AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He dropped his cigarette and ground it out with his shoe. “I need to know if I’m on the right track before I do anything else.”
Esther glared at the cigarette butt. “You’re not going to leave that there, are you?”
He picked it up and gave her an imploring look. “Please?”
“Fine.” She held out her hand, and he passed her the script pages.
“Thank you.”
Instead of going away, he continued to stand there crowding her doorway as if he expected to follow her inside. He was so tall, her eyes only came up to his collarbone.
“You want me to read it right now?” she asked his collarbone.
He nodded. “If you have time.”
“Were you expecting to come in and watch me?”
“It’s only a few pages.”
“I can’t focus with you staring at me and being all twitchy.”
“I can go on the balcony.” His shoulders sagged. “Or wait out here, I guess.”
It was impossible to say no to him when he was being this pitiful. Esther sighed and let herself into her apartment, leaving the door open behind her. She wasn’t nearly as annoyed as she ought to be. Maybe he was growing on her.
He followed her inside and went into the kitchen to throw his cigarette butt away. Esther dropped her purse and knitting bag on the dining table, then gestured to the couch with the script pages she was holding. “Sit. I’ll go read it in the bedroom.” She arched a warning eyebrow at him. “Don’t touch anything while I’m gone.”
He gave her a military salute and a lopsided grin.
She went into the bedroom, shut the door, and flopped onto the bed. There were only a few pages, so it didn’t take her long to read them.
Shockingly, they were actually…almost good. It was only the first five pages, but it was already a huge improvement. He’d ditched the female lead’s purple hair and dumb vintage Volkswagen, and moved their encounter from the train station to the airport. The whole thing felt a lot more grounded in reality and less clichéd. There was still a long way to go, but it was definitely progress.
When she came back out of the bedroom, Sally was sitting in Jonathan’s lap getting scratched under the chin.
“I told you not to touch anything, and here you are caressing my cat.”
“It’s not my fault,” he said, still scratching Sally. “She put herself here and started head-butting my hand until I petted her.” He nodded at the pages she was holding, eyebrows raised. “Well?”
Esther smiled. “It’s good. I like it.”
He stopped petting Sally, looking surprised and also skeptical. “You do?” Sally head-butted him, but he ignored her.
“I think you’re on the right track,” Esther said.
“Yeah?” His mouth curved into a tentative smile.
“Yeah,” she said. “Only…”
His face fell. “What?”
“That joke you added at the top of page two?”
He nodded. “You said it needed more humor.”
“Yeah, it still does.”
“You didn’t like it? I thought it was pretty good.”
