Excerpt Two Wrongs Dont Make a Playwright
Coming 2026
Pressing through the exterior doors, the wave of cool air was a relief after the stifling bar. The roof deck, typically popular during a party, was deserted tonight, the air electric with an imminent storm.
I stumbled to a bench beneath an overhang to protect my recently blown-out hair from getting frizzy in the mist, rubbing under my eyes in a losing battle against smeared mascara. Moments later, the door swooshed open, revealing the last person I wanted to face like this.
Before I could send him away, that familiar voice rumbled: “Hey, Boots.”
That old nickname packed a novel into five letters, wrecking whatever composure I’d clawed together. I refused to face him, biting my knuckle to muffle a sob.
Polished wingtips stepped in front of mine, my conservative nude pumps looking scuffed in comparison. I tilted my head to see trousers molded around powerful thighs. As he squatted, Nick’s captivating face came into view, strands of blond hair curling behind his ears. If I hadn’t already been struggling to breathe, his intense blues might have caused the hyperventilation. I snapped my eyes shut to avoid his concerned expression.
“Look at me, Kate.” His calm voice held such quiet authority that my willpower crumbled, lids lifting to his perfect mouth over-exaggerating an inhale. “Follow my breathing.”
I tried to focus on my breath instead of his full lower lip and the whiteness of his teeth. “Good girl,” he praised, and a bolt of pride and—oh god, lust —shot through me. I tamped it down, centering myself on syncing our breaths.
On the next exhale, he shifted from crouching to kneeling, unraveling my arms from their constrictive hold on my stomach, resting my hands on my knees, his fingers on my forearms both grounding and sensual. We breathed together, and with each breath, the band around my chest loosened.
Then my brain sent a warning signal about our bodies’ positions: Nick kneeling, lifting the hem of my dress lifted to mid-thigh. My body reacted, face flushing at the memory of him between my thighs, his soft beard brushing my most sensitive skin.
I closed my legs and straightened my dress. He gracefully perched the bench a few inches away, his bicep on the backrest without touching me. Our strained breaths punctured the silence, but no amount of oxygen slowed my pulse.
“You’re still getting them?” he asked. “The panic attacks?”
My defenses rose, annoyed that now he knew what plagued me, now , though he hadn’t understood when it mattered. “I’m sorry I didn’t know you … I wouldn’t have —”
He must have felt my breath hitch at the mention of that day, because he bent forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I get it now. I’ve had them too. The tight chest, dizziness, nausea —”
“—the tingly fingers—” I said, rolling my wrists for relief.
“Oh, they’re the worst,” he agreed, fingers flexing in muscle memory. “And it only gets worse if somebody tells you to calm down.‘You mean I should breathe? Thanks, I never thought of that!’”
God, I’d forgotten how well he related to people. I simultaneously craved his comfort and resented it, reminding myself that everyone felt honored by his attention. I wasn’t anything special to him.
Not anymore, anyway.
“So much of my recovery is dependent on who finds me,” he said. “I don’t know how you’ll react because … well, it’s been a long time, and I think we’re friends, so …”
Friends. He thinks we’re friends.
Nick Clarke had never been my friend.
He’d been my everything .
And I’d walked away.
No, I hadn’t walked. I panicked and ran, setting the world ablaze behind me.
And now, seven years later, he had the audacity to say he knew how it felt.
Now he wanted to rewrite history.
I gathered my remaining scraps of dignity and stood, dizzy but tightening my resolve. “Thanks for the pep talk.”
“Wait.” His hand brushed my bicep. The casual touch zinged down my arm, locking me in place. I couldn’t hide my indefinable mix of fear, longing, hesitation, desire, confusion—and when I turned to face him, I recognized them all reflected in his expression.
“I’m fine, Nick,” I snapped, the final sound in his name cracking as I pulled away.
“What’s wrong? Tell me, I can fix it.” His eyes flared with intensity.“Is it about work?”
My chest tightened, remembering today’s phone call losing the contract, then Paul blowing me off about figuring out a solution. Nick must have seen the panic returning because he said, “Breathe. Everything is fixable.”
“I lost my December exhibitor,” I blurted out, hopeful that he’d believe that was the cause of my anxiety instead of his presence. “An abstract surrealist sculptor, incredible with bronze and steel.” His lip tilted in approval, spurring me on. “But she flaked. She signed the contract in June but didn’t tell her manager, who booked those same pieces into an exhibit in Malibu next month.”
Nick inhaled sharply, nostrils flaring. “Do you need me to make a call?”
And there it was: his old habit of stepping in, performative and suffocating. When I was 21, it showed up in a hundred little ways—shoving the guy on the subway after I’d already knocked his hand off my ass; offering to hand wash the dishes but leaving them to ‘soak overnight’ until they crusted over, then muttering about how he’d grown up with a dishwasher; insisting on paying for a $70 cab back to Crown Heights because he didn’t think my neighborhood was safe enough.
Nothing major to complain about, not without sounding ungrateful. He believed he was helping.
And it seemed even worse now.
His familiar savior complex still lingered, now wrapped in the swagger of a rich, famous white man who knew one phone call from him could erase all my problems in a fucking snap. And then he’d dangle it over me. A magnet, tugging me back into his orbit.
With a cocky grin, his hand dipped into his pocket. “What’s her manager’s name?”
Seven years without a goddamn word, and now he was re-inserting himself back into the role of magnanimous hero.
“I don’t need your help,” I spat, stepping out from the overhang onto the roof deck. The mist had thickened, cool drops gathering weight as they slicked through my hair, dripping down my neck and over the curve of my back.
