Would Like to Meet

by Rachel Winters

  My fingers were left grasping air as the door flew open and the coffees lurched with the unexpected motion. I managed to steady them, expecting to see NOB, only for a tall strawberry blonde to stride out and stop just short of treading on me. I had a weird sense of familiarity, despite not knowing her, before my brain caught up with my eyes. She was Monica Reed, the Yorkshire-born Hollywood darling. My breath caught in my throat. She’d dated NOB on and off for the last few years—though God only knows what the attraction was. He was a boychild, and she was the woman who’d stormed into Hollywood demanding equal pay and diverse roles for women over the age of thirty-five. It was safe to say I was a bit of a fan.

  I’d seen NOB’s various partners come and go over the years. His type was blondes in their early twenties. Monica was different. Regal, statuesque . . . older than him. Her yoga gear showed off her incredible figure, and her wavy shoulder-length hair gleamed rose-gold in the wintry morning light. She caught me staring and I blushed.

  The tail end of an L.A.-inflected apology drifted down the hallway. It was the kind of voice that sounded well traveled, the voice of someone who had experienced more of the world than you ever would, and taken the pictures with sedated tigers to prove it. The vocal equivalent of a Tinder profile.

  “Mon, babe, this isn’t another brushoff, I promise. There’s no one else. I have a meeting I can’t avoid. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

  Of course NOB would call Monica Reed babe. The actress favored to win her second Oscar for her upcoming film The Con, a period piece set in a convent in which the nuns run an illegal gin distillery. I’d heard she’d become fluent in Italian just for that one role.

  I smiled shyly at her.

  She looked me over. “It’s okay, Ez, I believe you. It’s clearly just a work thing,” she called back to him.

  Ouch. So maybe they were better matched than I realized.

  “Then believe me when I say my agent’s assistant is a total pain in my arse,” NOB said from the hallway. He was rustling around for something. “She emailed about this meeting on Friday while we were at the club. If she ever got a life, I’d be able to enjoy mine.” NOB’s tousled blond hair came into view as he handed Monica a set of keys. “Oh, hi, Stevie.” He couldn’t have appeared less concerned about my overhearing, probably because that had been his exact reply to me at the time.

  He’d chosen to wear pajama bottoms and nothing else for our meeting. If my heart skipped at the sight of his muscled chest, visible V, and ridiculous “just stepped out of a yacht catalog” good looks, then I decided to forgive myself. He might be an arse, but he was certainly pretty.

  “Evie,” I corrected, a few seconds too late. Then, just to make absolutely sure I had no dignity left: “And I was out on Friday too.” You big jerk.

  NOB draped an arm around Monica’s shoulders. Just two ridiculously good-looking human beings, generously adding to the amount of beauty in the world simply by being in it. Standing there in my 1950s-style dress, beautifully handmade by my mum, I felt I was from a different world entirely.

  “You’re leaking, by the way,” Monica said, shifting her Birkin higher on her shoulder.

  I glanced down. The coffee had pooled in the cardboard tray and was dripping all over my Doc Martens. “Shit,” I said. Very professional, Evie. “Sorry,” I added.

  NOB looked amused.

  “At least they’re wipe-clean,” Monica said. Then, turning away from me, she pulled NOB toward her and gave him a kiss that would have absolutely scandalized the nun she was playing. Dabbing her lips, she slipped a large pair of sunglasses on and strode down the steps.

  “I’ll message you,” NOB called after her. She held up a hand in acknowledgment.

  He looked back at me with irritation. “What do you want?”

  I held my smile. “I’m here for our meeting.”

  “Where’s Monty?”

  I’d been very clear this was my meeting. “It’s just me. And I have coffee. Can I come in?” I lifted the tray. “I’ve got a soggy bottom.”

  He let that statement hang for a moment before lifting his eyebrows. “Well, nobody likes a soggy bottom.”

  I kept my smile while I died a little inside.

