Page 106 of The Rom-Commers

She nodded, likeGot it. But then she said, “I’ve just never seen him touch a woman like that, or look at a woman like that, orrescuea woman like that.” Then she thought about it. “Actually, I’ve never seen him rescueanyone.In any way. For any reason.”

“We’re not—” I said. “We’re just—”

Donna looked around the table. “You heard her, folks. No rumors.”

But of course nothing creates rumors like saying “No rumors.”

Judging from the way the table was smiling at me now, being the rumored love interest of Charlie Yates might not be a bad thing—if you weren’t too fastidious about it not being true.

“Okay, then,” I said. “Well. It’s so great to meet you.”

She reached out and took one of my hands in both of hers. “It’s actually great to meet you, too,” she said. “Any friend of Charlie’s truly is a friend of mine.” And then, before she let go, she gave my hand a warm squeeze, pulled me close for a kiss on the cheek, and whispered, “Don’t break his heart, okay? He’s much sweeter than he seems.”

Twenty-Two

“WHAT,” CHARLIE WANTEDto know on the walk back to the house, “could you possibly have been thinking?” He was ahead of me, calling back his questions in astonishment. “What the hell was going on in there?”

I didn’t know how to answer.

“Donna Cole,” he went on, “is brilliant, and accomplished, and at the top of her game—and she also won’t think twice about ripping out your beating heart and squeezing it like a sponge in front of you before you die.”

“Really?” I said. She’d always seemed so supportive in the red carpet photo on my vision board.

“Not really. But she’s not someone to mess around with, either.”

“I wasn’t messing around.”

“You weren’t messing around?” Charlie challenged, slowing to let me catch up. “You walked over there on a whim—manuscript in hand—with no plan, no strategy, no forethought, and no idea that T.J. Heywood Jablowmie the Third might be sitting at her table, and thenyou lingered beside her like a lunatic stalker—and thatwasn’tmessing around?”

By the end, we were face-to-face. “You sound kind of mad at me,” I said.

Charlie tilted his head like he hadn’t noticed. Then he started walking again. “I guess I am kind of mad at you.”

“I was trying to seize the moment,” I said.

“That is not how you seize the moment,” Charlie said.

“That’s not howyouseize the moment,” I said back.

“You can’t accost Donna Cole in a coffee shop, Emma. That’s not how that works.”

“I couldn’t do nothing,” I said.

“Yes, you could.”

“I had to take a shot,” I said.

“But that’s not how it’s done.”

“It’s not how it’s donefor you,” I said. “You’re famous, and dashing, and beloved.”

“Did you just call medashing?”

“The point is, there are people walking around this town right now wearing T-shirts with your dialogue on it. You have directors begging you for scripts. Donna Cole lights up like a marquee when she sees you. You’re on easy street—and you have been from the very beginning. Do you know how lucky you are that a script you wrotein collegetook off? Or thatThe Destroyerscatapulted you to screenwriter stardom? Nobody has it that easy! You’re a damned unicorn. We don’t play by the same set of rules. I can’t just have my people call other people’s people and sayc’est la vieif it doesn’t work out. Nothing has ever been easy for me. I have to hustle. I have to wrench something out of every opportunity.”

“But you don’t.”

“I beg your pardon.”

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