“Channing Tatum,” Drew corrects him, and I stifle a laugh.
“Yeah,” Earl says as Paul nods. “We like that guy.”
“He’s a nice dude,” says Drew, and I barely have time to wonder what Channing Tatum movies these guys are watching before he says, “Well, this was really fun, but we have an early call time tomorrow so I’ve gotta get to bed.”
I try to stop myself from imagining Drew in his hotel-room bed, but I am unsuccessful. He shakes everyone’s hand, and Uncle Don says, “Come back anytime; we’d love to have you play with us.”
“We can’t bring in a new character at this point—” Dungeon Master Rick starts.
“We can do whatever we want!” Paul says gleefully. “That’s the fun of D&D!”
“I’ll walk you to the door,” I say, shooting Uncle Don a look. He shrugs.
“By walk,” Drew says, grabbing my arm to steady me, “you mean limp-hop, right?”
“Maybe.” I let myself lean into him and embrace the weirdness of this moment. I reluctantly let go of Drew’s arm when he opens the front door. He pulls on his coat and shoves a beanie on his head as he steps out onto the porch.
“Oh,” he says, turning around as I lean on the doorframe, and I think he’s about to go back to that conversation we were having in my room right before Uncle Don burst in and I fell over. That gloriously sexual-tension-filled conversation.
“Definitely thought the dungeon master was some weird sex thing,” Drew says, walking down the stairs and looking over his shoulder. “This makes a lot more sense.”
I laugh, both relieved and disappointed.
He turns around. “Good night, Annie.” And then he walks away.
I close the door and lean back against it. The sound of rolling dice comes from the dining room, then Dungeon Master Rick saying something about the party entering a tavern.
I sigh and cover my face with my hands, even though no one is around to see me blush. You know how in every romantic comedy, there’s a scene where the love interests almost kiss? They’re so close, their faces mere inches apart, their bodies practically radiating heat, when some precocious child or rude elderly woman interrupts them and they spring apart?
Well, sub in Uncle Don for a child or old woman and you’ve pretty much got what happened in my room.
I thought Drew Danforth was nothing more than an irritating jerk, but maybe I was misreading the signs. Maybe this entire time, we’ve been bantering and I didn’t even notice. Maybe this is an enemies-to-lovers situation, and we’ve been gradually building sexual tension that will have no choice but to explode in a scene so explicit that it would change the movie of my life from a PG to a hard R rating.
Chloe might be right. I might actually, finally, be in my romantic comedy.
Chapter Thirteen
I stay up late into the night working on my screenplay. Writing is often like plugging in one word after another, willing them to make some sort of sense, but this is different. My fingers attack the keyboard, and words appear on the screen before I even notice I wrote them.
I drift off to a dreamless sleep, then wake up before my alarm goes off (which is very, very early). Drew was in here, I think to myself as I get ready. He saw my room.
Despite Chloe’s reassurances, and despite the fact that Drew and I didn’t even kiss—I mean, I’m pretty sure no one would qualify “getting coffee with one man and then having a sexually charged conversation with another man before falling over” as morally dubious behavior—it’s still weird for me. Carter and I aren’t dating, per se, so much as we are People Who Have Been on One Date in Which Barry Was Present. What do we owe each other at this point? I haven’t dated enough to know, and romantic comedies didn’t prepare me for this. In movies, usually one guy is comically terrible—he’s cheating on the heroine at his bachelor party or using her connections to get a job. It’s easy for us to yell at the screen, “JUST DUMP HIS SORRY, TWO-TIMING ASS!”
But it turns out real life isn’t like that. Yes, I have strong and confusing feelings for Drew, but a) he’s leaving town soon and b) doesn’t everyone? And perhaps Carter’s presence doesn’t cause my breath to quicken or my brain to scramble, but I don’t know him that well yet. Maybe what we need is another date.
Maybe what we need is a kiss.
