Chapter 19
CHAPTER 19
“ H ey…are you okay?”
I find Taylor with his head in his arms, both of his hands digging into his scalp. Beneath his desk, one of his knees is bobbing with enough force to shake the entire table.
I chew on my bottom lip. “Did something happen while I was out?”
Taylor doesn’t immediately respond. Out of nowhere, he jolts upright and reaches for his notepad. I shift from one foot to the other as he tears through the pages, searching for something.
When he throws it back onto his desk, I make a decision. Silent as a mouse, I tiptoe to his side of the room, taking extra care not to startle him. When I pause behind his chair, I realize he has about fifteen crumbled pieces of paper strewn across his workspace. Taylor has admonished me for forgetting to throw a single candy wrapper away…something must be seriously wrong.
“What’s going on? You’re kind of worrying me, Hedlund.”
Taylor closes his notebook with a snap , hanging his head. When another moment passes in silence, I tell myself it’s time to mind my own business. But Taylor looks up, finally acknowledging my presence.
“Victor wants me to do script coverage, but I have absolutely no idea what the screenplay is trying to say.” He lets out a baleful laugh, eyes dropping down to his fists. “He just emailed me, asking me to finish it by tonight. I’m completely screwed.”
I draw closer, brows furrowing at the email open on his desktop. “Script coverage?” I wonder aloud. “But you want to be an agent, why’s he asking you to do coverage? Adoria rarely even asks me to do that.”
Taylor doesn’t respond, just pulls up a PDF of the screenplay and starts scrolling through it. “Two hundred pages,” he mutters, shaking his head. “I have to summarize two hundred pages. I thought I’d have more time…”
“Hold on.” I reach for his mouse, ignoring the spark of electricity when his hand grazes mine. I scroll to the top of the page, reading the title. “The Truth of Requiem,” I muse, something about the name ringing a bell. “Who wrote it?”
Taylor shrugs, his eyes darting across the screen in clear distress. “I’m not sure and Victor didn’t say. There’s no author bio.”
He’s right. The title page is noticeably bare. No name or address is attached—just that ridiculous title. And then it hits me.
“Wait, this can’t be…” I stride to my desk, clicking through the folders on my work computer until I find it. A copy of the very same screenplay. “Unbelievable.” I laugh, pulling up my email and forwarding a copy of my notes to Taylor. “Adoria passed this to me when I first started. An author friend of a friend sent it to her, asking for her thoughts. I told Adoria there wasn’t much potential. Here, I sent you a copy of my coverage. You probably shouldn’t copy it word for word, but it might help you digest the themes a bit better. Their friend must’ve begged them to take another look.” I turn to Taylor, shrugging. But the look on his face has me pausing in place.
His brow is furrowed, eyes narrowed. I can’t tell whether he looks more grateful or suspicious. “I couldn’t do that,” he says after a moment.
“Why not? I mean, it’s okay if you disagree with my notes, I just thought you could—”
“Ayla, I can’t take credit for your work.”
The sound of my name in his gravelly voice has me repressing a shiver. “It’s not a big deal. I already sent the email. Use it or not, it doesn’t matter to me.”
Taylor opens and closes his mouth. I watch him swallow, clearly at a loss for words. Eventually, he mumbles: “I’d owe you. Big time.”
“No, I owed you,” I say, lightly. “For helping me with Chris. You went above and beyond. Just think of this as payment.”
I turn around, taking a seat at my desk before he can argue. But I feel the weight of his gaze long after I return to work.
So softly I nearly miss it, he says, “Thank you, Ayla. Thank you so much.”
When I come downstairs for breakfast, two plates are waiting at my normal seat.
Golden brown toast is stacked beside a bowl of cereal and a full glass of milk. There are sliced apples and peeled tangerines nestled beside a carton of orange juice.
My eyes are comically wide by the time I lower myself into a chair.
“I hope you like it,” a deep, disembodied voice says.
I whirl around to find Taylor making his way toward me. He’s running a towel over his head, hair still damp from a morning shower.
“You…” I lick my lips. “You really didn’t have to do this. Why did you do this?”
He reaches for an apple, taking a bite with a roguish grin. “I told you. I don’t like owing people favors.”
I unfurl a napkin with a snort. “Shouldn’t the person you owe the favor decide how you should repay them?”
Taylor reaches for a tangerine but I knock his hand aside. “If I let you choose, you’d probably have me run fifty laps around the Havens’ backyard, or make me shave off all my hair.”
Inwardly, I scoff. I’d never hurt his hair. His ego? Well, that’s fair game.
I pour the milk into my cereal bowl, watching it fill with colors you would never find in nature. “This was still nice of you. Thanks.”
I lift a spoon, a thought occurring to me right before it hits my lips. “You didn’t poison this, did you?”
Taylor’s nostrils flare, red crawling up his neck as he opens his mouth.
