Page 60 of The Rom-Commers

I nodded, likeExactly. “You can’t write about being in the water if you can’t remember what it’s like.”

Charlie’s jaw tensed as he considered that.

I pushed on. “Rom-coms are about falling in love.”

“I know that.”

“And falling in love is about having feelings.”

“I don’t disagree.”

“And you can’t write about feelings—or help the audience feel them—if you can’t feel them yourself.” Note that I did not add,You’re also going to have to rethink your toxic and unexamined views that love doesn’t exist.

“I feel feelings,” Charlie said.

“Great,” I said. “Then this’ll be easy.”

In the end, Charlie agreed to all my demands—except for one. One that seemed like such a no-brainer I threw it in only at the end.

“And we have to change the title,” I said.

But that was where he drew his line.

“No can do,” Charlie said. “The title stays. That’s the mistress’s one requirement.”

I didn’t fight him. For now.

Logan had his lawyer draw up a simple, pretty standard contract—one that just basically said all I had to do was turn in a “finished work.” It didn’t have to be good—it just had to be finished.

“What happens if we don’t finish?” I asked Logan.

“If you don’t finish for any reason—if you leave, or he fires you—then it’s a breach of contract.”

“And I don’t get paid?”

“And you don’t get paid.”

“That seems extreme. Given that he doesn’t even want me here.”

“It’s pretty standard, honestly. What’s extreme is Charlie.”

“So I don’t get paid until we’re finished—and if we don’t finish, I don’t get paid at all.”

Logan nodded. “Pretty simple.”

“Simple?” I asked.

“Not easy, but simple,” Logan said, with a shrug. “Just don’t break the contract.”

Iwouldn’t be breaking it, that was for sure.

We had six weeks to write this thing. Could Inot get firedfor six weeks?

We were about to find out.

THAT NIGHT, Ishould have slept peacefully, nestled under Charlie’s ex-wife’s decorator’s million-thread-count bedsheets in his palatial guest quarters, with the new plan negotiated to my satisfaction.

But instead I woke up at twoA.M.—shaken awake by my mattress.

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