Page 80 of Burn the Script

When Carmen grabs my arms, her stern face is too close to mine for comfort. “Tell him, Miguel.”

“I’m scared,” I whisper, dropping my forehead to her shoulder. “Everything’s been happening so fast, Carmen, like last time. I can’t resist him because I love him too much, but this…” I gesture at the TV.

She hugs me like I might disappear if she lets go. “If you truly believe you can’t survive in his world, that’s fine. Go break the heart of the best man you’ll ever meet. But you have to tell him the truth. Graham deserves to know the problem lies with you, not him.”

I bite my lip to counter the sting in my eyes. A full confession means I could lose Graham forever. What if he realizes everything my first boyfriend thought about me was true? That I’m too much to deal with and not worth the trouble. All the therapy in the world couldn’t bring me back to a functioning level if Graham ended up hating me for wasting years of his life.

I look at the paused video and the image of Phoebe Lewis smiling. Does she already regret her decision? Because right now, people despise her. The irony is I’m not one of them. After the choice she made tonight, she’s likely to spend days, weeks, even months despising herself. And that’s no way to live.

34

GRAHAM

THEN

November, Year Four

The lines on the script in front of me blurred. A light breeze curled through the balcony, kissing the back of my neck and making me shiver. I rested my head in my hands and massaged my temples. The headaches became especially bad when I stared at my laptop for too long.

A loud squeak forced me to look up. Miguel had his cell phone tucked between his ear and shoulder, a bottle of glass cleaner in one hand and a squeegee in the other. As he dragged the rubber blade along the already spotless window again, the corners of my mouth tilted up. The cleaning service came two days ago. The windows were spotless, but Miguel couldn’t sit still when he was on a phone call.

I leaned back in my chair. All his quirks and habits—the things that made him uniquely him—brought me more joy and entertainment than any movie ever could. And the sight of him bustling around the house we shared was a scene I’d watch on repeat every day for the rest of my life.

After he cleaned a small, perfect square, he disappeared. I returned to the script, but only twenty minutes passed before I lost momentum and interest in the task. I hunted for a prince instead.

He was easy to find in his sewing room where he spent most of his free time. The cushy leather chair he ordered for me beckoned from the corner. I sank into it and laid my head back, admiring his creative skills and endless well of productivity. He only rested when he was asleep or in my arms.

His posture gave away his mood. The stiff spine and jerky movements conveyed frustration as he guided the fabric under a needle hammering at top speed.

The needle came to a sudden stop, and he turned to look at me, eyes softening as he tilted his head. “You have a headache.”

“Not a bad one.”

“Liar.” He set his work aside, and the wide legs of his silk lounge pants billowed as he headed toward the door. “I’ll be right back.”

I sat quietly, staring at the backyard through the sheer curtains, my mind free of clutter in his organized space. In no time, he returned with a glass of water and my prescription pills. I hated taking them. They gave me a stomachache, but I gulped them down anyway because he wanted me to.

Miguel set the glass on the decorative table next to my chair and straddled my lap, careful not to jostle me. At five-foot-nine, he wasn’t a small person, but he felt small when I was holding him. His light fingers wandered from my shoulders to my neck, working the tight muscles. I moaned. Only he could turn me to mush and ease my pain with a single touch.

“You’ve been reading all week. You need a break,” he said.

Jonathan had sent me script options for my directorial debut. He had more contacts than I did and knew where to find untapped talent, the hidden gems who hadn’t caught a break. Many of the scripts were great, but one stood out, and I kept returning to it for another read.

“I think I’ve found the one. The storytelling and dialogue are simple but beautiful. I can envision the scenes in my head already.”

Miguel’s fingers moved to the base of my skull. “What’s it about?”

“Summer camp. A teen movie, if you can believe it,” I murmured.

My eyelids grew heavy. His magic hands were putting me to sleep, and that wouldn’t do because he’d leave my lap. My palms glided along the silk as I slid my hands up his thighs and grabbed his hips, anchoring him to me.

“Why were you taking your anger out on a blazer?” I asked.

“Andrew.” The way he growled the name was adorable.

“The engineer?”

“Yes. I regret asking him to join the collective, but he’s good at what he does. The problem is getting him to stay in his lane. Earlier, he tried to convince me he knows more about contracts than our lawyer.”