“Kidding,” I interject, taking a huge bite. He watches me wipe the milk away with a scowl, all the goodwill in his eyes gone.
“The Havens want to meet us in ten. Try not to be late.”
He stomps down the hall, leaving me to roll my eyes at his back. I’m never late. Early is my middle effing name. And I practically shove Taylor’s breakfast down my throat to ensure it stays that way.
Adoria and Victor are too close to the computer screen.
Half of their foreheads are cut off, and every time one of them turns around, their voices get completely distorted. You’d think two multi-millionaires would know how to use Zoom, but Taylor and I still have to provide extremely detailed instructions every time they attempt to share their screen.
“…That being said, we’re going to need you to be on the lookout for a very large, very heavy package. If they need you to sign—Ayla, you’ll have to forge it. You’ve seen my signature, yes?”
I nod grimly, like the federal offense she’s having me commit is a matter of life or death. “You can count on me.”
“Well, yes, that’s what I pay you for.” She looks at something out of sight, her train of thought immediately whisked in a different direction.
“Oh, and Taylor,” Victor starts, drawing so close to the camera I can only see one blurry eyeball. “I received your script coverage.”
I glance sideways in time to watch Taylor literally hold his breath. “Yes, I hope it’s what you—”
“Extraordinary work. Really, you outlined everything so clearly. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
Taylor’s shoulders drop as he lets out a huge breath of relief. His eyes flicker to mine before he faces his boss. “I’m glad you think so.”
Victor twirls his mustache. I think. All I can really see is the side of his nose. “Yes, I did. Expect more scripts coming your way soon, son. I could use your insight.”
I smirk a bit as Taylor goes bright red, nodding his head so fast he almost resembles me. “I’d like that. You can count on me, Victor.”
Now he even sounds like me.
“Is that so?” Adoria’s voice sings from off-screen. “My, my, Ayla…you better sharpen your quill. It seems like you might have some competition.”
Her threat might have had more impact if she was actually in frame. Some curtains move in the background, and I wonder if she’s trying to figure out whether she can steal a pair…then leave me to deal with the uncomfortable aftermath.
“I’ll do that,” I say in what I hope is a grim tone.
What they don’t know is that my only rival is myself. My work is what got Taylor his compliment in the first place. Did Adoria thank me when I handed in the same script coverage a year ago? Of course not. I doubt she even read it.
I expect to feel a pang of envy, or maybe the urge to rat Taylor out. I can feel his eyes on the side of my face, waiting for me to admit it’s my coverage they’re so enthused about. But the impulse never comes. Maybe Taylor’s breakfast actually was poisoned, and kindness is the only behavior I’m temporarily capable of. Whatever the reason, I feel little more than vague amusement when my enemy’s hands are shaking too much to hang up the call.
And, yeah, I guess I do feel a bit pleased when he turns his wide eyes on me, waiting with bated breath for the other shoe to drop.
“You didn’t tell them the truth,” he says, a little accusingly.
I swivel in my seat, granting him my blandest smile. “And what would the truth be, exactly?”
He shakes his head. “That you wrote the script coverage and I basically plagiarized your work. All the good ideas were yours. Why didn’t you tell them?”
“Oh, so you’re saying I’m way smarter than you are and a better writer?” I lift a hand to my chest, pretending to be flattered. “That’s so unexpected, Hedlund. Wow, I’m going to have to write about this in my diary.”
Taylor moves so fast that I never see him coming. One second, I’m laughing at his red-tipped ears. The next, he’s leaning over me, his hands caging me against my desk.
“I told you I didn’t like owing favors.”
I lift my chin, daring him to hold my gaze. “You already paid me back. Remember? In the form of burnt toast and added sugars.”
He licks his lips, and damn it, I follow the motion. The air catches in my throat as Taylor sizes me up. “What do you want, Montes?”
And this would be the perfect time to start another one of our games, to go toe to toe as we always seem to do. I could remind him that we’re not friends, that I don’t owe him any explanation. But what comes to my lips is the simple truth.
“I don’t want anything. I’m not going to backstab you. I meant what I said when I gave you my notes: I don’t need them. But, hey, if you want to hand over the Italy trip as a sincere gesture of your gratitude, I wouldn’t mind.”
He shifts, backing out of my personal space. A stupid, small part of me wishes he hadn’t left.
“You mean that? You really helped me…just because?”
I blow out a breath. “Yeah, I really did. But, damn, if I’m going to be interrogated every time I do something nice, I’ll stick to slinging insults.”
Taylor says nothing, watching me for a little too long, his eyes a little too wide. For the first time today, his gaze dips below my face to study the halter top I donned this morning. The linen material is loose and light, but from his vantage point, he can see straight down the keyhole cutout above my breasts. I watch him swallow before quickly averting his eyes. And when he does speak, his voice is raspy.
“You aren’t at all what I thought, Montes.”