Chapter Thirty-Six
Hannah scanned the pages slowly. Much too slowly for Olivia’s liking. Sitting across from her literary agent she anxiously jigged her leg up and down, feeling her palms become numb where they lay under her thighs.
It was a rainy day in London, and it brought her back to a few months ago, when she was sitting in the very same chair, being told to figure it out and hope for the best.
Well, she had.
She had figured it out, and she was hoping for the best.
“It’s really rough,” Olivia stated. Olivia had felt her fingers pause above the keyboard, protesting to write another word.
Not because of writer’s block, but because, for the first time in her whole writing career, the story felt unfinished.
“Hmm.” Hannah’s eyes continued to scan the last few pages, looking down through her black-rimmed glasses.
“I’d have to work with the editor and revise a few aspects.”
Hannah didn’t bother looking up, instead she seemed to flick back to the beginning of the story.
“It’s rubbish… I know—” Olivia began.
“It’s not rubbish.” Hannah held the pages in her hand, gnawing on the side of her mouth as if she was considering something.
Olivia’s mouth remained poised in objection. “But…”
“It’s not rubbish,” Hannah repeated. “It’s actually really, really good.”
Olivia closed her mouth, releasing her hands from under her legs and flexing her fingers.
“It’s actually pretty fucking great. He’s great,” Hannah continued, before flicking through the manuscript once more.
“How he always walks her back to her door after a date, how he lets her order her favourite food at the restaurant, unlike that guy you told me about a while back when you went on that date. The way he always makes her coffee the right way without having to ask. It’s fucking fantastic.
” Hannah opened the manuscript up once again as if she couldn’t get enough of it, eyes skimming over Olivia’s words.
All morning Olivia had written and rewritten the ending, her perfectionism having a dangerous hold on her words.
Often she would anxiously think, what if her words weren’t good enough?
What if people didn’t like these characters she had slowly fallen in love with as they had fallen in love with each other on the pages?
But by the end, Olivia had sat there at her dining table in silent disbelief.
The characters had said everything she had wanted them to say, and since finishing the bulk of her novel,, she had gone back, edited, changed, adapted and rewritten parts.
None of which she’d used. Her previous edit, she had decided, was her best. It was as though the last sentence was the final piece in a one-hundred-thousand-word fill-in-the-blank puzzle.
Hannah seemed consumed once again by her words. Her story telling. The scenarios and characters that she had thought up, planned, written and rewritten until the perfectionist in her screamed at her to stop.
It hadn’t taken long to overcome her writer’s block. Thinking back to those few non-dates with Theo, as per their agreement, she had written a chapter, the leading man still nameless, but now he had bones. To Olivia, her character was perfect.
Why continue to work when it’s perfect?
The meet-cute, the slow burn romance, the first kiss, the admission of love. Why try to fix something in her leading man’s character that wasn’t broken?
Even Olivia had had to admit, as she sat on her fluffy living room rug the night before, after finishing the final words of her novel, that her leading man was everything a modern woman wanted. Or at least everything that she wanted.
Her character was the embodiment of what it meant for a man to be respectful and honourable to a woman, and worship her, both in everyday life and in the bedroom.
This was by far her favourite leading male character she had written.
“There’s just one thing,” Hannah stated.
Olivia glanced up at her, noting the way she gazed out at the London skyline with a slight grin. “What?”
Hannah’s grin widened as she turned back to face her, as if she knew something Olivia didn’t.
“What is it?” Olivia panicked. The book was perfect. He was perfect. Leading man search complete. There was nothing more but to cross the t’s and dot the i’s. The doubt Olivia had had for the last two months began to appear again.
Had she changed her mind? Was the meet-cute not good enough? Was it all too cliché?
“What was the name of the guy again?”
Olivia frowned, taken aback by the question. “What guy, you mean the character…?”
“The one who helped you. Your muse.” Hannah closed the manuscript and handed it back to her.
Your muse.
Olivia had never thought of Theo as her muse before.
Their three-month agreement had gone quickly.
