Page 115 of The Sun & Her Burn

I’d known it was his favorite because we had watched it together more than once in London all those years ago, but until we sat together watching the story of obsession, madness, and love, I didn’t realize how much the film had influenced some of my own screenplay inThe Dream & The Dreamer. There was the shared sense of love as an illusion, of trying to force someone into a role they were simply not meant to play.

It made me reflective, asCasablancahad, but not in the same melancholy way.

Instead, it reminded me that I had not told Adam and Linnea about my screenplay.

Or the fact that they were my unwitting muses.

“I wrote something,” I said as Adam queued up our last film for the night. My own favorite movies were an impossible tiebetweenInceptionandCall Me By Your Name. As Adam hadn’t seen the Andre Aciman adaptation, Linnea insisted we watch that one.

I could tell by the cast of Adam’s mouth that he was not in the mood to watch two men fall in love in Italy, but he did not say no to her.

“What?” Linnea asked from the kitchen where she was assembling popcorn drenched in honey and sea salt.

Adam didn’t ask me to repeat myself.

His face was broken open with genuine—happy—surprise.

“You wrote something?” he repeated with boyish enthusiasm, leaning forward as to be closer to me as if drawn by a hook through his smiling mouth. “I would kill to read it.”

“No need for murder,” I demurred, but something bubbly was happening inside my chest that made me feel light and dopey. “I would love to have you both read it.”

They both waited as if they knew my pause was just a stepping stone to more.

I carefully sucked a deep breath through my teeth, telling myself it was foolish to be nervous. If I could present awards before my peers at award shows, charm late-night hosts and star in feature films, surely I could pitch a movie concept to these two people who had become my…friends.

“I wrote it for you both,” I said, the words raw. I cleared my throat and tried for more casualness. “That is, I had you in my mind’s eye when I wrote this story, and if you like the script, I had thought you might do me the honor of starring in it.”

Linnea blinked owlishly at me, her mouth dropped open in a little o of shock. Adam’s grin widened impossibly. I thought, if he had been a less restrained man, he might even have jumped up and down.

“Give it to me,” he demanded, holding out his palm as if he expected me to drop the screenplay into it that moment. “I’ll read it now.”

I laughed, scrubbing my hand through my hair. “I don’t have a paper copy with me as I obviously wasn’t intending to spend the night with you both. But…I could email it to you.”

“Do it,” Adam pressed, standing up to corral Linnea, who was still frozen in the doorway. He cupped her elbow and brought her forward to sit down in her place between us. “Do you have a computer or tablet, Sunbeam?”

The nickname stirred her from her stupor, and she nodded, “I bought one for Miranda to help with her cognitive and occupational therapy. It’s plugged in beside the fridge.”

Adam nodded curtly before heading into the other room.

Meanwhile, Linnea twisted herself to face me fully, her expression very somber.

“Are you serious about this?” She spoke quietly, as if a loud noise might scare my proposition away.

I nodded slowly and reached out to take the bowl of popcorn into my lap so I could hold her hand. “Very. I do not joke about my art. It’s a flaw, I admit.”

Her mouth flickered with a smile before falling flat, and her eyes were wide and darkly purpled like gathering storm clouds. “Why me? I told you once before, I won’t take handouts, Sebastian.”

My laughter took me by surprise, but it eased the last of my nerves, so I gave in to impulse and hauled my blond beauty into my lap with one hand, using the other to move the popcorn up onto the couch. She looped her arms around my neck without complaint, and I loved that she settled so familiarly into my hold. As if she had been born to sit within my embrace.

“Oh,trottolina, if I could hand the world to you on a platter, I would. Don’t doubt that and don’t hate me for it as it’s a sign ofthe man I am and the woman you are to inspire such devotion,capisci?”

Her expression softened and she ran her fingers gently over my cheekbone and around the curve of my ear.

“That’s very sweet,” she murmured. “I would do the same for you. Do you know that?”

“Si,” I said, because I did.

Linnea was the first person in my life who let me see all of her without much hesitation.Here I am, she said that night in London by the pool,if you are interesting enough, I will shine all my light on you until you won’t let me anymore.