by Tash Skilton
After Nina kissed me, she told me Millie had opened her eyes to the possibility of us, but also that, back in college, Nina had almost come clean on the night of the costume party.
“Nina,” I said, “I’ve loved you from the moment you walked into that TV lounge, and every moment since. Not in a ‘I must have her’ way—though I mean, you’re gorgeous—but because I knew we’d be important to each other. I wasn’t your friend in hopes of anything, it wasn’t leading anywhere, but at the same time I knew that regardless of the form it took, we were—”
“Meant to be,” she supplied, her eyes wet.
It’s noon by the time we rise from our stupor. We take a bath together, though of course, a third of the bathwater ends up on the floor when we do what we do in it.
“I never want to go back to the other way. The non-kissing way,” I say around a yawn. Our lips meet again.
“Me neither.” She taps me on the nose.
I rest my head on her stomach and she caresses my hair, damp and matted to my forehead.
The sex is great of course, but I relish the other kinds of touching too. Stroking her back, massaging her scalp, pulling her legs onto my lap when we watch TV, draping my arm across her waist in bed, melting into each other like cheese on toast, timing our breaths so they match, a syncopated heartbeat.
The next night, after a rigorous, deeply scientific study, we deem her mattress superior to mine, which leaves the question of what to do with my bed.
“Let’s turn it into a fort,” Nina says.
Spoiler alert: The fort also becomes a place for sex.
Nina, propped on her elbow, finger trailing along my chest: “Do you wish we’d figured this out sooner?”
I press my lips to her forehead. “No, because then we might never have become such good friends, and that’s what I needed the most back then.” I’d told her about bits and bobs of my childhood throughout the years, and the fact that she’d never judged me for it was all the information I’d needed about her.
The night after that, a text from Millie arrives: You will henceforth refer to me as The Architect.
Attached is a photo Nina apparently sent her earlier, of Nina kissing my cheek. Millie has added animated hearts around our faces and a techno beat to the background. It’s so over the top I laugh at the sight.
Nina pokes her head in from the bathroom, where she’s brushing her teeth. “What’s funny?”
“Millie’s taking credit for us.”
“Aw, let her have it.”
Another text from my sister: Content?
Yes, I type back. To put it mildly.
Millie immediately video-calls me on WhatsApp. Her tour group is at a pitstop in New Mexico.
“Okay, send me some,” she commands.
“Send you some what?”
“Content!” she shouts.
“I thought you asked if I was content?”
“No, I want content! Images! Multimedia! Fanvids! Etcetera.”
“Of me and Nina? We haven’t created any.” We’ve been a little busy consecrating the apartment, couch to floor to wall to door. “Here’s your content: Nina has the most kissable cheeks.”
Millie frowns. “That’s all I get?”
“I didn’t say which cheeks.”
She screams, covers her ears, and sways. “Nope, no.”
“Hey, you asked for it.”
“Content by midnight or I’ll haunt you.”
She clicks off and I wave Nina over. “Get in here.” We take a picture of our faces in profile, noses touching, then draw a heart outline to frame the shape we’ve made. Beneath the image, I type Worthington/Shams 4-Ever in graffiti font.
My bastard autocorrect changes Worthington to Worthy grin.
I roll my eyes and show Nina. “How do you like that? All these years together and it still doesn’t know my name. Though right now, I’m tempted to leave it that way.”
“My stupid phone autocorrects to ‘Scam.’ Like, way to help with my imposter syndrome.”
“That’s downright offensive.”
“I know, right?”
I fix my last name and send the photo to everyone in our social circle, because we might as well let everyone know at once that our relationship status has changed.
Then I put my phone on “do not disturb” for the rest of the evening.
* * *
This is how our days pass:
Sleep in late, race to work.
Leave work early, race home.
Kneel before my queen, tilt her chalice toward me, and drink my fill.
