Page 9 of The CEO I Hate (The Lockhart Brothers #1)

MIA

“ W e should totally go out for lunch,” Jerome said as we poured out of the conference room.

And by “we,” he meant me and the other writers.

Liam and Paula had stayed behind to whisper about paperwork or contracts or world domination or whatever it was execs talked about when the peons weren’t around to hear them.

Jerome linked his arm through mine. “I was thinking bagels earlier, but now we’re totally going for sushi!”

“Nothing says congratulations like cold fish,” Kait laughed.

“Um, sometimes it’s warm,” Jerome shot back. “There’s an amazing little place like a block from here. They make you pay for what you can’t eat, but I feel like this group can crush it. You like sushi, don’t you?”

“Love it,” I said, feeling like I’d just passed another test.

“Excellent.” Jerome dragged me down the hall and out of the building. I tried to keep track of the twists and turns—I had a lousy sense of direction, and this place was a real maze—but he was moving too fast, and my thoughts were too jumbled for me to think straight .

I still didn’t quite know what to think as I replayed the interview in my head. I could almost feel the weight of Liam’s hand in mine, that phantom grip lingering like his whispered words against my cheek: I’m not gonna let you screw this up .

Well, I’d show him. I was about to be the best damn staff writer this studio had ever seen. No way in hell was I going to screw this up now that I finally had a job. An honest to God, real TV writing gig. A paid gig! For one of my favorite shows. Holy freaking hell.

“I’m so hungry,” Tanya said as we crossed the street. “Frustration gives me the munchies, and do you know how many horrible interviews we had to sit through until you showed up?”

I chuckled.

“It was almost unbearable,” she continued. “This one guy wouldn’t stop talking! Ugh, like damn, read the room, dude.”

“I don’t even know how Paula got him to leave,” Jerome said, laughing as we arrived at the restaurant. “It was so smooth.”

Kait nodded. “That’s some sort of divine power.”

Inside, we were escorted to a booth by a waitress who took our drink orders and then left us to peruse the menu for a while. We settled on edamame, several different rolls, and a plate of sashimi.

“You come here a lot?” I asked.

“Mm-hmm,” Jerome said around a mouthful of fish. “Whenever we need a pick-me-up.”

“Which, for Jerome, is about once a week. He has a lot to complain about,” Tanya joked.

“Is it my fault I had boyfriend drama at the same time as the whole Lyle-is-a-horrible-boss nonsense? ”

“Don’t forget the lengthy discussions about your love-hate relationship with reality TV,” Kait said.

“Ugh, I’m obsessed,” Jerome told me. “But it’s unhealthy. Don’t mention The Real Housewives .”

“Which ones?” I asked.

“Any of them.”

“Seriously,” Tanya said. “It’ll get ugly.”

I laughed, inhaling the food in front of me. I hadn’t eaten much before the interview out of sheer nervousness, and now I couldn’t get the chopsticks to my mouth fast enough.

While I ate my weight in rice, Tanya told me all about her most recent horrible breakup and why she was absolutely not ready to mingle despite how much Jerome needled her about getting back on the apps.

And Kait had recently gotten engaged to her long-term boyfriend. She was apparently so stressed about wedding planning she was considering eloping.

“Why not?” Jerome shrugged. “Then you can spend all your money on some sexy honeymoon. You could go on a safari.”

“Or,” Tanya said, “cage diving with sharks!”

“Yassss!” Jerome said, getting on board with the ridiculousness. “Or climb Everest. I hear a lot of people are doing that now. You know, make it a once-in-a-lifetime sort of experience.”

Kait snorted. “Can we pick something that isn’t going to kill me?”

“Girl, you’re convinced that if you sneeze too hard, you’ll die.”

“Your eyeballs really can pop out of your head! It’s not just an urban myth!”

I laughed along with the table. The writers were an easy bunch to like, and I was pretty excited to deep dive into the storylines for season two with them next week. “So,” I said. “How do you guys like working on the show?”

“It’s exactly what you think being a writer will be like when you’re young and dumb and don’t know what a meat grinder this industry is, you know?

” Kait said, sounding way too worldly wise for someone who couldn’t be a day over twenty-five.

“I mean, yeah, working with Lyle was definitely no walk in the park?—”

“You can fucking say that again,” Tanya muttered.

I made a face I hoped conveyed my sympathy. I didn’t have a ton of experience working for a horrible boss, but I’d once had a really shitty mentor who’d gone out of his way to ruin a big opportunity for me, so I could imagine how that felt.