Luckily for me, Carter and I have a date scheduled for the night after my weird bedroom conversation with Drew. Carter seems like an old-fashioned guy, but I’m pretty sure even he would agree that a second date is a perfectly acceptable moment for a first kiss. And maybe, probably, when we do kiss, it will be so good, so intense, that I’ll know instantly that he’s the one for me.
That’s how it often works in the movies, right? In The Wedding Singer, Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler don’t understand their true feelings for each other until they have to pretend-kiss in front of her best friend under the guise of Drew practicing for her upcoming wedding. But when that kiss is over, they just stare at each other, entranced. It turns out their true love was there all along, like some sort of virus that’s only transmitted via saliva.
I intend to find out the secrets contained in Carter’s saliva tonight.
He suggests an Italian restaurant in German Village. I don’t know if he’s actually a fan of Italian food or if he’s trying to avoid the sort of situation that happened last time when we were at Nick’s, but whatever it is, I’m happy to be going out with him. Not just because of my aforementioned kiss plan, but also because it’s nice to have a distraction from the weird Drew situation yesterday, which makes me feel altogether unsettled whenever I think of it.
He offers to pick me up, but since I live a few blocks away (and my ankle feels much better after a night of icing it) I walk. The restaurant is one that Don and I have been to a few times for special occasions, like our birthdays and the days on which particularly exciting Star Wars news is announced (we would never go on an actual premiere day, because Don spends those days in the theatre eating an absurd amount of popcorn). It’s nice, with white tablecloths and piped-in, soft instrumental music and a lot of dramatic-looking busts that I assume are Italian, but I wouldn’t know. It all comes together to create an ambiance that is decidedly not McDonald’s.
Carter stands up when I approach our table, and after an awkward shuffle, he pulls me into a hug. I like the way he feels—solid, strong, dependable.
“You’re like an oak tree,” I say into his shoulder.
He pulls back and looks at me. “Thank you?”
“It’s a compliment,” I say as we sit down. “Trust me.”
We’ve seen each other on set today, so he knows my ankle is mostly better, but he asks about it anyway. We order some wine and soon I’m pleasantly buzzed enough to wholeheartedly dig into the bread basket. As I chow down on the delicious rosemary focaccia, Carter tells me about weekends spent on the lake, how his divorce turned him into a better dad, and how he got started in film. Throughout our meal, he asks me all sorts of questions, about my parents and Uncle Don and my favorite movies.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good conversation. I mean, it’s a great one. He’s polite and he’s interested in me and not once has he mentioned dumpster bagels. But it’s hard for me to concentrate when all I’m thinking about is kissing him and how that will make everything fall into place.
“Um . . . Annie?”
I blink a few times. Carter stares at me, concern evident in his furrowed brow. His eyes search my face, and I realize I’ve been staring off into space as I daydreamed about our hypothetical kiss.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“I’m fine!” I say. “I’m good. Great. Awesome. Perfect.”
“Well.” He laughs. “Who could argue with that?”
I don’t want to waste any more time. Less useless chitchat, more making out; that’s my motto. I survey the restaurant, taking in the Italian busts and the waiters milling about. No, this is not the place for a mind-blowing, destiny-deciding kiss.
I toss my napkin onto the table. “Are you ready to get out of here?”
Carter raises his eyebrows in surprise. “I do have to pay first.”
“Oh.” I nod. “Right.”
I almost bounce in my seat as we wait for our server to return Carter’s credit card. I’m like a child on Christmas morning, except that I’m a grown woman and now my present is a hot dude. When it’s finally time to leave, Carter’s hand on my back lightly guides me around the tables full of couples on dates and families celebrating who knows what. His hand transmits warmth and strength, but it doesn’t produce even the tiniest of tingles. Yet.
I wait until we’re on the sidewalk, the glow from the restaurant windows illuminating Carter’s face. “I had a nice time tonight,” he starts to say, but I don’t let him finish his sentence before I launch myself at him.