  NOB nodded at the coffee. “Is one of those a decaf triple-shot soy latte?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then come on in.” He walked away, leaving me to follow him. Right, Evie. Get it together. You can do this. My job depended on it. And maybe my promotion.

  If I got NOB to sign and agree to finish the script on time, then maybe I would finally, finally, be made an agent. I could expand the agency’s remit from white male screenwriters by bringing in, well, anyone else really, but I longed to work with incredible female screenwriters. No more putting all our eggs in one NOB-shaped basket. So to speak.

  In the sleek black kitchen, trying to avoid multiple reflections of my face in the mirrored tiles, I handed NOB his coffee and dumped the tray in the recycling.

  NOB took a swig and winced. “This is terrible.”

  “That’s decaf for you.” I fished the bag of sticky muffins out of my satchel and went to offer him one. He caught it before I could put it on the gleaming black marble of the breakfast bar.

  “Hey!” NOB held the muffin away from his sculpted chest like its calories might contaminate him. He flipped the lid on his trash can and threw it in. “This is a gluten-free household.”

  I swallowed the considerable bite I’d just taken, and he watched me with a look of disgust that I assumed masked a desperate longing for carbs. “Your new place is lovely,” I said into the silence.

  NOB shrugged, his eyes shifting elsewhere. “I had it remodeled by the same designer Tom uses.” I kept my expression neutral. If NOB was anyone else, I would have asked who Tom was. But he was NOB, so he meant Tom Cruise. He looked over my left shoulder as he said, distantly, “She’s really intuitive.” I followed his gaze and realized he’d caught his own eye in one of the reflective tiles.

  “I can tell.”

  NOB had split his time between L.A. and London since winning the Oscar for his first—and only—film a few years ago. I wondered if this new house meant he was back in London permanently. The moving boxes would suggest that was the case.

  He poured his coffee into the sink with a grimace. “So, what’s Monty sent you for?” he asked, reminding me of how little he thought of me. I’d schooled myself to ignore NOB’s insults over the years. I worked hard at the agency. Monty spent all his time attending to NOB—a full-time job—so I took care of his other clients. Which was fine. Since the Breakup, I’d had more time to dedicate to the agency anyway. My friends cautioned me about maintaining a healthy work/life balance, but they didn’t factor in that “life” mostly consisted of takeout pizza and Netflix.

  “I’m here to discuss your script for Intrepid,” I said, feeling less terrible about the news I was preparing to deliver. NOB turned his back on me and cranked up a coffee machine that looked as if it had been modeled on the ridiculous sports car he’d parked across the pavement.

  “The producers,” I said, raising my voice to compensate for the coffee machine revving its engine, “are really excited to see the script. And they recognize that you’ve been—”

  “What?”

  “You’ve been—”

  “Can’t hear you.”

  “WORKING HARD ON IT.”

  The machine fell silent just as my shout rang out across the kitchen. NOB still had his back to me but his shoulders were hitched up as if he was laughing. He turned his head slightly. “Did you say something?” He waited for me to open my mouth and hit a button on the machine. Steam noisily filled the kitchen until the air was misted and damp. I felt my scalp itch. My hair never did well in heat. It expanded like a marshmallow in hot chocolate.

  Not to be deterred, I raised my voice again. “They’ve give
n us an extension on the latest deadline.” That you missed, six months ago. “It’s very GENEROUS.” The machine fell silent. “You have three—” Then it roared as NOB used 850 horsepower to produce a single shot of decaf coffee.

  But rather than drink it, he left the espresso on the side. I eyed it with annoyance.

  He grabbed a glass from a cupboard. Wiping crumbs from my hands, I pulled the paperwork from my satchel and followed after him. “All you need to do is sign this. It’s a straightforward adden—” Crrrk! Now he was filling up the glass with ice from the dispenser on the fridge. “It’s an addendum saying you agree to DELIVER THE FULL SCRIPT IN THREE MONTHS.”

