‘Imean, you’ve been incommunicado for the past day and a half – what the hell’s going on?’
I take the phone from my ear and navigate to my messages. She’s sentfivesince we talked yesterday morning, all versions of the same question:what’s happening with the two Nicholases?
Oops.
‘Sorry, Megs. I’m a shitty friend.’
‘No, you’re not. But I am worried about you.’
‘You don’t need to worry about m— Actually, scratch that. Worry away.’
‘Oh god, that sounds ominous.’
‘Yeah, well…’ I begin, then I fill her in on the conversation with Nicholas.
‘You seriously hung up on him?’ she asks.
‘Yep.’
‘Wow. And have you heard from him since?’
‘Nope.’
‘Geez, Laney – sorry to hear that.’
‘Areyou?’ I ask with unmasked scepticism.
‘I only want you to be happy,’ she says gently.
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘And maybe this will be a wake-up call. He’s never seen this side of you before – maybe he’ll realise you aren’t such a pushover after all, and he’ll come crawling on his hands and knees, begging you to take him back.’
‘First off, if the pushover remark was supposed to be a compliment, it wasn’t.’ She sniggers and I snort softly –almosta laugh. ‘Second, we didn’t break up – we had a fight. Or I think we did. I yelled at him and he said he’d call when he got back to London. Andthird, do you even want him to come crawling back?’
‘In order: I’m sorry, got it, and no, not really.’
I heave out a noisy sigh.
‘So, what about Superman? What did you two get up to today?’
I tell her about the screenplay.
‘Oh, hon, you’ve got it bad,’ she says when I finish.
‘I know, right? I’vegotto get this movie made, Megs. I’ll take it to Raina – she loves character-driven pieces – and she lovesme…’ I drawl. ‘Off the back ofBaby Love, this could get me my first senior producer credit. Wouldn’t that be awesome?’
‘For sure, but that’s not what I meant.’
‘Oh? What did you mean?’
‘Laney, you’re catching feelings for the stuntman.’
‘It’s not that bad,’ I say, even though itisthat bad – I literally just told myself the same frigging thing.
‘Okay, so what are you two doing tonight?’
It’s a trap!my mind yells.