Single Dad Seeks Juliet

by Max Monroe

  “Casting is almost set. Lucy Larson just agreed and signed on as the female lead,” Serena updates.

  “And our director?”

  “Mei Chen is a go as well.”

  “Wow, that’s fantastic news.” Callie taps her pen on her leather notebook. “So, we only need the male lead.”

  “Exactly.” Serena nods aggressively. “And that’s why we’re all here this morning. Since you’ve all read the screenplay now, I want your ideas. Your thoughts. Your concerns.” She flashes a grin. “Although, if your concern is anything other than being afraid of showing off with how good your suggestions are for the most important role we’ve ever filled, you can get the fuck out.”

  Soft, albeit slightly nervous, laughter fills the room, and Serena stands up and starts walking around, apparently comfortable in an environment made balmy by our sweat.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking. With Lucy Larson on board, who should play our male lead, Finn Slate?”

  “Personally,” Charles chimes in first. “I think Harry Saint would be perfect.”

  Pfft. Yeah, right. Serena’s gonna shut that shit down faster than Twista can rap about a girl becoming an overnight celebrity.

  But to my surprise, Serena nods her head in agreement. “You know, I never thought about him, but I think you might be onto something…” She pauses and looks toward Olivia Wells, her casting director. “What do you think?’

  “Maybe?” Olivia taps her pen against her lips, but it seems to me that’s a gesture born of anxiety. She doesn’t want to disagree with Serena in front of a room full of people, and I can’t say I blame her. “I mean, he was pretty good in Bad Men.”

  “I also think it should be noted,” Charles interjects. “After seeing them together in Long Road a few years ago, we know Lucy Larson and Henry Saint will have amazing chemistry together on-screen.” I don’t miss the slimy, egotistical smile he tosses my way when Serena appears happy with his second suggestion of the day.

  Are you really going to let him suggest casting for the lead actor of this project and not offer up anything better? my subconscious scolds me. What do you think will happen if his suggestion actually turns into reality?

  The pressure of my current situation starts to build an impending sense of doom inside me. Palms sweaty and heart racing, I have to rub my hands against my legs discreetly to stop myself from crying aloud.

  Good God, Billie, you have to offer up something! I mean, between the ass-kissing and actor suggestion and fucking hand-delivered croissants, you’re way behind the curve today!

  I scan my notes. I know Finn Slate is not Harry Saint, but who is he?

  I kind of hoped Serena would play duck, duck, goose—a going around the table to collect answers sort of thing, but instead, she jumps directly to me.

  “What do you think, Billie?”

  Shit!

  Think of something! Anything! You can’t just let Charles put in all the damn ideas!

  “Uh…” I start before raising a fist to my mouth, clearing my throat, and patting my chest. I don’t know what I’m supposedly choking on—maybe Charles’s come shots as he fires them all over the room in premature ejacu-victory—but it seems like the most believable way to buy time. “While Harry Saint is a fantastic actor, I’m not convinced he can live up to the role of Finn Slate. It needs someone special. Enigmatic. Someone…undeniable.”

  “Are you really saying Harry Saint isn’t enigmatic?” Charles snorts. “Did you see the money he brought in with his last big film? Audiences love him.”

  “Harry is amazing, obviously,” I expand cautiously. The last thing I need is some Harry fanatic coming after me for badmouthing him. “But he’s not the right kind of amazing. Personally, I think this role needs someone a little darker. A little less…commercial, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, but who?” he prods. “I mean, you can’t just say something like that and not offer up an example.”

  I try not to hate anyone, I really do, but if I had a fork in my hand right now, I don’t think anything would stop me from launching myself across the room and stabbing it directly in that guy’s eye.

  Serena glances back and forth between me and Charles but stops back on me.

  Give her something, for heaven’s sake!

  “Someone like…” I pause, searching the scraps and scribbles in my mind for something—anything. And instantly, my mind whispers a name—one I’m hearing for the second time in ages after not hearing it in damn near forever.

  Charles flashes an annoying smirk at me. “Someone like…?”

  “Luca Weaver.” I immediately bite my tongue so hard, it bleeds. Goddammit, Billie. Of all the freaking people in the entire world…

  Sure, he is a good fit for the role.

  Agent Zero—one of Luca Weaver’s first movies in an adult role—was dark and gritty. And he was Oscar-worthy in it.

  But the guy is a freaking ghost! my mind yells. Unless you’re a freaking psychic medium now, he’s not a freaking option!

  “Hmm…” Serena hums as she stares at me for a beat. It takes a gift from God to keep my molecules from scattering—poof!—and disappearing my body in a magical mist of flesh. “I haven’t thought about Luca Weaver in a long time.”

  The room is silent as everyone waits for Serena’s decision to drop. I’m out on a limb, scrambling for my footing, and seconds from falling to a tragic death when Callie finally extends a lifeline.

  “I can see it. Agent Zero was a fantastic movie.”

  “Yeah, and I can’t imagine anyone would see that casting decision coming. It could be genius,” Olivia adds, confidence apparently bolstered by Callie.

  “But Luca Weaver has been out of Hollywood for, like, a decade,” Charles argues, getting red in the face at the crowd’s unexpected support of me. “He’s basically MIA.”

  “Actually…he wants to come back,” I blurt out foolishly, and Serena’s eyes light up.

  Oh GOD. Where is the rewind button? Please, baby Jesus, I need a rewind button!

  “You can get Luca Weaver to do this movie?”

  My head is nodding. Why is my head nodding!? And then, one word just shoots out of my mouth like a bullet. “Yes.”

  No, no, no! You cannot! As Birdie so rudely pointed out, you do not know him! my panicked mind shrieks. Watching every episode of Home Sweet Home when you were a teenage girl does not make you a magician!

  “Done,” Serena declares, and the whole room goes up in a low titter. The guy on the potted plant is vibrating with so much energy, the leaves behind him are shaking.

  Oh God. Kill me. Kill me dead right now because my career is already on its way underground.

  “How quickly can you get in touch with him?”

  Abort! Abort! Abort!

  “I’m not sure,” I say with a shrug. When all eyes narrow in on me suspiciously, I say the first thing that comes to my panic-fueled mouth. “But probably pretty quick.”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake.

  “Who’s his agent?” Olivia asks the room, hoping someone knows the answer.

  “Adele,” I offer up because, evidently, I’m in the middle of a nervous breakdown. My mouth has gone Terminator-style rogue, but in this apocalyptic world, there’s no reassuring Arnold robot voice saying, “I’ll be back.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Adele Lang.”

  Oh yeah, Adele Lang. I nod. This isn’t the first time you’re actually hearing her last name or anything. No, not at all.

  “I can’t believe that woman is still working in Hollywood,” Callie says with a grin. “She has to be pushing eighty at this point.”

  “She’s old-school. Fucking hard-core,” Olivia adds on a laugh.

  Serena walks over to the floor-to-ceiling windows that look out toward the city and stands there for a long moment.

  Callie and Olivia chat animatedly about Adele Lang.

  Charles stares daggers into my skull.

  And, me? Well, I stay rooted in my seat, trying not
to fucking piss myself.

  Holy shit. What have I done?

  I’ve just promised my boss a man I can in no way deliver.

  Need more? Of course you do!

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  First of all, THANK YOU for reading. That goes for anyone who has bought a copy, read an ARC, helped us beta, edited, or found time in their busy schedule just to make sure we stayed on track. Thank you for supporting us, for talking about our books, and for just being so unbelievably loving and supportive of our characters. You’ve made this our MOST favorite adventure thus far.

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