Page 15 of Drawn Together
“This isn’t what I meant.”
“This will suffice for whatever you need.”
We’re at a round table about two feet off the ground, tiny chairs with legs designed as pencils and stickers half scraped off on the sides.
Fletcher's long legs push against the table, forcing him to twist on his side. He starts to complain that his feet are falling asleep,and I delight in the pins and needles in his toes right now—as though I placed them there myself.
“I can’t take you or myself seriously here.”
Good. I gesture with a hand forward, indicating my permission to proceed.
He sighs with his shoulders slumped over and my jacket across his lap. Something about seeing him so…humbled has satisfaction seeping into my bones.
“I need your help.”
“I gathered as much when you sat down at a table fit for four-year-olds.”
“The other night…when I said I didn’t get romance. I meant that.”
“If you are about to ask me for dating advice, I should make it clear I am not the person to ask.”
I have never even had a real first date. A funny thought, considering my ten-year long relationship. I know less about dating than I do about making friends, and I feel like that really says something.
“I don’t need help with that.”
My chin jerks back, and I assess him with narrowed eyes: dark, fluffy chestnut hair, scruff along his jaw and above his nose, and disheveled in a way that’s borderline concerning but leaning just on the right side of attractive. Objectively, Lennon was right. Fletcher is nice to look at, if you were into his kind of tall and brooding. I suppose he wouldn't need help in the whole dating realm. Or maybe it’s one of those, is he cute or is he just six-two situations?
He clears his throat, and I force my eyes from the way his henley stretches across the expanse of his chest.
“I work for Ashford & Elm Publishing.”
Now that has my attention.
“An editor?”
“No, I’m a content writer—articles and what not. I usually cover more…classic literature. Or men's nonfiction. But, the other writer in my department is on maternity leave, and she writes about women’s fiction and—”
“Romance?”
“Yes.” He slumps forward, an excellent image of him hunched over in these tiny chairs for me to carve into my brain. I can’t wait to see what it looks like when he gets back up.
“So, you need me because…?”
“My boss is very unhappy with the article I tried to submit about romcoms. He said I needed to do research—” Which explains the tragic love stories. He sounds exasperated when he keeps going, head shaking toward his lap and fingers digging into his temples. “I tried. I really, really tried. I’ve resubmitted twice, and now he’s looking for someone else to take over.”
“But, you want to do it because—”
“There is a position open for a career advance if I can satisfy him, but he doesn’t exactly like me.”
“Shocking.”
He glares. “My point is, you know what you’re talking about with all this stuff.”
He waves a hand around the room before landing on my phone back at the desk, like he is pointing directly to my previous audiobook for ‘stuff.’
“I do.”
“So, I’d like you to teach me.”