I close my eyes and mentally prepare myself for the moment that will decide my future; the moment that, years from now when I’m speaking to Carter’s son and the many children we’ve had since then, I’ll say, “And that’s how I knew your father was the one . . . it was right there, in front of a tiny Italian restaurant while cold rain misted from the sky, that I kissed him and knew we were meant to be.”
But my daydream ends when I realize I’m not kissing Carter’s lips at all; I’m kissing his cheek, because he turned his head at the last minute.
“Annie,” he says, putting his hands on my shoulders and pushing me gently away.
“Whoa,” I say. “Did I—did I misread something? I thought you wanted to kiss me. I thought that’s what was going on.”
“I do want to kiss you.”
“Oh no,” I say, placing a hand over my heart. “Am I . . . Barry?”
Carter laughs. “You’re not Barry.”
I press my hands to my hot cheeks, trying to cool them down. “I’m a total Barry. You don’t even want to be here tonight, do you?”
“Hey.” Carter puts a hand on my arm until I look at him, and the understanding in his blue eyes calms me down immediately. “I want to kiss you. I really do. But I have to ask you something first.”
“Okay,” I say with a little apprehension. It’s not like I have a ton of kissing experience, but I don’t think the act is usually preceded by an interview portion.
“I’m not trying to freak you out or anything, but you know I’m older than you.”
“Late-thirties isn’t that old.”
He winces. “Mid-thirties, okay?”
“Sorry,” I whisper.
“Anyway,” he continues. “I’m having fun hanging out with you, and I think you’re having fun, too, right?”
I nod.
“But at my age, I can’t just have fun forever. I’m not asking you to marry me after a couple of dates or anything, but I have a kid. I can’t keep dating someone if I don’t think we have a future, so I guess what I’m asking you is . . . are you really into this?”
I freeze, then stare at a random couple coming out of the restaurant. His arm loops around her shoulders and she leans into him with the comfort of two people who’ve been together for a long time and plan to stay together. It looks nice. I glance back at Carter, who hasn’t taken his eyes off me, and I think about what it would be like to have that sort of life with him. Because the thing is, Carter is great. He’s nice and funny and, okay, super hot in a slightly-older-than-me way. To paraphrase Melanie Griffith in Working Girl, he’s got a head for lighting films and a bod for sin.
But have I ever once fogged up a coffee shop window while fantasizing about those strong, solid, dependable arms ripping off my clothing?
I open my mouth but don’t say anything, my heart breaking just a little as this one possible future dies.
“You can be honest,” Carter says gently.
“I’m sorry,” I say, as deflated as a helium balloon a week after a three-year-old’s birthday party. “I do like you, I swear, but—”
He holds up a hand. “You don’t have to justify yourself, really.”
“It’s just,” I continue trying to justify myself, despite his protest. “You’re great. You’re perfect. You’re literally everything I ever wanted in a man. You own a houseboat.”
“Still not getting why that’s such a thing for you,” Carter says.
But then I stop for a moment and think of the way I felt when Drew and I were alone in my room, when he was talking about my writing and standing so, so close to me and I know that what I feel for Carter is not the same. Sure, it’s absolutely ridiculous to turn down a real-life guy because of a movie star, like saving myself for one of the Jonas Brothers in junior high, but it’s how I feel.
“It just . . . wouldn’t be fair for us to keep going out,” I say quietly.
Carter nods. “I wanted it to work, but I could tell there was something holding you back. I think . . . maybe both of us wanted a connection, so we were trying to force one.”
I cover my face with my hands. “I feel bad for trying to force it.”
“I don’t think either of us should feel bad. We’re just two people trying to find someone . . . there’s nothing wrong with that.”
I nod. “Like Greg Kinnear or Bill Pullman.”
“Um . . . sure?” Carter’s knowledge of rom-coms apparently doesn’t extend to the Ephron canon.
He tilts his head, like he’s weighing what he’s about to say, but then he goes for it. “Listen, Annie. This might be overstepping a bit, since I don’t know if we’re at the level where we can give each other advice, but we’ve been pretty honest in the short time we’ve been hanging out.”
