My mouth was already watering, so I picked up a slice of bacon and bit off a piece. “I have a meeting with an author whose book I’m turning into a script for a movie.”
“The author you’re supposed to ask out?”
I stopped chewing. “How did you know?”
“Your neighbor mentioned it yesterday.” Wes shrugged. “I overheard.”
Damn. I had completely forgotten about that, since Pam’scockcomment had taken center stage after she left. I wasn’t about to girl-talk with Wes about the crush I’d had for way too long. Instead, I changed the subject. “How did you get into bodyguarding?”
“I used to work for the NYPD.”
“Wow. Really?” My father normally wantednothingto do with the police. “You were a cop?”
Wes nodded.
“Did you not like it?”
“I loved it.”
“So…why are you not working there anymore?”
Wes sighed. “Long story.”
I waited to see if he was going to share thatlong story, but he didn’t say anything more. And the way he was now avoiding eye contact told me it was a subject he didn’t want to discuss. Yet I sniffed around a bit more. “How long have you been working for my dad?”
“Two years.”
“Who are you related to?”
Wes looked up from his plate. “What do you mean?”
“Everyone in my father’s organization is either family, or the family of someone in his crooked inner circle. There aren’t any outsiders.”
Wes shrugged. “I’m not related to anyone.”
“Really?”
“Really.” He finished his food and leaned back in his chair. “How did you get into screenwriting?”
“Well, I was a movie junkie growing up. We had a small theater in the basement of our house, and I used to go there to escape the chaos upstairs. Whenever my dad was home, he was either barking at someone on a burner phone, or his buddies were over and he’d play super-loud music so they could talk in private, in case the feds were listening in.”
Wes frowned. “That must’ve been hard.”
“It wasn’t your normal childhood, let’s just say that. But at least it pushed me toward a field I love working in. Anyway, I went to NYU and got a BFA and an MFA in dramatic writing. While I was in school, I interned for one of the bigger production companies that has a bunch of in-house writers. The internship turned into afull-time job, and I worked there for three years before I went out on my own.”
“Do you write a specific genre of screenplays, or just whatever comes up? I’m not sure how it works.”
“I write in my two favorite genres: thriller and horror.”
Wes’s brows jumped. “No shit. Horror?”
“Why do you look so surprised?”
“I don’t know. I guess I expected you to say romance or women’s fiction, like Nicholas Sparks type shit.”
“Nope. I like to write the kind of stuff that makes me nervous to be in my own house alone at night.” I smiled. “I’m sure Dr. Freud would have a lot to say about that with my family.”
Wes chuckled. “What’s the name of the guy you’re too chicken to ask out?”
