I sigh and cover my face with my hands, even though no one is around to see me blush. You know how in every romantic comedy, there’s a scene where the love interests almost kiss? They’re so close, their faces mere inches apart, their bodies practically radiating heat, when some precocious child or rude elderly woman interrupts them and they spring apart?
Well, sub in Uncle Don for a child or old woman and you’ve pretty much got what happened in my room.
I thought Drew Danforth was nothing more than an irritating jerk, but maybe I was misreading the signs. Maybe this entire time, we’ve been bantering and I didn’t even notice. Maybe this is an enemies-to-lovers situation, and we’ve been gradually building sexual tension that will have no choice but to explode in a scene so explicit that it would change the movie of my life from a PG to a hard R rating.
Chloe might be right. I might actually, finally, be in my romantic comedy.
Chapter Thirteen
I stay up late into the night working on my screenplay. Writing is often like plugging in one word after another, willing them to make some sort of sense, but this is different. My fingers attack the keyboard, and words appear on the screen before I even notice I wrote them.
I drift off to a dreamless sleep, then wake up before my alarm goes off (which is very, very early). Drew was in here, I think to myself as I get ready. He saw my room.
Despite Chloe’s reassurances, and despite the fact that Drew and I didn’t even kiss—I mean, I’m pretty sure no one would qualify “getting coffee with one man and then having a sexually charged conversation with another man before falling over” as morally dubious behavior—it’s still weird for me. Carter and I aren’t dating, per se, so much as we are People Who Have Been on One Date in Which Barry Was Present. What do we owe each other at this point? I haven’t dated enough to know, and romantic comedies didn’t prepare me for this. In movies, usually one guy is comically terrible—he’s cheating on the heroine at his bachelor party or using her connections to get a job. It’s easy for us to yell at the screen, “JUST DUMP HIS SORRY, TWO-TIMING ASS!”
But it turns out real life isn’t like that. Yes, I have strong and confusing feelings for Drew, but a) he’s leaving town soon and b) doesn’t everyone? And perhaps Carter’s presence doesn’t cause my breath to quicken or my brain to scramble, but I don’t know him that well yet. Maybe what we need is another date.
Maybe what we need is a kiss.
Luckily for me, Carter and I have a date scheduled for the night after my weird bedroom conversation with Drew. Carter seems like an old-fashioned guy, but I’m pretty sure even he would agree that a second date is a perfectly acceptable moment for a first kiss. And maybe, probably, when we do kiss, it will be so good, so intense, that I’ll know instantly that he’s the one for me.
That’s how it often works in the movies, right? In The Wedding Singer, Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler don’t understand their true feelings for each other until they have to pretend-kiss in front of her best friend under the guise of Drew practicing for her upcoming wedding. But when that kiss is over, they just stare at each other, entranced. It turns out their true love was there all along, like some sort of virus that’s only transmitted via saliva.
I intend to find out the secrets contained in Carter’s saliva tonight.
He suggests an Italian restaurant in German Village. I don’t know if he’s actually a fan of Italian food or if he’s trying to avoid the sort of situation that happened last time when we were at Nick’s, but whatever it is, I’m happy to be going out with him. Not just because of my aforementioned kiss plan, but also because it’s nice to have a distraction from the weird Drew situation yesterday, which makes me feel altogether unsettled whenever I think of it.
He offers to pick me up, but since I live a few blocks away (and my ankle feels much better after a night of icing it) I walk. The restaurant is one that Don and I have been to a few times for special occasions, like our birthdays and the days on which particularly exciting Star Wars news is announced (we would never go on an actual premiere day, because Don spends those days in the theatre eating an absurd amount of popcorn). It’s nice, with white tablecloths and piped-in, soft instrumental music and a lot of dramatic-looking busts that I assume are Italian, but I wouldn’t know. It all comes together to create an ambiance that is decidedly not McDonald’s.
Carter stands up when I approach our table, and after an awkward shuffle, he pulls me into a hug. I like the way he feels—solid, strong, dependable.
“You’re like an oak tree,” I say into his shoulder.
He pulls back and looks at me. “Thank you?”
“It’s a compliment,” I say as we sit down. “Trust me.”
We’ve seen each other on set today, so he knows my ankle is mostly better, but he asks about it anyway. We order some wine and soon I’m pleasantly buzzed enough to wholeheartedly dig into the bread basket. As I chow down on the delicious rosemary focaccia, Carter tells me about weekends spent on the lake, how his divorce turned him into a better dad, and how he got started in film. Throughout our meal, he asks me all sorts of questions, about my parents and Uncle Don and my favorite movies.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good conversation. I mean, it’s a great one. He’s polite and he’s interested in me and not once has he mentioned dumpster bagels. But it’s hard for me to concentrate when all I’m thinking about is kissing him and how that will make everything fall into place.
“Um . . . Annie?”
I blink a few times. Carter stares at me, concern evident in his furrowed brow. His eyes search my face, and I realize I’ve been staring off into space as I daydreamed about our hypothetical kiss.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“I’m fine!” I say. “I’m good. Great. Awesome. Perfect.”
“Well.” He laughs. “Who could argue with that?”
I don’t want to waste any more time. Less useless chitchat, more making out; that’s my motto. I survey the restaurant, taking in the Italian busts and the waiters milling about. No, this is not the place for a mind-blowing, destiny-deciding kiss.
I toss my napkin onto the table. “Are you ready to get out of here?”
Carter raises his eyebrows in surprise. “I do have to pay first.”
“Oh.” I nod. “Right.”
I almost bounce in my seat as we wait for our server to return Carter’s credit card. I’m like a child on Christmas morning, except that I’m a grown woman and now my present is a hot dude. When it’s finally time to leave, Carter’s hand on my back lightly guides me around the tables full of couples on dates and families celebrating who knows what. His hand transmits warmth and strength, but it doesn’t produce even the tiniest of tingles. Yet.
I wait until we’re on the sidewalk, the glow from the restaurant windows illuminating Carter’s face. “I had a nice time tonight,” he starts to say, but I don’t let him finish his sentence before I launch myself at him.
I close my eyes and mentally prepare myself for the moment that will decide my future; the moment that, years from now when I’m speaking to Carter’s son and the many children we’ve had since then, I’ll say, “And that’s how I knew your father was the one . . . it was right there, in front of a tiny Italian restaurant while cold rain misted from the sky, that I kissed him and knew we were meant to be.”