“If he did anything inappropriate, you’d tell me, right?” He sat down, but his eyes still blazed into mine with an emotion I couldn’t name.
“Of course, but he was a gentleman,” I assured him. God, I couldn’t work Elliot out. I could feel my tired brain begin to spin with confusion, so I took a deep breath, needing to change the subject. “Did we get any feedback from RJ yet?”
“He said he’d have it for us in an hour,” Elliot muttered. “So I suggest we get to work until he calls us.”
RJ had a lot of notes for us that morning. “This is good,” he declared.
“Serious?” Elliot couldn’t hide his relief.
“This is working.” RJ gestured between me and Elliot. “Whatever you have been doing is working.”
“Great.” Elliot let out a deep breath and I realized he’d been more nervous about the edits than he’d let on.
“I like what you have done with the two of them out and around the city. They just … sizzle. Let’s have more of this.”
“Well, we can certainly give that a go,” Elliot said.
“I’d like to see something before Wednesday,” RJ said.
Elliot’s eyebrows shot up. “Wed— Wednesday?”
“Yes,” RJ said calmly. “Is that a problem?”
“I guess not.” Elliot’s gaze flicked over the stack of script notes in his hand and although he didn’t say anything, his jaw clenched. I glanced down at the notes in his grip. All I could see were slashes and scrawls. I tried not to let panic overwhelm me. Sure, I could tweak and make suggestions, but this? This was a whole other level of creativity I wasn’t sure I had in me.
“Are you okay?” Elliot asked as we left RJ’s office.
“Why do you ask?” I took the stack of notes from him to flick through.
“You’re blessedly quiet,” he said. “I mean, it’s nice, don’t get me wrong, but I fully expected you to launch into a checklist plan of action the second we left his office.”
“It’s just become rather a lot more than I imagined,” I said anxiously.
I waited for Elliot to begin a lecture ofI told you so, but he merely regarded me with something that might have been empathy. “We’ll find a way through,” he said.
Before I could even agree with his sentiment, Ralf tapped me on the shoulder from behind.
“Morning, sunshine!” He handed me a coffee from Have a Java. “Thought you might need this.”
“Oh, thanks.” I lifted the lid. It looked and smelled like amocha, a drink I hated. But I didn’t want to seem rude, so I took a small sip in gratitude.
Ralf wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “I hear Sadie gave you a hard time this morning, I am so sorry about that.”
“Are you though?” Elliot growled.
Ralf’s eyes widened. “Yes. Melroy has nothing to worry about and he knows it. Sadie is just super cautious, that’s all.”
I opened my mouth to say I understood, but Elliot grabbed my elbow.
“If you’re done, we need to get to work,” he said.
“I’m just checking in on Lucie here,” Ralf said.
Elliot tugged at me. “Okay, now you have checked, you can go.”
“Listen, Elliot, you might not care about her wellbeing, but I do.” Ralf tightened his grip on my shoulders.
“I’m fine, Ralf,” I said.
