Page 9 of Flipping the Script
"Don't laugh. They're chaos with wings."
"That's..." Quinn caught herself before saying 'actually logical' and revealing just how much she appreciated Solen's reasoning. "Noted for future butterfly-related emergencies."
"See? We're making progress." Solen gestured at the binder. "Now, what does your color-coded masterpiece say about our grand performance?"
Quinn flipped to the timeline tab, grateful for solid ground. "We need to establish a believable progression. First public coffee date tomorrow, casual hand-holding by day three, social media interaction starting day five?—"
"Whoa, hold on." Solen held up a hand. "You want to schedule when we hold hands?"
"Consistency requires planning."
"Romance requires spontaneity."
They stared at each other across the coffee table, the binder spread between them like a battle plan neither had agreed to follow.
"You can't schedule authentic connection, Quinn."
"You can't build believable narrative without structure, Solen."
"Watch me."
Before Quinn could process the warning, Solen reached across the small space between them and took her hand. Her mind, a well-oiled machine built for analysis and contingency planning, seized. This wasn't in the protocol. There was no section in the "Solen Strategy Guide" for spontaneous physical contact. Every alarm bell in her meticulously ordered system shrieked.Abort. Categorize. Analyze.But there was nothing to analyze, no data points to plot, just... warmth. A foreign, unexpected warmth that bypassed her carefully constructed defenses and lodged somewhere deep and unsettling. This was exactly what she wasn't good at – the unscripted, the unpredictable, the human variable that defied all logic and control. Her brain scrambled for a defense, a distraction, anything to pull her back to the safety of calculated distance.
Quinn's entire nervous system fired at once. Solen's palm was warm and slightly calloused, probably from whatever mysterious physical hobbies went with vintage t-shirts and scuffed boots. Her fingers were longer than Quinn's, with short, practical nails and a thin silver ring on her thumb that caught the light.
"See?" Solen's voice was softer now, almost testing. "This is what holding hands feels like. No agenda, no timeline. Just..."
Quinn pulled away so fast she nearly knocked over her coffee. "Sorry, I just—I'm not—" She pressed her palms against her thighs, still feeling the phantom warmth of Solen's touch. "I need more preparation for physical interaction."
Something shifted in Solen's expression, a flash of hurt quickly covered by understanding. "Okay. We can work up to it."
"I'm not good at the unpredictable parts," Quinn admitted, staring down at her hands. "Of anything."
"Good thing I excel at unpredictable." Solen's voice carried gentle humor instead of judgment. "Maybe we balance each other out."
Quinn looked up to find Solen watching her with an expression she couldn't quite categorize. Not pity, exactly, but something careful and curious that made her chest feel tight.
"Can we compromise?" Solen continued. "You can keep your binder and your schedules, but we also spend actual time together. Not performing, not practicing—just existing in the same space until we figure out how we fit."
"That sounds terrifyingly inefficient."
"That sounds like how real relationships work."
Quinn considered this, absently straightening the papers in her binder. Solen had a point, much as it pained her to admit it. All her research into romantic relationships—academic and otherwise—suggested that genuine connection couldn't be entirely scripted.
"We could start with coffee," she said slowly. "At Grind Coffee House. It's..." She hesitated, surprised by her own impulse to share something personal. "It's where I write. Where I go when I need to think."
"Your thinking place." Solen's smile was different this time, less performance and more genuine pleasure. "You're willing to share your thinking place with me?"
"For the sake of the arrangement, yes."
"Right. The arrangement." But Solen looked pleased rather than offended by Quinn's deflection. "What else should I know about Quinn Virelle's natural habitat?"
Without quite meaning to, Quinn found herself explaining her writing process, how she mapped story structures in her leather notebook before transferring anything to digital, how she always sat in the corner booth facing the door because she liked to observe people for character development.
"You people-watch." Solen looked delighted by this revelation. "That's so beautifully sneaky."
"It's research."
