“Speech!” Brody grins.
“Absolutely not.”
“Come on,” Jonah pushes.
I sigh. “Fine. Thank you for reading all my terrible early drafts and telling me not to give up.”
“They were never terrible,” Wren says loyally.
“That first draft of the pilot was rough,” Eric says.
“Okay, yeah, that one was bad.” Iris laughs.
“But you all helped me make it better. So thank you. For everything,” I say.
We cut the cake, and Wren pours wine for everyone except me. I tell them I’m doing a cleanse, and no one questions it. Perks of having friends who try all the wellness trends.
“So when do you start?” Eric asks.
“Writers’ room starts in December. Pre-production in the spring.”
“That’s soon,” Jonah says. “Nervous?”
“Terrified.”
“Normal,” Eric assures me. “First room’s always scary. But you know your show better than anyone. Trust that.”
We talk about what it’ll be like, the group peppering mewith questions about the deal, the timeline, whether I’ve heard anything about who else might be staffed. It feels surreal, sitting cross-legged on my own rug talking aboutSpellboundas a real show instead of a document I quietly tinkered with for years.
Eventually we transition into notes. Tonight is Brody’s turn, and he’s brought pages from his multi-cam pilot about friends working at a failing arcade. It’s funny and surprisingly heartfelt, with the kind of sharp dialogue that makes you mad you didn’t write it yourself.
“This is really good,” I tell him when it’s my turn. “The banter between Luke and Jessica in scene three is perfect. But I think you’re burying your emotional beat in scene seven. When Marcus talks about his dad? That should land harder. Right now it reads like a throwaway line.”
Brody scribbles notes frantically. “You’re right. I was worried about it getting too sappy.”
“It’s a comedy,” Jonah says, “but comedy works best when we care about the characters. Let us feel something, then make us laugh. That’s the magic.”
We spend the next hour digging into Brody’s pages, everyone pitching fixes and alt jokes, cutting the lines we love but know don’t belong. This is what I love about this group. We make each other better. We call each other out when we’re playing it safe.
When we finish, conversation drifts to industry gossip. Who’s staffing where, what shows got picked up, which ones are quietly circling the drain. Jonah hints he’s close on another deal, knocking on the coffee table forluck.
“Same time in two weeks?” Jonah asks, pulling on his jacket.
“My place,” Eric offers. “I’ll send out pages by the end of the week.”
We say our goodbyes at the door, hugs all around. Wren squeezes me extra tight.
“I’m so proud of you,” she whispers.
“Thanks, Wren.”
I stand on the porch for a second, watching them pile into their cars, waving as they drive off. The street settles into that quiet, late-night hum. Distant traffic. A dog barking down the block. The soft whoosh of sprinklers kicking on somewhere. I’m closing the door when I hear footsteps on the porch.
“Forget something?” I call, pulling it open without looking, but it’s not one of my writers’ group friends.
It’s Jake.
fifteen
