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FADE IN:
1 INT. HOTEL - MEETING ROOM - DAY
Three and half bare beige walls frame a boardroom desk and four chairs. Two men sit opposite each other.
One of them isnothappy.
* * *
For Harrison Kyle, the road to misery was lined with rose petals.
“No, Lee. I already told you. I write serious films. Real people, real struggles. I do not write romance.” He crossed his arms, grimacing at his soon-to-be ex-best friend. Apparently knowing each other since first grade meant nothing to the asshole, because he was asking Harrison for the one thing he’d promised he wouldn’t.
“I’m sorry, buddy. It’s too late. I promised the studio, and you owe me.”
Lee may have been sorry, but that was hardly a consolation.
Harrison groaned, running a hand through his short hair.
He was boxed in by a completely uninspiring cage. Why was it always beige? His life was a series of colorless rooms — hotels, meeting rooms, studio offices — all attempting to be unique, but only succeeding in matching each other in unoriginality.
He’d flown the red eye for this?
“I’ve owed you our whole lives,” Harrison brushed off. “I’m not doing this.”
“It’ll get you out of the contract with the studio.”
Dammit. If anything would get Harrison to agree to this ridiculous idea, that would be it.
He’d signed the standard non-compete clause when the studio had locked him in to a five-picture deal. He had been too high off the buzz of Sundance to realize that he was signing away his autonomy.
Six years… That’s how long he’d been writing other people’s ideas. Whatever the studio wanted. Whatever would sell. He missed writing the stories that took shape and evolved in his mind. Ached for it.
And he was so close. One last script, and he’d be free.
“Fine,” Harrison said, shucking his sweatshirt and throwing it over the back of his chair. His T-shirt stuck to his skin, damp with sweat, his shoulders aching from the flight. “But we’re not friends anymore.”
Lee stood, shrugging on a jacket over his red polo. He looked like he was due at an audition as a golf commentator. “I love you too, man.”
This was not how Harrison’s week was meant to go.
The love movies sold was a farce. A manipulation. And he’d built his career on truths. Exposing them with dialogue and themes until the unyielding light of a camera forced the audience to look squarely at them and themselves.
How the hell was he supposed to write a romance?
A knock came at the door, and Lee paled.
“There’s one more thing,” he said around a weak laugh. “Actually, you’re gonna laugh.”
Harrison doubted it.
“For Christ’s sake, Lee, what could be worse than roping me into writing a rom-com?”
Lee swallowed and stuck his hands in his jacket pockets.
“Hello, Harry. What a surprise.”
At the rich English lilt, Harrison closed his eyes, plotting Lee’s demise in increasingly detailed ways. Poison? Too quick. From the obvious way Lee was biting back a laugh, he deserved something elaborate. Painful.
