I snort. “Who does that?”
“Everyone?” he answers, baffled.
“I don’t,” I inform him proudly.
“How can you possibly write a piece without working out the structure first?”
“Easy. You start writing and go from there.”
I enjoy watching him struggle to comprehend this approach, his mouth opening and closing, his eyebrows knitted together.
“Hang on,” he says, tapping a finger on the steering wheel. “You just launch into writing? Without planning it out…at all?”
“It’s not that big of a deal,” I laugh, resting my elbow on the side of the door.
“How do you know where all the quotes are going to go?” he asks, sounding almost panicked. “How do you know it will flow nicely? How do you make sure you don’t repeat yourself? How do you know where it will start and how it will end?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I start writing and… go with it.”
“Go with it,” he repeats, bewildered. “But your first draft must be… a complete jumble!”
“Usually, yes,” I admit. “It’s all over the shop. But then I rewrite it.”
“So wouldn’t it save you a lot of time and hassle if you plotted it out first?”
“It would stifle the creativity of my writing,” I insist with a flourish of my hands. “If I structured it first, my sentences would be all forced and stilted. Better to let it flow onto the page and then sort it out later.”
He shakes his head, looking completely thrown by this revelation.
“We all have a different process, Ryan,” I remind him, chuckling at his expression.
“I guess we do,” he admits.
“You should already be well-versed with mine. As you said, it’s not the first time we’ve written a piece together.”
He runs a hand through his hair before cracking a smile. “I must have forced myself to forget the trauma of witnessing your process the last time.”
I laugh and we fall into comfortable silence. I check my phone, scrolling through some work emails that I missed yesterday and replying to Mimi’s WhatsApps asking me how the interview went and whether Ryan and I have killed each other yet.
“Do you want to have a drink at mine?” Ryan suddenly asks.
I jerk my head up from my phone. “Sorry?”
“When we get back to London,” he says, looking straight ahead, his brow furrowed. “It’s been a long couple of days for both of us, and I don’t know about you, but I could really use a drink. I think we’ve earned it.”
I feel my heart soar. “I guess we have.”
“I have a really nice wine in the fridge that one of my pretentious friends bought me last time he came for dinner. Wecould crack that open, if you fancy it,” he says hurriedly, looking a little flustered. “My flat is near to the station, so easy for you to get home. Or we could go to the pub if you’d rather? Or, you may actually have plans because it’s a Saturday night and why wouldn’t you? You can tell me to shut up at any point.”
“I don’t have any plans,” I say, laughing. “And a pretentious bottle of wine sounds right up my street. Thanks.”
He nods, smiling at my response, the lines on his forehead fading, and a flurry of tingles runs through my entire body. I turn away to look out the window, my jaw aching from trying not to grin ear to ear.
God, I’m having that dizzying rush of adrenaline you get when the person you like shows signs of liking you back and you let your imagination run wild, picturing them pulling you close and kissing you. My face grows hot, and I rub the back of my neck, forcing myself to remember that this is just a drink. It doesn’t mean anything.
It’s quite a long drive back to London, and by the time Ryan parks near his flat, I’m happy to jump out and stretch, thanking him for the lift. He notices my look of surprise when he leads me to a Victorian house, getting out his keys.
“What?” he says, pushing through the gate and holding it open for me.