He followed me into the drizzle. Droplets slid down his jaw, pooling at the collar of his jacket where his pulse thrummed, cascading down his torso like a marble statue. “I’m just trying to help.”
Help. Of course. That old refrain.
He always thought he was helping, but in truth, he treated me like I was helpless without him.
He told me he admired my talent, but when push came to shove, he wanted me to rely on him instead of standing on my own two feet. He’d expected me to slot into his dreams on his terms ... and when I didn’t comply, he moved on so fast, it was like I never meant a goddamn thing to him.
Barely a month passed before I saw his first Us Weekly feature: his stunning smile in full force while out to brunch with his gorgeous co-star. The beginning of a long line of women he probably charmed with that grin, with his fame, with his Hollywood connections, his so-called ‘help.’
But unlike them, I knew the cost of those ‘easy favors’ when he finally cashed them in.
“Why don’t you save your help,” I snapped, the anger surging hot and fast, “for your starlets with their tiny waists and pouty plastic lips. Go back to your life as a perfect. fucking. movie. star.” My finger jabbed hard into his chest, each word landing like a strike against his damp shirt.
His face crumpled, the same way it used to when I’d hit a nerve, finding the soft spot underneath all that swagger. Raindrops traced the path I used to map along his cheekbone with my fingertip, heartbreakingly beautiful and infuriatingly familiar all at once.
“I may seem like that to all those people,” he said, his hand gesturing vaguely toward the restaurant, the city, the world. “But you know I’m just Nick, right? I need to know that you, of all people … you remember who I am.”
I wanted to laugh in his face, loud and cruel, to declare: You’re not just Nick anymore.
Not the Nick I knew, anyway.
He’d been the boy I stayed up all night with, splitting bodega sandwiches and running lines until we collapsed in a tangle of limbs on that blue velvet couch.
The boy who turned homemade pasta lessons into excuses to touch me, to kiss me long and deep as the water boiled over.
The boy who admired my fire … unless it burned too bright for his shadow to swallow.
Yeah. I remembered. I remembered everything.
And maybe that was the worst part — he’d shed me like a thrift store jacket, while I’d spent years scraping pieces of him out of my ribs.
Yet trying to hold onto my anger was like gripping smoke in a closed fist — the tighter I held, the faster it leaked between my fingers.
Against every ounce of self-preservation I’d built up over the last seven years, I dragged in a shaky breath and, God help me, said the words that revealed too much: “Of course I remember, Nick.”
And then he pulled me into something that felt like both coming up for oxygen after nearly drowning and tearing open the handmade stitches I’d sewn over old wounds.
I knew, I knew I should push him away … but instead, drained from the day’s wild swings of emotion, I melted into his warm protection against the storm. My arms wrapped around his massive torso, his crisp white shirt clinging to every firm muscle. Seven years of strict nutrition and grueling workouts had toned his body beyond the abilities of mere mortals.
His scent was a familiar blend of coffee, Ivory soap and confidence. Did he only smell this way at home, using the cheap soap in his mom’s shower? Did he still smell like this in California, or on-set in Croatia, or at parties in Ibiza? Or did he trade up, reeking of fancy shit like vetiver and ambergris?
The moment enveloped me like a fog, dragging me back to the girl I used to be—the one who still believed success was only an exhibit away, who was bright and hopeful and didn’t lie awake at night fighting off the crushing weight of existential dread.
A voice in my head told me to press away, to grab the life raft and escape the storm by retreating inside … but I told it to shut the fuck up as I wrapped my hand around his neck and pulled his mouth down to mine.
This kiss wasn’t an introduction, it was a reclamation: hungry, greedy, desperate. His plump lower lip cushioned mine, a protective safeguard against reality. Water trickled over his lips, as if the clouds couldn’t decide whether it wanted to satiate me or drown me.
The cold September rain lashed harder, soaking the thin silk of my dress and sending a shiver down my spine. He tightened his arm around my waist, his tongue curling along my top lip prompted a gasp that allowed his welcome invasion into my mouth.
My hand lifted on instinct, cupping his cheek, my fingertips scraping the rough stubble of his jaw—
He recoiled like I’d slapped him.
My left hand hung between us, cradling empty air.
My engagement ring sparkled under the roof deck’s dim Edison bulbs.
The reality washed over me like an ice bath.
I kissed Nick.
I cheated on Paul.
I cheated on Paul with Nick.
And Nick had been the one to stop it, not me.
Because Nick had felt Paul’s ring, cold on his face.
We stood an inch apart, breathless and soaked, straddling the line between past and present. His heart hammered with mine, chest pulsing against my breasts, pupils blown with heat and something worse: desire. For one raw, reckless second, he wanted this. Wanted me .
And then, he jerked back like he’d been burned.
Frigid autumn air rushed in where his body had been, brushing my thin dress, pebbling my nipples. Nick cursed under his breath, raking a hand through his hair before yanking his suit jacket closed, fumbling to disguise the obvious strain in his pants. “Kate, I—”
“That never happened,” I gasped. My fingers clawed at my thighs, flattening fabric that refused to smooth, needing to wrangle back control of the situation. “This can’t—this can’t—”
A cough split the tension. Wet, familiar, annoyingly phlegmy. I’d nagged him a thousand times to use the damn neti pot, but he always waved me off.
Paul.
His presence cut like a shard of glass through my mind. My lips, still tingling with the sting of Nick’s kiss, resented Paul’s name escaping in a whisper.
Panic threatened to consume me.
Because the man I planned to marry had just arrived to meet the man I’d never stopped loving.