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Everyone knew the tropes, the clichés. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. Simple.
Harrison wanted to cuff himself upside the head for ever looking down his nose at it. Yes, there were plenty of examples of lazy writing in romance, but no more than in any other genre. And Hayley was absolutelynotlazy.
She cared about the stories she created and the characters within them. But more than that, she cared about her audience. It wasn’t solely about scene beats and emotional arcs; she wanted every single person who watched the film to feel something. Hope. Joy. Love.
Harrison started typing. With every word, his confidence grew, his fingers flying across the keyboard feverishly.
* * *
Hayley’s side of the bed was empty when he woke.
He tamped down his disappointment. There were any number of reasons she would be up. But he couldn’t hear the shower, or the television, and he still had to find a way of explaining what had happened with the script yesterday.
If she heard it from anyone else…
Suddenly, his heart was in his throat. What if she’d already seen it and hated it? He’d assumed she’d forgive him because of the consequences of not meeting the deadline, but now he wasn’t so sure. He’d gone behind her back. Yes, she’d been sick at the time, and he’d used her ending, but that didn’t give him the right to send it without her approval.
Christ, what if the studio hated it and had already fired her?
Incredible, life-changing moments hardly ever happened to Harrison.
As he reached out and felt the cool touch of her side of the bed, he had the sinking feeling that this particular dream was over.
The script was done, and maybe Hayley was done, too.
* * *
Harrison hated this part. Formulaic bullshit was how he’d described it to Hayley.
It was ridiculous.
He refused to fall for it.
Was he really supposed to run around looking for her, chase her down like a lovelorn cliché of a character, ready to declare how he felt to a group of slow clapping extras?
* * *
48 INT. HOTEL – DAY
He tried their meeting room first.
It had been returned to its original state, not a Post-it in sight. When a chill ran through his chest, he knew the air conditioning wasn’t to blame.
For once, he was relieved to find the hotel manager at the front desk. “I’m sorry. She did come by to collect what was left in the meeting room, but she didn’t say where she was going.”
Of course she hadn’t. That would be too easy.
He braved the coffee shop on the corner, but she wasn’t there either. She could be anywhere. Had he even seen her suitcase in the room? Fuck.
Lee was his next step.
“Yeah, I spoke with her earlier. She was not happy to find out that you’d sent it in without her.”
Shit. “What else did she say?”
“She was pretty pissed at the studio. Said she needed to check her contract and wanted to know if I’d be willing to take a look.”
“Wait, you told her about that?”