  I believe NOB heard me that time. He paused, very briefly, before pouring the ice into a smoothie maker. He returned to open the fridge and, after a moment of rustling around, tossed something toward me.

  “Catch.”

  I found myself winded by a bag of avocados, which is possibly the most middle-class thing that’s ever happened to me. NOB nudged the door shut with his gym-sculpted bottom, his arms laden with various fruits and vegetables, which he promptly loaded into the blender.

  “If you could just look at the addendum . . .”

  He held out his hand. I sighed with relief and went to give him the folder, but he shook his head. “Avocados,” he said, as if I was stupid. I slammed them into his hand, perhaps slightly harder than necessary.

  With deft fingers, he began to peel and slice, removing the stones with a knife and a flick of his wrist.

  “If you could just”—he chopped as though the work surface had offended him—“agree to the wording.”

  I shoved the folder under his nose and opened it to reveal . . . nothing. He raised perfect golden brows at me. I looked around, panicked, before seeing the copies of the addendum under NOB’s foot. I bent down to tug the pages free and they tore almost in two as they came away. I stood too quickly, only to find myself nose-to-nose with NOB. This close, I could see that the dazzling blue of his left eye contained a burst of hazel.

  He smirked. Then, waiting for the exact moment I was going to try to speak again, he pressed the button on the smoothie maker. “Please could you—” Wrrr.

  “You need to sign—” Wrrrrrrrr.

  I snapped my hand out and covered the button, breathing hard. His fingers touched mine, still trying to press, but I remained where I was. “You have three months,” I said firmly as I held out the torn copies of the addendum. “It’s very generous, considering how delayed we are.”

  The royal “we”: agency-speak for “definitely you, but we don’t want to appear to be saying this is all your fault.” Which it was. Though Monty’s mollycoddling hadn’t exactly helped.

  “All you need to do is sign it, and I’ll leave you to your juicing.”

  “I see.” At last, NOB picked up his espresso cup and took a sip. It still had the label on the bottom. Like everything else here, it was new. I wondered why NOB had moved back. Had L.A. not worked out the way he’d hoped?

  For a while, NOB had been the go-to writer for every film director wanting to make their name. Yet he hadn’t produced a follow-up to A Heart Lies Bleeding. It was a small industry. He had the weight of expectation on his shoulders. After such an extraordinary success, he must feel like he had a lot to prove.

  Maybe all this attitude was really a response to that pressure. “It must be hard—”

  “The thing is, Stevie”—I bit my tongue this time—“I’m not signing that.”

  Or I’d just let his bare chest go to my head.

  Still, I kept my tone soft. “Unfortunately, you have to. If you don’t”—I dropped the bombshell he must have known was coming—“they’ll cancel the contract outright. You’ll be obligated to give them their money back. This addendum at least gives you more time, and a chance to deliver.”

  “I don’t need time,” he said petulantly. “I’m not signing.”

  I took several deep, calming breaths. In all the years of overblown coffee orders, high-end restaurant bookings, arranging his “I only do first class” travel, and his dedication to not even once getting my name right, NOB had never broken me.

  He wasn’t about to now. I kept my professional mask firmly in place and reminded myself that he didn’t know the whole agency was at stake.

  I tried a different tactic. “Think of all the time you’ve put into it so far. What’s three more months?” I’d heard every excuse in the book for not writing. Sometimes they just needed to know you were in their corner. “I’m here to help you finish in any way I can.”

  NOB smirked and opened his mouth. “I heard it,” I snapped, before he could say the kind of thing that, until recently, assistants had been putting up with for years.

  He shrugged. “Luckily, I don’t need your help.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “Well, the thing is, Stevie.” He tossed back the smoothie. “I haven’t even started writing it.”

  Chapter 4

  The Challenge

  INT: A KITCHEN FILLED WITH REFLECTIVE SURFACES—MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19, ONE MINUTE POST-BOMBSHELL

  EVIE stands in front of NOB, one hand on the kitchen counter to brace herself, as two expressions war for dominance on her face—bland professionalism and complete outrage. NOB pours himself another smoothie, oblivious to EVIE’s gurning.

