“Hey, bitty babe. How’s Leo?”
And Elissa broke. Sobs too big for her petite body came pouring from her, along with a healthy dose of tears and snot. Jules shushed her and wrangled the two of them over to the couch, grabbing a box of tissues along the way. She had no idea how her friend managed it.
When she calmed, Elissa finally told Jules everything that had happened with Leo. She’d been so busy holding it together for her brother, her parents, and her work she’d forgotten to let it out. Trust Jules to be the first to remind her.
“That sucks.” Her friend summed up in two words exactly how Elissa felt.
“Stupid teenage boy.”
“You know it. Let’s order an insane amount of pizza and watch a movie that requires exactly zero brain cells. Pitch Perfect or Easy A?”
twenty-eight
three drafts
Ryan had set his alarm for eight on Saturday morning. He woke at noon.
“Fuck!”
Iz and Teo were in Phoenix for a cousin’s wedding, and he’d been excited to devote an entire weekend to writing his script, hoping he could finally wrangle this thing. But the sleepless night on Thursday had undone all the work of adjusting his sleep patterns to working a day job, instead of nights at a busy restaurant. Another reason he’d resisted working at the family company—he was naturally a night owl, and showing up anywhere before ten had been damned near impossible.
Now the whole weekend he’d set aside was down to only a day and a half.
He rolled out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen. The pod went into the Keurig, the bread went into the toaster, and he went into the bathroom. After using the facilities and splashing water on his face, he returned to the kitchen to an overflowing mug and burnt toast.
“Fuck!”
Ryan cleaned up and tried again. More success. He collapsed onto the couch and turned on a basketball game. When halftime rolled around, he was finally awake enough to start on his draft. First, a shower.
Six hours later, three drafts sat in the trash, and he was half-tempted to take the lot of them to the community grill and burn them. They’d make better kindling for grilling burgers than they would a podcast. He sat at the kitchen table, his notebook open and his head down, surrounded by his piles of research material. His process was as organized as it was going to be, but obviously it wasn’t enough. Nothing was.
Time to see if a little alcohol might get him over whatever was holding him back. He poured himself a gin and tonic and plopped on his chair. But before he could start draft number four, his phone dinged.
Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.
He looked. God-fucking-dammit. But a smile snuck out when he noticed who it was from. Elissa.
E: Whatcha doing?
Before he could think twice, he responded.
R: Drinking and trying to write. You?
He held his breath. What would an accountant who seemed to have her entire life in order think about an overprivileged asshole whose day job was office manager for his family’s real estate empire trying to write?
E: Drinking and watching Friends marathon whatcha writing
Wait, where was the punctuation?
R: Elissa Wright, are you drunk texting me
He finished his drink and watched the thinking bubble pulse.
E: Maaayybeeee
Ryan chuckled at her attempt to flirt via text. Obviously not something she did often, if ever.
E: Tell me what you’re writing and I’ll tell you what I’m drinking.