I nod, wondering what he could possibly be about to say.
He ducks his head a little bit to look me directly in my eyes. “If you’re as head over heels for Drew as you seem, you should go for it.”
My jaw drops like I’m a cartoon character. “Excuse me?”
Carter chuckles. “It’s . . . pretty obvious. You guys have something going on.”
I shake my head but don’t say anything.
“I’m not telling you what to do or anything, but I’ve never heard anything bad about Drew. And if you’re lucky enough to connect with someone in a world where that’s pretty hard to find . . . well, I think you should grab life by the balls. Metaphorically speaking.”
It’s alternately thrilling and misery-inducing that my feelings for Drew, the ones I don’t even entirely understand, are being broadcast so loudly that anyone can see them. This is how I felt in junior high when I heard someone talking about my crush (again, one of the Jonas Brothers and no, I don’t remember which one), just ecstatic and alive to even hear his name. But I’m also a little ashamed that I’ve been mooning around like a lovesick teenager.
“Do you think I’m an idiot?” I ask softly.
Carter shrugs. “The heart wants what it wants.”
“Like Selena Gomez said about Justin Bieber.”
Carter stares blankly at me.
“In her hit song . . . You know what, don’t worry about it,” I mutter.
Carter laughs again. “You’re really something, Annie Cassidy. I’m sorry this didn’t work out.”
“Yeah,” I say as he takes a step away from me. “Me, too.” And I mean it. I am sorry I can’t be with Carter, with his strong arms and his ready-made family and his politeness. It would be so nice to want a life with him. I wish with all my foolish, film-addled heart that I could fall for him, instead of pining over an almost-kiss with a cute and aggressively flirtatious man who recently met Dungeon Master Rick.
“Hey,” I say, just before he turns around. “One last thing.”
Carter stops moving. “Yeah?”
“We call you Sexy Gaffer,” I say. “Drew and I.”
Carter pauses, tilts his head to the side. “You know what? I’m gonna choose to be flattered by that.”
We look at each other for a moment, and then I say, “Bye, Carter.”
“Goodbye, Annie,” he says with a small wave, and then he turns and walks dow
n the sidewalk, not looking back.
* * *
• • •
Since my date with Carter ended sooner than I expected, I head over to—where else—Nick’s. There’s a bounce in my step that you might not expect from someone who essentially got dumped after a mere two dates. But as breakups or almost-breakups go, that was about as good as it gets. I mean, that was a Nora Ephron–level, Greg-Kinnear-and-Meg-Ryan–caliber breakup—just two people who aren’t right for each other, doing what they know they have to do before they move on and find out that Tom Hanks has been their secret pen pal all along.
I may not have a secret pen pal, but what I do have is a man who demonstrated clear interest in me in my bedroom before having a lengthy conversation with my uncle. Yes, Drew and I had a rough time getting to know each other, but so did Tom and Meg, and look what happened there. A romantic kiss in the park, while a golden retriever ran around them. I’m not saying things with Drew are necessarily going to end like that . . . but, well, I haven’t spent all this time waiting for Tom Hanks for nothing.
It’s ridiculous, I think as I approach the coffee shop, all of German Village lit up and glowing in the dark, that someone decided twinkle lights are Christmas-only things, when we desperately need them to get through the bleakness of the post-holiday winter. January is almost over, but we still have February and March and possibly April full of darkness and snow and ice. Twinkle lights should be everywhere all the time.
That’s what I’m thinking about when I open the door, the bell jingling to announce my arrival over a Hall and Oates song.
“Twinkle lights!” I announce, and Chloe looks up from the textbook she’s reading at the counter.
“Is that your new greeting?” she asks. “Idiosyncratic, but I kinda like it.”
“Why don’t you have twinkle lights, Nick?” I ask, walking to the counter. “Don’t you think they’d really add something?”
“Yeah,” he says, handing me a cup. “Extra cost to my electricity bill. Here, try this lavender hot chocolate Chloe made.”
Waiting for Tom Hanks Page 13
