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My heart was certainly screaming the same sentiment, pounding so hard I could feel the echo of it in my entire body. In my hands, and in my ears, and in my throat, tangling itself up with too many other things I’d been trying but failing to get a handle on.
I opened up my email on my phone, finding the one I’d sent to myself to back up my own manuscript, and forwarded it to Neil without letting myself think twice about it.
Another message pinged through. Again, from Neil.
It shouldn’t have been possible, but my heart pounded even harder.
Merry Christmas, Liv,it said.
I watched the bubble with three little dots appear and disappear, and then appear and disappear again. But he didn’t send anything else over. I deflated a little. Let out a frustrated huff.
This wassomething, though, right?
Right. I guess I would take what I could get—for now.
Merry Christmas to you too, Neil.I sent him back, and then I dove into his screenplay at three in the morning.
Neil, this screenplay is awesome.I didn’t care if I was reaching out first this time, I had to say it—text it, whatever. Because his screenplay was pretty epic.
(Actually, I was obsessed with it, but I wasn’t telling him that.)
It was this fantasy, with this badass heroine—and it was funny, and interesting, and action-packed, andsexy, without even trying, really.
My cheeks filled with warmth just thinking about it.
And yeah. No. Not going there.
But he’d somehow managed to pack an insane amount of punch in what was set to be an hour and forty-five-minute film.
(That was the best part of movies, really. And why I preferred them over TV shows. Condensing a storyline into a smaller time frame; fitting in the beginning, end, and everything in between without missing a beat. It was more of a challenge. It forced a level of care and intent when deciding on the scenes you went with, and the dialogue you chose, that was different, I felt. Driving the story forward without it feeling rushed. It gave you roughly an hour and a half to convince people to fall in love with or completely hate your story—yeah, I could talk about this all day.)
Neil’s heroine was my favorite part of his story. She came right out of the gate already knowing how powerful she was, and she was kicking ass and taking names before anyone came along to help her—with more of her deeper-rooted demons than anything.
And her love interest?Ugh.He was what male leads were made of. And again, I felt myself blushing.I.At least it was over fictional characters this time.
Haha. Thank you,Neil replied.You really think so?
A whole bunch of thoughts raced through my mind at his reply. The usual mess of things—buried beneath the past few weeks and the way things had gone sideways between us.
Is this where we started? Small talk through text until we made our way to the bigger stuff?
It was becoming glaringly apparent that I needed someone in my life who actually knew something about these things.
But I didn’t know… as convoluted as everything was, this didn’t feelwrong.Nothing with Neil felt wrong. Except for where we had messed everything up.
Really,I responded.I wasn’t going to tell you this, but… I’m kind of obsessed with it.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Thanks. That means a lot,he sent.Especially coming from you. I’m almost finished with yours, too. I don’t think I’ve stopped laughing the entire time.
I cracked a smile, my heart making its presence known.Especially coming from you—what did he mean by that? I wasn’t going to ask.Thanks, Neil,I messaged instead.
Okay, I’m finished,he replied a handful of hours later.Wow,another message bubble popped up.You really have to do something with this, Liv. I mean it.
Warmth filled some of the empty spaces that had been nagging at me. Spaces I didn’t want to admit Neil had carved out, spilling his sunlight into them until he took it back.