Page 159 of The Rom-Commers

“After you kicked him out of Texas.”

“That was fast.”

“He’s fast when he’s obsessed,” Logan said. “And thank you for your service, by the way.”

“For my service?”

“You cured him of the yips.”

Did I?

“He’s the opposite of blocked now,” Logan went on. Then, like he was reading a marquee: “Charlie Yates is back.”

My heart stung at that. Charlie Yates was back.

“I’m sending it to you,” Logan said. “Read it. You will lose your mind with joy. It’s a love letter to fun. And to love. And to you, I think.”

“It’s definitely not a love letter to me,” I said. “That much I know for sure.”

“Guess who it’s written by?”

“Is this a trick question?”

“Check your texts,” Logan said.

A picture came in of a title page. There, in classic screenplay Courier font:

THE ROM-COMMERS

WRITTEN BY

EMMA WHEELER & CHARLIE YATES

“But I shouldn’t have a credit,” I said. “I was the ghostwriter.”

“Stop talking,” Logan advised. “Let yourself have this.”

I stared at the photo.

“Charlie finished it and sent it to Donna Cole that same day, with a note that said, ‘Present for you!’—and she texted him within the hour and said, ‘I want it.’”

“She wants it?”

“And she wants to meet with you both. In LA. On Thursday.”

“In LA?” I echoed. “On Thursday?”

Guess I was going to LA.

So much for never seeing Charlie again.

Thirty

THE MEETING INLA with Donna Cole went very well.

And by “very well,” I mean: I sat nervously in an original Mies van der Rohe chrome-and-leather chair next to Logan while an icon of modern filmmaking rhapsodized for an hour about a surprise screenplay I barely knew I’d written—and then offered me six figures to buy the rights.

Thatkind of “very well.”

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