I drain the last few swallows of my wine and think about how to present this deal and my other proposals to Silas. I could wait until I have a draft production contract in hand to show him. The basic terms are standard in the industry, and, as a member of the Dramatists Guild, Silas might already be familiar with most of them. I’ll try to get him higher advance payments than the minimum terms, though I expect James will push hard on that, since this is Silas’s first musical.
I open my laptop and log onto the firm’s network and scroll through archived files of previous deals. I click around a few files, looking at riders that supplement deals I think are similar to this one. I’m killing time, I know—putting off the moment when I tell Silas everything I’ve put in motion. He’s been amenable to me dominating him for the weekend, but this is his career and life I’m talking about.
Will he let me take charge of everything? There’s only one way to find out.
I scoop my laptop under one arm and snag my empty wine glass in my other hand and return to the kitchen. Except Silas isn’t there.
Our dishes are cleared away from the island countertop and the dishwasher is quietly humming its cycle.
Silas isn’t in the living room, but he’s been in the music room, because he’s cleaned that up, too. The blank manuscript paper has been tidied away and there’s just the pages he used to write down the song he was working on stacked neatly on the piano’s music rack. If he agrees to my plan, I’ll need to make some space for him.
I have a hunch where he might be, so I head back to the main level. To Lance’s bedroom. The door is half-closed and I don’t hear anything coming from inside, but when I peek around the door, Silas is sitting on the end of Lance’s bed. His phone is in his hands and he’s tapping away with his thumbs at lightning speed.
His hair is hanging in his face, like it seems to do all the time, and he has a look of deep concentration on his face. And then the corners of his mouth lift and he snorts quietly at something he’s reading on his phone. Texting his friend, I presume.
It’s too much like eavesdropping to stay here and watch him, so I leave him to his phone and whoever he’s texting with and head back to the living room. I can wait until he’s ready to come to me.
Twenty-Four
Silas
I might as well check in with Chloe while Logan is on his call. I take my phone into Lance’s bedroom and perch on the end of his bed. Despite everything, this is the room I’ve spent the most time in and I need a place to think.
Hey
I text her. It’s only a few seconds before she texts back.
hey cupcake!
tired of boning mr. reynolds already?
I’m never going to tire of that, but I’m the one who told her this was just for the weekend and nothing serious. Except that it’s getting serious, at least for me, and I really don’t know what to do about it.
She also uses emojis way more than necessary. As I’m looking down at my phone, a series of cartoon images pop up one after the other and it takes me a minute to figure some of them out.
Why are you sending me eggplants?
And…water droplets?
Then something I have to squint at for a minute before realizing it’s meant to be fireworks, a burning cigarette, a cartoon face with a hand over a yawning mouth, and then another face with a bunch of zzzs floating over its head.
Ha.
I text back.
Very subtle.
when are you coming home?
Uh, I’m not sure.
I really need to talk some of this shit out, but I hit decline when Chloe calls.
Texts, pls.
um, okay.
Three dots dance on the screen while Chloe types.