After only a short time into the summer she had found herself typing words, letter by letter, forming scenarios and scenes.
Scandalous sex and sweet kisses. After a month of meeting, Olivia had written over fifty thousand words, some more risqué than others, and had begun to fall in love with the man she was creating on the page.
“Theo?” Olivia asked, confused. She grasped the sides of the manuscript between her fingers, toying with the golden clasp that held the printed pages together.
She hadn’t given him much thought since their date.
In fact, she had done everything she could do to make herself forget about him. He had lied to her.
Hannah reached down and tapped the batch of paper in Olivia’s hands. “Yes. Theo.”
“What about him?” Olivia acted disinterested, as if his name didn’t have any effect on her. Liar.
Snatching the manuscript out of her hands, Hannah smacked the cover with the back of her hand. “Olivia, I swear to God. I will not hesitate to whack you with your own manuscript if you don’t realise who you’ve written.”
Realisation drained into Olivia’s mind.
No.
It wasn’t possible.
There was absolutely no way.
“No.” Olivia snatched the pages back just as aggressively, smoothing out the creases that had appeared from their to and fro. Biting her lip, she flicked through the pages, feeling the need to reassure herself that it was all just in her head.
That what Hannah was indicating was wrong.
A mistake.
Reading chapter five, she skimmed her writing. The leading man walked the main character to her front door after each date.
Every. Single. Date.
“Let me at least drive you home…”
“You’d really walk home by yourself rather than letting me get you home safely?”
Every single date, every time they’d met up, he would wait for her ‘I’m home safe’ text before walking or driving off each time.
He had driven all the way to Surrey for her.
She realised her male character, whom she had named Micah after her lost love, stole glances at her female character, just as she had noticed Theo do.
During car rides, during dinner with his parents, at his sister’s almost wedding.
She turned to the page where the two characters finally kissed and noted the similarities to how Theo had kissed her, palm curled around her jaw, other hand wrapped right around her waist. The way he had brushed his nose against hers as he pulled away.
All of it was the same.
Oh God.
“Oh God,” Olivia repeated aloud.
“Finally,” Hannah stated, crossing her arms and looking at Olivia with a knowing look. “You wrote him.”
“I wrote him.”
All his stupidly perfect imperfections, right down to the small birthmark he had on the side of his neck.
Olivia had given her character the very same birthmark, the size of a ten pence coin, which she had kissed so fervently in real life only weeks prior.
The memory of the soft skin beneath her lips making her stomach pull and lips tingle.
The realisation washed over her with a heavy impact.
“At the moment I would like to be anywhere but near you.”
Those were the words she had uttered to him with such hatred.
“I never let him explain,” Olivia whispered to herself. “I was just so angry.”
As much as she hated to admit it, without Theo her life seemed so much duller.
Her apartment was colder, her writing harder.
He gave her inspiration, encouraged her to keep going.
Supported her through edits, whispered sweet musings to her.
He had delivered his end of the agreement, despite setting up horrible dates for her.
It was only now, as she read her manuscript back with brand new eyes, that she could see him woven between every line.
His restaurant orders, the way he taps the side of his coffee mug three times after stirring in te sugar.
Things she wouldn’t have noticed unless she had gone on those silly update meetings after said horrible dates.
Things that made her laugh and forget about those dates altogether.
Things that made her realise that maybe she preferred their dates over the ones he had set up for her.
That maybe that had been his plan from the very start.
“No, I want to take you on a date. One for you, not your research. A date for my own selfish want to have you spend more time with me.”
“You need to go and find him,” Hannah stated at the same time that Olivia spoke the delicate but determined words, “I need to go.”
Picking up her bag, and slinging the worn leather bag over her shoulder, Olivia clutched the manuscript harder between the fingers of her left hand. She no longer cared about the creases and lines she was creating in the draft, no, she had more important things to do. More important places to be.
She needed to find him.
“I’ll be back. Promise.” She rushed to turn and exit the office, leaving Hannah sitting at her desk.
“Take your time, sweetheart! You found your leading man, now go get him!”