Chapter Twenty-Three
Something had changed between Elliot and me.
I felt it in the silence of the writers’ room and the way his eyes lingered a little too long on mine before looking away.
I was very aware of where he was at all times, as if he were a sun and I a dazed little moon whose sole purpose was to orbit around him.
It was pathetic, yet I couldn’t help breaking my own rules, unable to resist admiring the way Elliot’s hair curled at the neck or the way his long fingers moved over a keyboard.
It left my thoughts in a jumble, rendering me an utterly useless writing partner, although Elliot didn’t seem to notice my permanent state of haziness.
My third week at RJF flew by in a flurry of edits and late nights, which my new and improved laptop handled with ease.
On the Monday of my fourth week at RJF, I bumped into Sadie in the kitchen.
To my surprise, she didn’t walk off with her nose in the air; she waited by the coffee machine as I made my latte, even returning my greeting smile with one of her own – granted, it was a little tight, but I took it as an invitation to engage in conversation and so I offered to make her a coffee too.
“No thank you,” she said. “I am quite particular.” She gestured at a carton of oat milk on the side. I finished making my coffee, but I lingered as she started making hers, hoping to chat some more. She glanced at me. “I hear the script is nearly finished. Just in time, huh?”
“We’re almost there.” It had almost been a month since I’d moved to New York. The pitch was next week, and I had to pinch myself.
“I want to apologize,” Sadie said unexpectedly. She pulled a small cup of black coffee from the machine and dribbled some oat milk in.
I thought I was hearing things. “I’m sorry?”
Sadie rolled her eyes. “I’m the one apologizing here.”
“Sorry.” I laughed nervously. “Oh fuck, seems like I can’t stop apologizing. It’s a disease.”
“Right.” Sadie began to walk, and I trailed after her, hoping for scraps. “I underestimated you,” she said. “The script is in such a good place right now and I must give you credit for that. You and Elliot, that is. You created magic together.”
“We did?” I felt like I was dreaming.
“I said you had chops, and I meant it,” Sadie said, pausing outside the writers’ room. “So bring this project home and there might be a future for you here. I’ll see to that myself.” And with a small smile, she headed to her office.
“I’ll hold you to that!” I called after her, although in my excitement I wasn’t sure if the words made any sense. Juno passed with a file and stopped when she saw me.
“What’s the goofy grin about?” she asked.
“Oh, Sadie treated me like an actual human being,” I told her.
“Huh.” Juno nodded, impressed. “Perhaps she’s made her monthly sacrifice to Beelzebub, that usually puts her in a good mood. Hey, let’s celebrate with another karaoke session at 1on1.”
“I’m in.” I’d had such a good time with them all. “Maybe we can get Michelle and more of the RJF crew to come along next time.”
“Aw, were you missing Ralf?” Juno said with a giggle.
“I certainly was not,” I said. Then I realized something; I hadn’t seen him around the office at all last week. I’d been so immersed in writing and, let’s be honest, in Elliot, I’d not considered it. “Where is he?” I asked. “Is he on holiday?”
“I don’t know,” Juno said. “Why, did you want a repeat of your kiss?” She pursed her lips, made kissy sounds.
“Ew, Juno,” I said, “That’s not—”
“Ralf and Lucie, sitting in a tree!” she sang back at me.
“You’re a menace!” I said, backing into the writers’ room, nearly dropping my coffee when I saw Elliot was in there. He’d been on conference calls all morning trying to salvage some dramas on the Woodstock set, so we’d not spoken much. “Hi.”
“Hi.” His face was stormy.
“Did you want to get some work done before lunch?” I asked. “I have an idea about the—”
“Actually.” He pushed his chair back. “I’m going to take an early lunch break.”
“I see.” Why was he being so off? “Well, when you’re back, I’d like to review the dialogue from the end scene. I’m not sure what the problem is but it isn’t right.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” he muttered, shoving his laptop into his bag.
“Huh?” Was he talking about the script or something else? “Well, can you at least log me into the server again before you go so I can work?” I could see my login had expired while making coffee.
Cursing under his breath, he did just that. “Elliot, is something wrong?”
Elliot paused, looked at me through the rumpled hair falling into his eyes. He then plunged his hand into his bag and pulled out what looked like a key ring. “I got you this,” he said, pushing it into my hands.
It was indeed a key ring, bearing the Ghostbusters logo. I was completely taken aback. “That’s really sweet of you.”
“I just saw it on the way in at some tacky souvenir shop,” he muttered. “Not a big deal.”
“No, it’s great, thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said darkly, then headed out of the door.
Bewildered, I followed him out. “When will you be back?” I called across to him. He was walking so fast he was already at the lift, which opened to let Michelle and Riley out.
“When I’m back!” he barked so loudly that Michelle almost dropped the box of donuts she was carrying.
“Elliot, wait!” But the doors slid shut and he was gone.
Michelle and Riley hurried over to me, concern in their eyes.
“Girl, you okay?” Michelle asked, pressing a glazed mochi donut into my hands.
“Um. I think so.” I bit into the donut, glad of the sugar.
“Hmm.” Michelle’s eyes narrowed. “I’d love to stick around to hear you expand on that, but I got a conference call in – ooop – minus three minutes. Time to invent some technical issues!” And she ran off.
Riley watched me cram fried dough into my mouth. “What’s with Elliot?” she asked once I’d swallowed.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “He gave me this key ring then sprinted away. He was really off with me.”
Riley glanced at the key ring then gave me a knowing look. “Interesting.”
“What does that mean?” I was getting pretty fed up with cryptic people.
“Fart logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end of it,” Riley intoned.
“Am I meant to know what that means?”
“It’s my impression of Spock giving relationship advice,” Riley said. “Do you want to have lunch together?”
A little later, after some fruitless attempts at editing and a quick slice of pizza with Riley, Elliot still wasn’t back from his lunch break.
The dialogue in the last scene still bothered me – it was too flowery; it needed to be hard hitting, gut wrenching and true.
But I needed Elliot for this. After trying his phone with no luck, I went to reception to ask Juno if she knew where he might be.
“You should try Locke and Gray, a block down,” she said. “He sometimes goes there during his lunch break.”
I hurried outside and went down Tenth one block, where on the corner I noticed a large green awning, with retro lettering proclaiming Locke I couldn’t tear my eyes from the graceful, raw strength of Elliot’s body.
Was this the man who wrote elaborate dialogue and spoke about art with such confidence?
The same man who’d made a movie so beautiful it had reduced me to an emotional wreck was also a devastating fighting machine with a body that looked like it was hewn from marble.
Elliot Fox was a man made of both poetry and power.
His beautiful face was laser focused on taking down his opponent and it was brutally sexy, to the point I thought I would burst into flame right there on the gym floor.
His partner noticed me staring and withdrew, tapping his gloves in a ‘time out’ gesture.
Elliot paused sparring in confusion before following his gaze to lock eyes with me.
He stiffened, lifted his chin in a ‘What is it?’ gesture but I couldn’t speak.
I couldn’t even move. I was pretty sure that lust was written right across my face but there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
With a weary sigh, Elliot shoved a glove under one arm and pulled, then ripped the other one off. Finally, he removed his headgear, his hair wild with sweat as he moved to the ropes and peered down at me.
“Can I help you?” he said gruffly.