At Vasquez Studios, Roberto trips me as I pass by with the briefcase. I don’t even feel the subsequent bruise that forms on my leg, I just add it to the collection of hurts that Nina will kiss better. Another day, Janine makes me drive to West Covina on an errand and then changes her mind when I’m five minutes from my destination, has me turn around, then changes her mind AGAIN, and I don’t even care because Nina’s on speakerphone with me the whole time keeping me company and pitching me ideas for spec scripts she might write. I’m so proud of her I bring home a vintage bottle of red with which to celebrate, only to discover Nina has beaten me there, leaving a trail of roses to the bedroom, where she waits, cheeks flushed, eyes mischievous.
We turn the now-spare bedroom into an office. Shove my superfluous bed flush against the far corner and add another desk so there’s one for each of us, backs to each other, facing opposite walls. We build a bookshelf and fill it with our combined sets of novels, screenwriting books, and cookbooks.
I point to a spot over my desk. “I think right here I’m going to frame the check stub from when I was on the show. Assuming it ever shows up.”
I test out new recipes: Goblin Cobbler, Centauraggon Chicken. We stay up way too late. Days turn into nights and nights turn into weeks. The Farmers Market, the Getty, the Hollywood sign, and my absolute favorite, the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve in Lancaster, a four-hour round-trip drive worth every second in the car.
We take the 14 there, waving at Vasquez Studios as we pass by.
I’ll remember that day forever: the wind whipping Nina’s dark hair around her face, the delight in her eyes as we reached the peak of that first hill and she spotted the poppy fields in the distance, calling us toward them with a promise of bucolic, dreamy oblivion. The abundant crop this year was called a super bloom, the flowers so vibrant they seemed to hover and glow, spilling up and down the countryside in undulating waves, the color of blood oranges. It felt as though we’d discovered a world hidden beneath our own; a world that had always been there, waiting for us to pull back the curtain. The way she whispered “No way” and “I’ve never seen anything like this” echoed my own thoughts.
A stranger took our photo when we arrived, the awe still evident on our faces, Nina’s hair and skin contrasting beautifully against the endless orange-and-green backdrop, me tilting my head toward hers. The photo turned out to be the missing piece—the artwork that pulled the apartment together as our shared home: the two of us in those poppy fields, printed on canvas, hung in our bedroom.
We buy surprise gifts for each other, as though we’re making up for all the years when it might’ve been strange to do so, and in this way, we feather our nest.
She teases me endlessly for wearing boxers to bed instead of sleeping nude the way she does. (I have an irrational fear that if a fire alarm goes off, I won’t be able to find my clothes and I’ll somehow end up stark naked outside. I know, it makes no sense.)
One night she approaches me with a bow-tied box and a coy look on her face. “Since you insist on wearing clothes to bed, how about these?”
Inside the box is a set of satin pajamas, and on the back of the button-down shirt are the words, “A Knight in the Streets and a Freak in the Sheets” embroidered in CoRaB font.
I press the satin to my face, savoring the cool fabric, enamored.
As soon as I can, I return the favor with a silk nightie for her. (“Although
since you insist on sleeping naked, I should probably tear it off you.”)
Not all our gifts are expensive. In fact, most of them aren’t, and we like the cheap ones best. I find Nina a bobblehead Queen Lucinda, one of several editions, for her desk.
“I wish you came in a set of twelve so I could collect you all,” Nina tells me, pushing me onto the floor.
Two days later, a bobblehead Jeff stares me down at my desk, wearing his eyeball necklace.
The day after that, Post-its appear on the walls and desks, in a rainbow assortment of colors, ever-changing speech bubbles written on them, originating from our bobbleheads. “Get back to work, Worthington,” Jeff says in creepy script written in “blood.”
A month into our relationship, I open the window in our home office for some fresh air, and a gust of wind scatters the flimsy Post-its off the wall and across the room like leaves. I slam the window shut but it’s too late; the Post-its are everywhere. I apologize for the mess, but Nina doesn’t say a word; pulls out a Sharpie, removes the cap, and holds it an inch from the wall. She looks at me and I nod back, a thrill swooping up my spine.
She writes “Hi, Sebastian” in big, round letters on the wall between our desks. From that point on we ditch the Post-its and write messages to each other directly on the building, around and above us, because we can paint over it anytime we want.
