets,” I said, likeHello?

Charlie frowned.

“The snug turtleneck also helps.”

“Ah,” Charlie said—sarcastically.

But I had the moral high ground here. I was saving the world one kiss at a time. “Look at how he leans in,” I said, as Ji Chang Wook bent his head lower. “Pretty sure that’s the exact geometrical angle of maximum yearning.”

“How many times have you watched this clip?”

But this wasn’t about me. This was about the craft of writing—capturing human emotion. Did Charlienot care about craft?

“Do we need to watch it again?” I asked.

“Nope,” Charlie said. “I think I got it.”

But he clearly didn’t.

Because if hegot it, he wouldn’t have argued with me when I said we should use a pockets kiss for the grand finale.

“It’s not our job,” Charlie kept saying, “to tell the director how to block the scene.”

“We won’t tell himor herwhat to do,” I kept saying. “We’ll just write it so vividly that she, or he, will naturally do it right.”

“You don’t understand how movies work.”

“Well, you don’t understand how kisses work.”

We wound up arguing about it all through the end of the writing day, all the way through our trip to the grocery story to get ingredientsfor dinner, and all the way home. We argued while we cooked, Charlie standing next to me, bringing up counterpoint after counterpoint like he was never going to give in.

It was like he liked teasing me. Like he liked getting me worked up.

Like maybe he didn’t evenwantto finish the screenplay.

“You know what you need?” I finally said as I peeked into the oven to check the readiness of the roasting chicken with herbes de Provence. “You need to kiss someone.”

“What?” Charlie recoiled physically like he had to dodge the words.

“Yes,” I said, clanking the oven door closed. I liked the notion more spoken out loud. “You need to remind yourself what kissing is.”

“I know what kissing is,” Charlie said, now shifting from offense to defense.

“What itfeelslike,” I said, feeling more and more pleased with how right I was. “Of course you can’t write a totally immersive kissing scene! Not if your heart is a suicidal bird.”

“Now I’m regretting telling you that.”

“Who can you call?” I asked then, raising myself up to sit on the island countertop, ready to get to work on this idea.

But Charlie just took in the sight of me sitting on his kitchen island. “Margaux never let anyone sit on the counter.”

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