“Basically,” said Ian, taking off his glasses to clean them.
Just then, Noah reemerged. As AJ watched him accept a drink from Dave, she thought of how promiscuously he’d played tonight. He’d been letting Ian see him with all possible candidates. AJ’s stomach rolled. Was that why he’d followed her out? Was that why Ian had chosen her?
AJ searched Ian. “What am I doing here?”
“Seriously,” said Toni, an edge in her voice. “AJ’s awriter.”
Ian held Toni’s gaze. “I knew she could handle it,” he said firmly. Then he turned to AJ. “We’re going to shoot this whole thing in continuous action—We’re not going to be able to call ‘cut’ when we don’t like something. We need a plant, someone who knows storyandthe original show, who can edit in real time or who we can send in in a pinch. That’s you.”
“I could see that,” said Toni, giving AJ’s arm a pinch before getting up to join the others at the bar. When she was safely out of earshot, Ian leaned forward. “By the way, NautiGurl, you’ll get a producer creditanda screen credit.”
AJ’s jaw silently dropped. A title with no “associate” in front of it. A role—something her family might actually understand. Both useful in an application packet forSNLor a late show.
Plus, who was she kidding. This was fuckingAstronauticals.
“Don’t worry about the acting,” Ian reassured her. “It’s a very, very minor part.”
The next square on AJ’s path flared to life in neon.
A few minutes later, she ducked outside for a bit of fresh air. Alone, she laughed out loud. She thought back to her seventeen-year-old self writingAstronauticalsfan fiction. If only she could tell that girl that one day she’d be a part of anAstronauticalsprequel…
That girl would have run to the back room to tell Noah.
AJ had thought of him when the Em Tyner show had been announced. Fans loved a cameo, and hewasEudora and Ezell’s nephew—but if his casting had been made public, AJ had missed it.
She had never thought she’d see him again. Seven years without a word, and now they were going to be in a show.
It was too much to take in.
As if on cue, the pub door opened and Noah emerged onto the sidewalk.
“Hey,” he said, his eyes fastening on to her with something akin to relief.
“Hey,” said AJ.
As he stepped forward, his hair fell across his brow in this carelessNoah way, and AJ was instantly seventeen again. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe.
“I had no idea you knew Ian,” he said intently. “I can’t believe that we—”
“No,” said AJ, almost inaudibly.
She could still remember the first time he’d called them that—we—at the SFSB meeting, when he’d volunteered them to ask Eudora about the panel. It was infuriating. AJ still knew it all, everything they’d ever done and said.
Even after all these years. Even after he’d discarded her.
Noah’s face paled as he took in her anger.
Because AJ was livid. It wasn’t right. None of it. That she should earn this opportunity only to be faced withhim.That after all this time, she could still feel him, still scent him like a dog with its master. That as much as she wanted to, she could not fully despise him.
AJ forced herself to meet his eyes. He might have slipped past her defenses onstage, but out here, in the real world, they were done.
“There is nowe,” she said as much to herself as to him. “We arenothing.”
Noah’s eyes glistened. “AJ—” He reached for her.
AJ leveled her gaze at him, and he instantly dropped his hand.
“I’ll see you. I guess.”