“Now we can say ‘the writing’s on the wall’ and mean it,” Nina declares.
Adulting’s never felt better. (I ignore the dirty dishes in the sink, the clothes on the floor, the books stacked everywhere, the Post-its behind the desk and on the floor, and the steady stream of unanswered texts and voice mails piling up in my phone. None of it matters.)
If College Sebastian could see me now, he’d build a shrine to Adult Me and worship me like a god.
CHAPTER 30
NINA
If Sebastian and I were a fanfic, here’s what our story heading would be:
Category: RPF (real person fic), Fluff, HEA (happily ever after)
Fandom(s): Each Other
Relationship: Friends to lovers
Additional Tags: Perky Persian / Hot Brit; Zelda Gamers Gone Wild
SUMMARY: 20-something BFFs-turned-amours Sebastian and Nina hole up together in their mid-Wilshire love den, neglecting all basic duties toward friends, family, and the outside world.
Millie was right; HEAs and OTPs absolutely belong in real life. In fact, give me all the acronyms because I’m pretty sure that Sebastian and I could coin a few of our own. ILCARDCAK (If Lucinda’s Crown’s A-Rockin’, Don’t Come A-Knockin’). FGAI (our Fugue-GetAboutIt state, which Sebastian has informed me Matty used to always ride him about). TUTWAP (Turn Up the WAP, aka the Cardi B special for our foray into erotica).
For once, my life feels as satisfying as a really excellent piece of fiction. I float into work now, nothing bothering me: not the trolls or atrociously spelled memes on Twitter. Not the profoundly disturbing Reddit threads describing the minutiae of CoRaB beheadings (rated on a feasibility scale of one to ten), not even Sean yelling at me to get to the bottom of a panicked call from Sabrina, the show’s publicist, about an unsavory blind gossip item clearly referencing Roberto.
To top it all off, not only did Lou Trewoski and his staff approve of the writers’ room takeover but it’s happening today.
All I want to do when it’s over is to relive it by telling Sebastian every single detail. And I think I know just the place to do it. How would you feel about driving to Irvine for dinner? I text him. There’s a Persian kabob place that’s been on my list for ages.
I’d feel great about it.
* * *
At six p.m., as I see Sebastian’s car approaching me on the curb in front of my office building, I’m forced to examine the overwhelming emotions coursing through me. Ennis had done this dozens of times and never, at the approach of his car, had I felt this. I’d felt relief at being done with work, a pleasant sort of geniality at seeing Ennis’s handsome face, and a tiny bit of guilt for letting him be my personal chauffeur. Now, I feel like one of those Italian renaissance paintings of the Mother Mary that show sunbeams shooting out of her heart.
I don’t even wait for Sebastian to fully brake, just throw open the passenger door, leap into the car, and scramble over the gearshift to give him a huge kiss.
“The writers’ room went that well, huh?” he says with a laugh.
“You have no idea.”
“Tell me,” he says as he pulls the car back out onto the road.
“First of all, Lou Trewoski is . . . a dream.”
Sebastian raises his eyebrows. “Like a dream . . . boat?”
I laugh. “No, like a dream mentor. He was so nice. I got up the nerve to tell him I’m an aspiring TV writer and he gave me all kinds of advice about what to work on. I thought I should be writing a spec script for an existing show, but he told me I should really try working on an original pilot. That it’d be a better calling card for me. He even offered to take a look at it when I’m done!”
Sebastian’s jaw drops. “Nina!”
“But, wait, that’s not even the best part,” I squeal.
“There’s more?” Sebastian exclaims, his hands turning white from how hard he’s clutching the steering wheel.
I nod. “He let me pitch an idea in the room, Sebastian. And I pitched . . .” I give a pregnant pause, a little trick I learned from my few hours with Lou’s team.
“What? What is it?” Sebastian looks like he’s ready to explode.
“Jeffcan!”
“No . . .” Sebastian whispers.
“And they loved it!”
“Oh my God,” Sebastian says, his eyes bugging out as he turns them over to me and then quickly back to the road. “This might be too dangerous a story to tell while I’m driving.”
