First Draft Romance

CHAPTER TWENTY

Roz drops a binder-clipped stack of papers onto the table between us. We're at Café Crotchety, seated at the same table as we were the last time. When I'd arrived at work, the apartment's elevator doors had slid open to reveal Roz already ready to go in her trench coat, with a large leather tote bag slung over one shoulder.

She'd gotten into the elevator with little more than a, "Clear my schedule for this morning," and pressed the ground floor button. A Lyft had been waiting for us there. Roz (once again) made idle chit chat with our driver all the way here, while I (once again) sat quietly in my seat, an awkward, soundless bundle of nerves.

All she'd be missing was a call with Catalina. Canceling that was the most nerve-wracking email I'd ever sent, but it was nothing compared to the anxiety bubbling up in my stomach as I tried to figure out where the fuck Roz was taking us.

Now, it feels like the grumpy faces on the Café Crotchety wallpaper are glaring at me, mocking me. I don't know whether I'm supposed to look at Roz, or the heap of notes between us, or my hands, which are currently clasped together in my lap. After making brief eye contact with one of the gruesome little wallpaper faces, I settle on my hands in my lap.

"I read your notes," Roz says slowly.

My face feels hot. I look up. "Oh, I—sorry. I forgot to take those with me." I was so quick to leave Roz's apartment yesterday morning that I completely spaced on the pages of notes I wrote up on her draft. It's nearly forty pages of work—work I wanted to give her in person, work I wanted to properly discuss with her before she read it. Fuck. In my haste to get the fuck out of there, I must have left them out on the counter. Like an idiot.

"Don't apologize," Roz says, leaning back against the wooden bench. She peers at the first page, and I follow her gaze. My heart stops. The first page has been marked up by pastel highlighters and royal blue pen.

She didn't just read them. She read them.

"I liked your insights, honestly," she says, leaning forward slightly to shove the stack towards me. "Did you get a chance to look at the second half of the book? I know it wasn't much turnaround time, but—"

"No, no." I cough in an attempt to cover up the embarrassment suddenly pinging around in my brain. You just cut Rosalind Lindbergh off, you fucking idiot. "I read through everything."

I reach into my tote bag and lift out a second set of typed notes, similarly binder clipped, and awkwardly slide them across the table to Roz. She picks them up, leafing through the first few pages. Her long, red nails glint in the café lighting. One side of her mouth quirks up in a slight smile, and she takes a sip of her iced white mocha.

She keeps quiet for the next few seconds, reading through pages at random. "These are really thorough," she says. "That must have taken a lot of work."

It definitely was a lot of work—after working on my own book for a few hours, Roz sent the rest of It May Take Two to my inbox. I spent the rest of my remote work day reading through it and making notes—but that only got me through chapter twenty-three out of thirty-five.

The shitty little coffee shop where I'd wound up was a twenty-four-hour one, but my back was sore and my legs begged to be stretched, so I decided to head back to Daniel and Kirby's. I stopped by an Aldi on the way home and, not knowing how much kitchen space is mine, grabbed a few groceries to get me through the rest of the week. Then I made my way up to the apartment through the back room of Deja Brew, nodding at Daniel behind the counter on my way in, and spent the rest of the evening honed in on the couch.