Hayley didn’t need help. And he didn’t want to be here. It should be a no-brainer.
But if suffering through this week meant he could make his own stuff again, he’d take it.
“There are only so many ways you can write city girl meets boy from the other side of the tracks before it loses all meaning.”
Hayley barked out a short laugh. “Oh, and I suppose those long, moody films about the destruction of hope in a cold world are all completely distinguishable from each other.”
“At least they don’t sugarcoat reality.”
“No, they just make me want to cry in the shower.”
Great. Now all he could think about was her, clothes and all, wet and dripping.
He cleared his throat. That wasn’t helping. “But they make you feel something.”
Hayley tapped her pen, frowning. “You might have buried your heart in concrete at the bottom of a very deep ocean, but romance makes the rest of humanity feel things, too.”
Oh, he knew all about the lies romance told — the fantasy of a partner who was perfect, illusions of relationships that never faced hardship or needed work. In romance movies, the hard part was saying I love you, not what happened after the credits rolled.
That was where the real stories began.
“Please. They’re all the same. Paint-by-numbers plots with catchy posters. They’re nothing but money catchers with no substance.” Probably a low blow, but in for a penny and all that. “Is she a young girl trying to make it in the big city? She’ll be on the poster in a red outfit. Generic rom-com featuring Hollywood’s buff flavor of the month? The couple standing back to back on a white background.”
“Oh, hell,” she said, searching in the pockets of her suede jacket, piling the retrieved items onto the table in front of her. A room key, a hair elastic, and a collection of empty sugar packets. Her refined posture already showed cracks. He was getting to her. “Are you going to be like this the entire week?”
“And another thing,” he continued.
“Oh good. I was hoping you weren’t finished,” she drawled.
“Half the time, the couple falls in love way too fast. Instant love. Mix a handful of outdated jokes about gender with whatever top 40 songs will quickly date your movie and bam! Holiday hit.”
“Be more of a stereotype, I beg of you,” Hayley muttered, staring into the distance.
“You can’t honestly make me believe two people are made for each other in a week.”
Hayley moved, covering the distance between them in short, unhurried steps. She placed her hands on either side of him and leaned in. God, he’d barely need to move to kiss her. Jasmine and sugar swarmed him, the heat of her body a beacon. His nerve endings lit with the memory of the last time they were this close. And closer.
“Oh, I can and I will.”
For a long breath, he said nothing, too caught up in her. He couldn’t believe he’d agreed to this.
“I have one rule,” he said.
She waited. Had her lashes always been so long?
“You even breathe the words Love Actually, and I’m out of here.”
Her laugh was summer rain, welcome and soothing, and far too pure for his iced-over heart.
“Deal.”
Their differences were even more obvious when they unpacked, as though Harrison needed a reminder that he wasn’t from her world and never would be.
He reached for his backpack and pulled out his Post-its and array of pens, arranging them neatly on the table and leaving his laptop in his bag. Harrison approached outlining hands-on, needing to see the shape of the narrative take place before him. He could never see the beginning until he’d imagined the end. Mapping out how to get between those points was the fun part.
And this way, he could color coordinate.
From her case, Hayley retrieved a notebook, a single blue pen, more empty sugar packets (which she frowned prettily at), and her laptop, which she placed beside her.
When she was done, he sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”
Her gaze slid across to him, as powerful as a caress, and his gut clenched.
One week. That was all he needed to get through.
The longest wall in the room acted as their planning board. Yellow Post-its denoted the acts, green the major plot beats, blue the emotional ones.
Typically, this was where Harrison would get to work.
They just had one itty, bitty problem.
Hayley stared across the table. “You honestly can’t name a single romance you’ve enjoyed?”
“No.” How many times did he need to say it?
“What about those raunch-coms that are all about sex and weed and blue humor?”
“Please tell me you think more of me than that.” Those films had about as much to do with romance as Harrison did with a pro-surfer — neither had a shred of evidence to back them up. “They’re funny, but they aren’t romance.”
“Says the self-proclaimed enemy of romance movies.”
“You’re saying I should hate something I know nothing about?”
A deep groan left her throat while she pinched her nose. The way it crinkled in annoyance was cute. He’d missed it.
“I’d almost forgotten you were like this.”
Frustration was a damn good look on her.
He cocked a grin, unable to resist teasing her. “Irresistible?”
“Impossible.” A flicker of amusement crossed her face, and his pulse spiked.
He smoothed his smile into something genuine. It was damn good to know he could still get under her skin.
“Come on, Harry. You’ve never seen a script you didn’t have an opinion on. Give me one idea.”
Fine. “Unfairly attractive twentysomething girl meets unfairly attractive twentysomething guy. Probably in a coffee shop. One of them spills something or there’s a mix-up of some sort. Bonus points if she’s from out of town and he’s in a suit.”
Across from him, Hayley was seething, her silver pen tap-tap-tapping on the blank page. It probably shouldn’t turn him on, but when she got this angry, she took to chewing on the corner of her lip, leaving it red and distracting.
“You’re trying very hard to make me dislike you,” she said. Her accent curled around the words, a flame to his kindling.
“While you are a delight.” He winked.
She stood, studying their progress on the board with her back to him. In the silence he took her in, the way her crossed arms pulled her shirt across her back, the dip of her spine, the curve of her hips.
He adjusted himself, hiding his body’s traitorous reaction.
When she turned to look at him over her shoulder, he knew he’d been caught.
“Something on your mind, Harry?” Hayley asked, and all he could hear was her moaning his name.
There was a hell of a lot on his mind, none of it PG or remotely professional.
The room shrunk, too small to hold them both along with the elephant they were ignoring.
This week was going to be slow torture.
“This is awful,” he said finally.
Hayley ignored his whining, which was probably for the best. One of them had to be an adult. She stuck a note to the wall, marked one bed?. “And yet you’re still here.”