I laugh. “You’re right. I’ll save the rest for the restaurant.”
“There’s more?!” Sebastian’s voice is almost as high as season four’s choir of castrati.
* * *
The restaurant is in a strip mall, an unassuming beige building that doesn’t prepare you for what happens when you step inside and are greeted with the gaudy but somehow welcoming sight of blue and green mosaic walls, a large painted mural of Persepolis, and white marble statues of griffins that are, for some reason, behind red velvet ropes and standing on burgundy rugs. (Because even imitation art gets the red carpet treatment in Hollywood, I suppose.) Dark green tablecloths cover rows and rows of large tables, and at the back is a stage bathed in blue and purple lights. A completely mismatched array of mir-rorwork art, paintings of unibrowed women, large silver samovars, and colorful glass hookahs round out the rest of the décor. It looks a little like my mom’s living room, if her living room also doubled as an impromptu nightclub, and I think that’s precisely the point.
While we wait for the maitre d’ to seat us, Sebastian turns to me. “Okay, I think it’s safe for you to tell me the rest now. Do you think they’re really going to do it? Jeffcan?”
“Maybe,” I reply. “One of the other writers mentioned that it would be great if they had more LGBTQ rep in the show. And then Lou riffed off of it storywise and said if Jeff fell really hard, then maybe he’d give Duncan access to Mount Signon and that could be a great cliffhanger for the season. Oh and . . .” I giggle, thinking of this next part. “They all agreed that Roberto would hate the storyline. Which seemed to give them even more incentive to do it.”
“He’s a real popular guy, isn’t he?”
“You reap what you sow, I guess,” I reply. “Does not narrow down who leaked that blind item about him.”
Sebastian looks down at me, his eyes shining. “I’m so proud of you, Nina. You have no idea.”
I beam at him. “I wouldn’t have even dreamed of asking to go into the writers’ room without you. And, I have to admit, Sayeh.”
He laughs. “We might owe Sayeh more than that. She kinda gave me hope before I dared hope this”—he l
ifts up our interlocked hands—“could ever really be a thing.”
“She did?” My smile falters. “Oh God, what did she say to you?”
“Not to me. To Millie,” he replies. “I believe something like: ‘Those two should’ve boned ages ago since they obviously belong together. Or at least fuck and get it out of their systems.’”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter.
“I don’t think I will, by the way. Get it out of my system.” He lifts up my hand and kisses it this time, his eyes turning decidedly more wicked.
I smile slyly at him.
We’re interrupted by the maitre d’, who seats us and hands us the extensive-looking leather-bound menu. Sebastian had already told me that he’s leaving the ordering up to me, and it’s not a job I’m about to take lightly. “I need silence to study this,” I proclaim.
After about ten minutes, I finally put the menu down. “We have a problem.”
“What’s that?”
“We have to get mast-o-khiar—cucumber and yogurt—as an app. But we also have to get mast-o-mousir, that’s yogurt and shallots. And we absolutely need the feta cheese and sabzi. It’s . . .” I look up at him seriously. “A lot of dairy.”
He nods solemnly. “I think I can take it . . . oh! Speaking of which! Here’s a blind item for you. Which gorgeous Shakespearean actress turned TV queen apparently has some sort of personality-changing relationship with cheese? As heard from multiple sources.”
“Really? I wonder what happens.”
The waiter comes over and asks if we’re ready to order our appetizers. I give Sebastian a look and he nods. “Let’s go nuts. After all, it is our one-month anniversary.”
I laugh. “Yes, it’s our very important one-month anniversary.” I read the whole list of items to the waiter, deciding at the last minute to add an order of kashk-e-bademjoon to the mix.
With the waiter gone, Sebastian takes my hand, stares into my eyes and says, “Which drop-dead gorgeous social media coordinator, about to be Emmy-winning TV writer, is said to be stepping out with . . .”
“The next hottest cookbook author. And we do mean hottest, folks. Have you seen that Link-like physique? He can scale my Mount Hylia any day.” I wink at him as his jaw drops. I can tell I just majorly turned him on—the nerd.