  I fought to remain calm, but when I spoke all the understanding left my voice. “What?” The entire agency was at stake, and he hadn’t typed a single word? “Monty said—”

  He laughed as he drained his drink. “Old Monts said I was writing?”

  Now I knew why Monty had been so cagey about showing anyone those pages. “But . . . you knew exactly what you were signing up for.” I could feel the heat spreading up my neck.

  “I’ve changed my mind.” He wiped his hands and then leaned toward me. “Oscar winners,” NOB said, “don’t write rom-coms.”

  My mouth went dry. I was going to lose my job because a man who hadn’t even managed to get dressed for a meeting had decided he was too good to write a romantic comedy? “Oscar winners,” I hissed, “wear clothes to meetings. Oscar winners look at someone when they’re speaking to them. Oscar winners write the damn script they’ve been paid for.”

  There was a moment of complete silence, during which NOB seemed to be mentally recalibrating. His gaze sharpened on me and, for the first time possibly ever, he really looked at me.

  Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. All my internal alert systems were firing, and my skin reacted by turning a deep and ferocious crimson. What did I just do? Goodbye promotion.

  NOB flashed his perfect white teeth at me. “Well, well, Evie Summers. There you are.”

  I blinked. Of all the responses I might have expected . . .

  “I . . . What?”

  NOB folded his arms across his chest, the movement accentuating his carefully honed muscles. “Five years of knowing you—”

  “Seven.” (Oh, God, Evie, just stop talking.)

  A quirk of his brow. “All these years of knowing you and this is the first time I’ve seen the real you.”

  Of all the patronizing . . . As he looked at me, I suddenly had an inkling of what it might feel like to have the attention of someone like NOB. He was, though I would never admit it to him, ludicrously good-looking. Golden skin, sky-blue eyes, cheekbones for days, a jawline that was movie-star straight and firm . . .

  What a shame all that beauty was wasted on a wanker.

  “Actually,” I said imperiously, “the real me is far more polite.”

  NOB pulled out one of the stools at the breakfast bar and gestured to it. For a moment I wanted to refuse, but my knees were trembling too hard and I collapsed gracelessly onto the black leather.

  “I’d love to hear more about all these Oscar winners you know so well,” he said, still standing. “But first, let’s be rea
l. I won’t write a rom-com. It’s not my brand.”

  As long as we were being real . . . “Why not?” He had signed up to write one, after all. And while the massive upfront fee and months of being relentlessly wined and dined (aka The Full Monty Special) had certainly helped, he’d known the brief from the start: The producers wanted a modern twist on the “meet-cute”—that moment in a romantic comedy when the two love interests meet for the first time. They used the term frequently, as if showing off their knowledge of the genre.

  NOB sneered. “I write real life, not fantasy. Romantic comedies are meaningless make-believe for people too stupid to realize they’re being fed a pack of lies about love.” He looked at me distractedly. “Your hair is very big,” he said.

  I touched it. The curls had separated in the heat and steam from the espresso machine. There was no saving it, so I shrugged, recognizing a distraction tactic. “Rom-coms give people hope when they need it most.” I flashed back to all the times I’d rage-watched You’ve Got Mail post-Breakup so I could throw things at Tom Hanks’s face. Not relevant. “They have heart, and meaning, and they help people.”

  “You’re talking like you think they’re realistic.”

  “I do, actually.” Or I had, once. Not that he needed to know that. I used to love how Ricky would say the way we’d met was a meet-cute. Not destiny, but something like it. I’d stumbled into an alley, during one particularly overwhelming assistant drinks, needing some air, only to meet a guy doing the same thing from the bar opposite. If it had been a few minutes earlier for either one of us, we’d never have met, never known that our person was, for a brief window of time, only a few meters away.

  I exhaled slowly. The pain from the Breakup had dulled over the last twelve months, but occasionally it could still surprise me.