Page 66 of Let’s Make a Scene

I knock on the door to the hotel room and wait.

“That’s not the knock we agreed on,” a voice comes from behind the door.

“You were serious about that?” I ask.

There’s no reply. With a sigh, I rap my knuckles in a vague approximation of the chorus to “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift.

The door swings open and Arjun beams at me. “Nice,” he says. “Welcome to the secret headquarters.”

“You’ve all been very cryptic,” I say, moving past him into Hannah’s room. “What’s this about?”

Hannah looks up from her desk, which is covered in papers, and are those… blueprints?

“Are we heisting something?” I ask, interested. “I’ve always fancied being in on a heist.”

“If Hannah wanted to plan a heist, she’d plan a heist,” Patty says from the sofa, where she is sprawled, eating a bag of gummy worms. “And no one would ever know about it. For all we know she’s sitting on the real Mona Lisa and the one in the Louvre is a clever forgery.

” Patty bites the head off a worm with obvious relish.

“I’m more of a diamond girl,” Hannah murmurs, still scrawling on the notepad in front of her.

“Babe, you really need to clean your makeup brushes.” Liam emerges from the bathroom and beams at me. “Jack! You made it.”

“Yeah,” I agree, bemused. “But I still don’t know why. What’s going on, guys?”

Hannah gets to her feet. “First of all,” she points at me, “did you invite Cynthie on a date tomorrow like I told you to?”

“Yes.”

“And she agreed to it?” Hannah looks pleased.

“Honestly, I didn’t exactly give her time to disagree,” I say.

“He ran away,” Arjun puts in, flopping down next to Patty and pinching one of her gummy worms.

“I didn’t run away !” I protest. “I rode away. On a horse. Manfully.”

“Smart.” Liam nods. “Can’t give her time to talk herself out of things.”

I’m not sure that’s a flattering interpretation of events, but it’s not exactly wrong.

“So I take it there’s a reason you wanted me to ask her,” I say. “Not that I’m complaining. I wanted to do it anyway; I just wasn’t sure about the timing.”

“That’s precisely why you’re here.” Hannah nods. “Please, take a seat.”

Patty and Arjun leap up from the sofa so that I can sit there, and Liam disappears back into the bathroom and then reemerges, rolling a whiteboard into the room.

“Oh my god,” I whisper.

“Pretty cool, hey?” Arjun says proudly.

In the middle of the whiteboard are blurry photos of me and Cynthie, and surrounding the pictures are a web of strings leading to words and phrases like: 9:15 leaves wardrobe on hunt for coffee and contact dove guy??? And hot librarians!!!!!!! (That one is underlined three times.)

“Are you… planning to murder us?” I ask.

Arjun laughs loudly and then squints at the board. “Huh,” he says. “Now that you mention it, I guess the vibe is a little murder-y.”

“If you’ll all turn to page one of your handout,” Hannah sails on, ignoring this.

“There’s a handout?” I ask weakly, but Patty is already thrusting it at me. It’s been professionally bound and the title on the cover is “Operation Grand Gesture.”

“On the first page you’ll find a word cloud of Cynthie’s interests,” Hannah continues. “The bigger the word, the greater the frequency with which she references it.”

I’m gratified to see my name is only slightly smaller than Hannah’s.

“You want to help me plan a grand gesture?” I ask, weirdly touched by how invested they all are.

“Of course we do!” Arjun says.

“Well, I’m grateful,” I say, “but I don’t really understand why you’re doing this.”

Hannah looks down at me. “Jack, are you in love with Cynthie?”

“Yes,” I reply without hesitation. “Deeply, irrevocably, embarrassingly in love with her.”

Her face softens. “Yeah. That’s what we thought.”

“But it’s still nice to hear it.” Liam sniffles a bit.

“You’re perfect for each other,” Patty agrees.

“But with Cynthie.” Hannah shifts on her feet. “It’s… complicated. She wants to trust you, but it doesn’t come easily to her.”

“I know that,” I say softly. “I’ll earn it. I’m not going anywhere.”

Liam’s hand goes to his heart. Arjun is doing some pretty hard blinking.

“The thing is,” Patty cuts in, “Cynthie’s getting in her own way. She thinks it’s all too good to be true, and you need to do something to show her that you mean business.”

“She needs an intervention,” Hannah says firmly.

“And we promised we’d help her,” Liam adds.

“Hence the grand gesture,” I murmur, running my hand across my jaw as the truth dawns on me.

“Cynthie thinks that the love we see in the movies doesn’t exist in real life,” I muse.

“So we should show her that it really does. That life can be grand and romantic. That she deserves that—the time and the trouble and the thought, she deserves someone who loves her… epically.”

When I look up all four of them are watching me, wide-eyed. Hannah is smiling.

“That’s exactly right.” She nods approvingly. “Cynthie wants the big splashy happily-ever-after moment, but she’s been let down too often. She wants to believe that you’re in love with her, but she’s holding herself back.”

“It’s like she needs proof.” Arjun sighs, his eyes flicking to the murder board. “Hard evidence.”

There’s a pause as we absorb that.

“We could have a trial.” He perks up. “A love trial! I could wear a judge’s wig. We could prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.”

“That doesn’t sound very romantic,” Liam puts in doubtfully. “It sounds more like a bad episode of Judge Judy .”

“Well,” Arjun says with a shrug, “I already told you I’ve got a dove guy—”

“Arjun!” Patty huffs. “Stop banging on about the dove guy. There’s nothing romantic about a load of fancy pigeons crapping everywhere.” She hesitates. “But I’m not against the idea of seeing you in one of those wigs.”

Arjun’s eyes widen and his grin threatens to split his face in half. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

“ Once again , can we not get distracted by your role-playing kink,” Liam groans. “I cannot believe how often I have to say that.”

“Actually, I think Arjun might be on to something,” I say thoughtfully.

“Yes!” Arjun pumps his fist. “Vindication! You want me to call my guy right now? I can get you a great deal. We can have so many doves here in the next hour.” His expression is gleeful, bordering on manic.

“No, no,” I cut him off with a wave of my hand, frankly starting to feel a bit worried about this avian obsession. “Not the doves. The proof. I think I have an idea.” My eyes meet Hannah’s. “But it’s a ton of work and we’d need a lot of help to pull it off by tomorrow.”

Hannah’s smile widens. “What I’m hearing is that you require the help of an organizational whiz.”

“And her ragtag crew of lovable misfits,” Arjun adds.

“We’re totally here for you.” Liam nods. “Whatever you need.”

“I want it to be perfect for her,” I say. “I want it to be something she’ll never forget.”

“We know you do,” Hannah says. “That’s why we’re here. Do you think we’d trust anyone who wanted anything less with our girl?”

I look at them, at all the work they’ve already put in, and I can feel the love coming off them.

And it’s not just for Cynthie, I realize.

Somehow, miraculously, they’re here for me, too.

I’ve become a part of this family, this painfully loyal, close-knit, ride-or-die group. This ragtag crew of lovable misfits.

I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

“Okay.” I grin, rubbing my hands together. “In that case, let’s get down to business.”