“But for this show?” Kait continued. “Having the chance to work with these characters, to make something this juicy and fun? It was actually worth putting up with a control freak for a boss. And now with Paula running things and you pitching the ideas? This season is going to rock .”

She grinned at me, and I smiled back, warmed by her faith in me. Still, I was a little surprised that their only complaints so far were about Lyle. “You never had any issues with Liam?”

“Boss man? Honestly, we didn’t see much of him until recently,” Jerome said. “But he’s been super great since everything went down, making sure we were all okay, that we felt supported. I think that’s why he and Paula tried to include us in the interview process. To make us a more cohesive team.”

“I’m sorry you had to deal with that,” I said.

“No shock that Lyle would leave us in the lurch. He always thought he was the only one in the writers’ room who mattered. He never told us what was going on,” Kait said.

“With anything. Plotlines. Characters. He’d reveal the elements one episode at a time, which made it really difficult to write because you didn’t know what the motivation was or where the plot thread was going.”

“And then he’d do massive revisions on our work. He’d literally cut entire scenes. Totally rework the dialogue,” Jerome said. “And my dialogue is on fire. No pun intended.”

The corner of my mouth curled. “I believe it.”

“But like Kait said, I think we’re all feeling a lot more positive about season two.”

When I’d first heard the news, I kind of assumed Liam had played more of the bad guy in the narrative. Like maybe he’d pissed Lyle off and driven him to quit. But clearly, Liam wasn’t the problem here.

In a surprising turn of events, he actually seemed to be looking out for his employees, trying to make things right.

“I wonder what made Lyle leave,” I said. “If this show meant so much to him.”

“I think it all boils down to control,” Jerome said. “Like he was asking for too much damn stuff in his contract. I guess whatever legal said no to was enough to make him walk.”

“Anyway,” Kait said. “Enough about that demon. Tell us about you.”

“And this hot firefighter brother of yours,” Tanya cut in. “I’m just imagining he’s hot. Because, you know, firefighter.”

“Oh, well,” I said awkwardly. “I’m no judge on whether he’s hot. And…he’s not actually a firefighter anymore. He was badly injured last year on a call, and he’s been on a rotation of surgeries since.”

“Shit, girl. That sucks,” Tanya said.

“It’s definitely been tough. He really loved being a firefighter.

He was always so committed, so active. The kind of guy who’d throw himself into everything one hundred and fifty percent.

You know the type, right? And now he’s in a wheelchair, struggling to figure out what comes next.

It’s been a big adjustment. But even when he’s dealing with his own stuff, he’s always supported me.

He was the one who helped me get this interview, so I want to work extra hard, you know? To make him proud.”

“Aww, I love that,” Kait said, reaching across the table to squeeze my hand.

“As for me…my big struggle has been to get people to take me seriously as a writer at all. My parents are still waiting for me to give the whole thing up and find a more ‘stable’ job.”

“Preach!” Jerome sang out.

“My last few shots at a writers’ room sort of crashed and burned, like I mentioned in the interview,” I continued. “It just feels like I’ve been working so long and not making any headway.”

“Been there,” Kait said as Jerome and Tanya nodded along.

We’d likely all had similar novice writer experiences.

“I got brought in for the last season of Crimson Tides only for them to sideline me. I only got to touch edits on one episode the entire time I was there. Don’t get me wrong, I totally appreciated the experience, but I didn’t get to do much. ”

“Yeah, that was like my experience on Lassoed ,” I said.

“Oh my God, I miss those cowboys!” Jerome complained. “They were so damn hot.”

“I did some rewrites on their last season,” I said. “Thought it would be around for at least a couple more before it was canceled.”

“They deserve a reboot. I was certain another platform was going to pick them up. ”

“I think you were the only one watching it regularly,” Tanya joked.

“Girl, I was deep in the fandom, okay?”

“Oh, I know you were. Probably bought a Stetson and cowboy boots.”

Jerome smirked. “You know me so well.” They did a complicated handshake across the table, and I felt like I’d been accepted into a secret little club. Jerome nabbed an edamame with his chopsticks. “So, tell us about this webcomic you write. Something dark and slutty, I hope?”

I burst out laughing. “The complete opposite, actually. It’s sorta based on my life, with a twist. Lots of melodrama, but everything is reframed to be set in a high school. The teens really seem to like it.”

“Oh, you mean something like Heart and Hustle ?” Tanya said.

My cheeks pinked. “Not just like it. That’s…um…that’s it. I write Heart and Hustle .”