“I need your number again. I had an… accident with my old phone.”
She raised a brow. The question hovered on her lips, almost made it out, but she let it die there. Instead, she left the plates on the counter, reached for a Post-it and pen from the refrigerator door, wrote her number, and stuck it directly onto my shirt, right across my chest. Her hand stayed there a second longer than it needed to. I placed mine over hers, not to stop her, just to… maybe slow her down.
“I’ll call you then.”
“Okay.” She said, sliding her hand out from under mine like she didn’t want to leave, but had to. She picked the plates back up, turned toward the stairs but then stopped, looking back at me over her shoulder. “Butcall. Don’t text.”
I grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”
She disappeared up the stairs, and I exhaled, shaking my head. As I reached for my coat, Carol spoke.
“Don’t take it personally. She’s very protective of the kids.”
I nodded, absorbing her words. I forced a small smile and replied, “As she should be.”
“And of her heart,” Carol added softly. “She looks strong, but when she gets involved, she really gets involved. And when it crashes… she crashes…hard.”
“I understand.”
“She also didn’t have the best experience with people in your industry,” she added. “So… she’s cautious.”
“It’s a tough industry,” I admitted. A world full of egos and assholes. I knew that firsthand. “But she’ll have to face it ifshe wants to sell her scripts.” I gestured toward the folder on the coffee table, the one I’d been eyeing since last night. I wanted to read it. The way Jules brushed it off as a hobby didn’t sit right with me. If she was a screenwriter in the dreams we shared, maybe it wasn’t a coincidence. But when she told me not to touch it, I didn’t.
Carol’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts.
“I don’t think she’ll try that again.”
I turned to her, curious. “Again?”
Her voice shifted; it was quieter now.
“She almost sold one of her scripts once.” She avoided my eyes like she didn’t want to go there. I straightened up, fully focused now. Jules never told me that. She let out a slow breath, her eyes darkening. “This producer… he tried—well, he wanted more than her script. And the day before she was supposed to meet with a director and some up-and-coming actor to finalize the deal, he tried to… get it. Very forcefully.”
I felt my entire body go rigid.
“She pulled the plug immediately, obviously,” Carol continued. Anger in her eyes. “But he didn’t take it well. He made sure she couldn’t sell the script to anyone else.”
A sharp, burning wave of anger surged through me.
“That’s awful,” I said, forcing myself to keep my voice steady. I didn’t want to scare Carol, but what I really wanted to say was,“Who is he?”And, “Don’t mention my name to the cops when they come asking about his mysterious disappearance”.The thought of someone trying to force themselves on Jules, of treating her like that, disrespecting her, hurting her, made my blood boil.
Unfortunately, I’d heard stories like this before. The industry had no shortage of predators, and each one made me sicker than the last. If I ever found out who he was, I wouldn’t hesitate to end his career with a couple of well-placed phone calls.
“Yeah, it was… But that was way before the kids, about… twelve years ago. She stopped writing for a while after that. Only recently, she started again.”
Twelve years. My mind was working overtime, sifting through memories, trying to piece together why that felt significant. Why it feltfamiliar. I glanced at the script again, my thoughts spiraling. My body was there, but my head was somewhere else entirely.
I needed to get home.
“Thanks, Carol,” I said abruptly, pulling myself out of my thoughts.
“For what?”
“For convincing her to give me a shot instead of helping her drag my body,” I said, only half-joking. I felt like maybe we bonded this morning. If I’d managed to break through some of Carol’s walls, maybe I could do the same with Jules, even though her walls were…astronomicallytaller.
“I did no such thing,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“Yet.” I grinned and touched her shoulder as I moved toward the door. “But you like me now. I can see it in your eyes.”
