AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He needed to get out of this damn shop before another lovesick stranger came on to him.
“Sorry, I have to be somewhere… else.”
* * *
Lee picked up on the second ring. “What —”
“Did you do this?”
“Do what?”
“Six years, Lee —”
“I know.”
“AndMarkedis still sitting in development hell —”
“Iknow.”
“I was supposed to be done by now.”
“Kyle, man, I know. Why do you think you’re here? This is your ticket out.”
“God dammit…”
It had to be some sort of cosmic joke. Harrison had been asking Lee to find him a way to finish up with the studio for months. He couldn’t turn this down. No matter how much he hated romance.
And Lee knew it.
Harrison groaned, running a hand down his face. He needed a shave. “All right, stop looking so smug.” It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see him; he knew Lee. “Go putt a birdie or whatever it is you spend my money on. But I swear, if you’re behind this, you aren’t nearly as funny as you think you are.”
Lee only laughed. “No idea what you’re talking about, man.”
* * *
Hayley couldn’t quite hide her smile upon seeing him, although she tried, covering her mouth with one hand. “What happened to you?”
The explanation sounded twice as ridiculous as he expected it to, and Hayley was predictably moved to tears. Of laughter. The sound filled the room, and Harrison ignored the way it filled him up as well.
A week of this, and he’d be back to his own screenplays. He needed to stay focused on that.
“I hate to say it,” she said, her eyes alight and her cheeks pink. She was a vision.
“Yeah, you look like you hate it.”
“For someone so determined to look down on romance, I’d say your good fortune is well deserved. Almost, dare I say, karmic?”
“Very funny. Maybe you should reconsider your day job. You may have a future in stand-up comedy.”
She laughed, adding three packets of sugar to her milky tea. It wasn’t the first time he’d witnessed this ritual. Always three, no more, no less, and always personally added, as if she didn’t trust the barista to count properly.
It was endearing. Harrison was used to being the tightly wound, nit-picky cynic with an attention to detail that somehow got lost on his way to dressing himself. Messy on the outside and ordered on the inside was what his sister always said.
He could learn a thing or two from Hayley. Hell, she’d likely jump at the chance to teach him, andshithe really shouldn’t have put that particular scene in his head. Now he’d have to sit here and not let his dick take over the thinking every time she chewed on the end of her ballpoint.
He was such an asshole.
He stood.
