INICIAR SESIÓN(Sonia)Liam pitches a line, everyone laughs, and I sit here and watch it happen like it's a regular occurrence.I'm not supposed to be here.Actors don't usually intrude in the writers’ room.I told the producer I was developing my instrument, with a completely straight face, and nobody says no to the girl whose face is currently on the side of a bus, even when the sentence coming out of her mouth makes no sense.The real reason is that I got Liam this job and I want to see him blow everyone’s socks off.I already know he’s going to succeed at this. He’s too good not to.And I'd rather eat the whiteboard than admit to anyone that I’m here to admire his talent.It would have been nice if I could have lied to myself about it as well.They've been stuck for an hour on a scene where two people who can't stand each other get trapped sharing a car.The head-writer, Stephanie, keeps asking them for the place where the story changes, the moment when everything shifts.Everyone keeps pitching
(Nathanial)Julian opens the door in a dinner jacket at four in the afternoon and says, "If you've brought a casserole, I'm calling the police."I didn't bring a casserole. I brought myself, which is worse, because a casserole you can put in the fridge and ignore.Nat would've come with me if I asked her.She's better at him than I am in spite of the fact that Julian and I grew up together.But somebody decided it should be me, and that somebody was me.His place looks like a spread in a Better Homes & Gardens, focused on how to best organize your space.Which is the first thing that's wrong.Julian loves acquiring things and then losing interest, which is why every room he occupies inevitably starts looking like a high-end boutique stuffed full of trinkets you have to wade through.This one's been cleaned into the corners.Every cushion karate-chopped.Nothing of Taylor's anywhere I can see, which means he's either thrown it all out or put it somewhere he never has to look.He missed
(Chase)She kisses me before the door's even shut, and I decide the bowling alley was the best idea anyone's ever had.It's not careful.We left careful at the third gutter ball.She's got a fistful of my shirt, I've got her backed against the door I just closed, and neither of us is pretending this is going anywhere but the obvious place."Lily," I manage."She’s with your mother for the night."She bites my jaw, not gently."You can stop being responsible now.""I'm never responsible. It's a persona.""I've seen your calendar, Chase. It's color-coded."Very rich coming from her."To you that's foreplay, technically.""You're stalling," she says, dragging my shirt up and over."I'm savoring. There's a difference.""Savor faster, or I start without you.""You wouldn't.""Try me. It's been a long week, and you’ve been seducing me all night by bending lower than strictly required."She laughs against my mouth, and then she's not laughing, and we lose the hallway somewhere on the way to
(Natasha)"This is a bowling alley," Chase says, stopping just inside the door."Nothing gets past you.""I can see that it's a bowling alley. I'm asking why we're standing in one.""Because it's my turn to plan, and I planned this. Go rent your shoes."He looks at the rental counter like it's a hostile witness."I don't rent shoes. I don't know where they've been.""That's the entire charm. Hundreds of strangers' feet. Very grounding."He rents the shoes.Red and green, comically large.He stares down at his own feet like they've personally betrayed him, and I take a photo before he can stop me."Delete that.""Absolutely not."He's bad at this.Historically bad.He gutters the first two and stands there like the lane insulted his mother."The floor's slanted," he says."It isn't.""Something's slanted."By the fourth frame he throws hard enough that a kid two lanes over claps.Chase half-turns to say something to him, then catches himself and doesn't."You're allowed to talk to peop
(Chloe)I come by Stein to drop off the charger Mason left at my place, and I end up in the doorway of his office, not going in.Because he's not alone.And he's not the Mason I've been getting lately.There's a woman with him.She’s intimidatingly beautiful.Tall and slim with glossy ebony skin and intelligent, honey-brown eyes.Wearing a red pantsuit that would make me look like a child playing dress-up, but she owns the hell out of it.They're at the whiteboard he writes deals on, and they're arguing.Not the bad way.They're enjoying being wrong at each other.Mason's got a marker in his hand he isn't using and a grin he doesn't know he's doing.He says something.She fires something back at lightning speed and he laughs.The real one, the whole-chest one.The laugh I used to earn on a good day. I haven't heard it in months.I watch longer than I should.He keeps talking and circles the table the way he does when he's thinking.She stays exactly where she is and lets him come back
(Lily – age six)I'm six today, which is the best age, and I'd know, because I've been all the other ones.There are nineteen people at my party, a dog that isn't ours, and a cake shaped like a horse, even though I asked for a real horse.Mommy said the cake was the compromise.I don't really know what a compromise is, but she gives me a lot of them.Auntie Sonia gave me a tiara that's real, she says.Real means I'm not allowed to wear it in the bath.Great grandpa Elias isn’t here, but he sent an envelope, which is the most boring present in the world, except Mom's face when I opened it said it wasn't boring at all.She said something about shares and grandpa being too generous, but I don’t really care about that.I wish he was at the party to be all scowly at everyone laughing and being loud.Daddy thinks he’s scary, but he’s silly.There's a kid here I don't know who keeps crying near the bouncy castle. I hope his mommy comes to get him soon because I don’t want crying at my birthd
(Natasha)I need to move.Despite my very best intentions, my anger has been growing exponentially since Nathanial left.Mom takes my place at the cot when I stand up.She doesn't ask where I'm going.She has the look of a woman who's been waiting for me to move for an hour and a half.The corridor
(Natasha)Lily is sleeping.The monitors are calmer than they were three hours ago.The numbers I've been staring at on the screen above her cot have stopped lurching and started behaving.Her color came back somewhere around five o'clock.Her cheek under my thumb feels warm again.She was so cold
(Nathanial)James catches me in the corridor with a folder under his arm and his mouth set tight.He seems to be having a hard time meeting my eyes.The reunion with my uncle is nowhere near as intense as meeting Nat.I barely remember him from my childhood.Just a vague feeling that he was always
(Chase)The phone vibrates against the granite island at exactly eight-forty.I’m in the townhouse kitchen, staring at a mug of French roast I’ve ignored for so long it’s turned cold and unappetizing.I barely slept last night.Natasha has gone back upstairs.We were in the kitchen together for ten







