Zing! Ten points for DaddyBraddock.
“That’s what worries all of us,” hemumbles.
Wow. An investment banker who doesn’t respect the career of a writer. Didn’t see that onecoming!
“Hello,” he says, looking at me, without looking atme.
“Dad, this is my —” Scott starts to say “writing partner,” but his father has already walked away to greet a fancy elderly couple who are probably half as fun and ten million times richer than my entire familycombined.
He puts his hand on my back and his mother is about to apologize for her husband, but he calls out to her to join him. “We’ll talk more later, dears,” shesays.
“Sorry,” Scott says, rubbing myback.
“You don’t have to apologize. I wouldn’t be that interested in meeting meeither.”
“Hey. You are the most interesting person here, trustme.”
I guffaw, and am about to make a face at him when I feel his hand drop and see his entire body tense up, even more than it did when he saw hisfather.
“And here comes Mr. Charm,” he says under his breath. He polishes off his champagne. “This will befun.”
I follow his gaze to a man who looks remarkably like Scott—same height, build, coloring, features, but without the soul. I hadn’t realized how much warmth and charisma Scott exudes until I see him opposite his brother. I must say, though, this guy looks good in a tux too, only his probably cost five times as much as Scott’s. Or perhaps what makes it look so expensive is the stunning blank-eyed perfectly put-together socialite on his arm. I recognize her face from magazine and internet photos of herself and other socialites standing around looking bored andhungry.
“Oh hey there, buddy.” He shakes hands with Scott like they’re in a hand-shaking competition. Whoever grips the hardest and blinks last wins. “How’s the screenwriting business? You haven’t met my girlfriend—Ainsley Radford. Hey, didn’t your dad buy a movie studio last year? Can he help my little brotherout?”
The socialite rolls her eyes, then tells Scott: “He invested in a social media site, it hasn’t launchedyet.”
“Even better—you can write for that. People don’t go to movies anymore because they’re too busy connecting on social media, isn’t that right? Should we be seatednow?”
He doesn’t even give Scott a chance to respond to anything. As much as I used to want to punch Scott in the face (and still sometimes do), Scott’s cockiness has an underlying humor to it. This guy makes me want to walk away and punch a wall. I don’t even want to interact with him. He may be the first true dickhead I’ve evermet.
Scott turns to me, with a pained smile. “This is my beloved older brother,Carter.”
Carter doesn’t even offer his hand to me, he just snorts at Scott and nods atme.
“Are you his girlfriend?” Ainsley says tome.
“I’m Erin. We just wrote a script together and occasionally fuck each other’s brains out. Nice to meetyou.”
I pull Scott away from them, toward the seating area where people have been gathering for the ceremony. We don’t look back, but I do hear his brother say the words “Los Angeles” and “brains” and I don’t think the full sentence was “Everyone who moves to Los Angeles to write screenplays has brains.” I do check to confirm that his parents weren’t within earshot. I finally look up at Scott, and he is silently laughing so hard he is trembling and tearing up.Phew.
Once he’s found his voice again, he high-fives me and apologizes for his family’s attitude aboutscreenwriting.
“Please. First of all, as you know, I went to a college of arts and communication in a town crawling with Ivy League assholes. Secondly, it’s no different from being in LA and telling people you write movies not television. Third—you look so handsome in your tuxedo I barely even notice anything anyone else issaying.”
He looks as surprised as I am that I just said something so blatantly sweet to him out loud. He takes my hand and squeezes it. He kisses me on the top of myhead.
I need to watch myself. All these weddings and tuxedos and champagne and New York are getting tome.
Chapter 17
*Erin*
I've never beento the wedding of people I didn't know before, but after watching Natalie and William during the ceremony, I want to be their friend. I love them. They are so beautiful and cute and they managed to loosen up a hundred and fifty uptight Brits and New Yorkers with their sweet joy. Even though they're around my age, I feel protective of them, in the way that I feel protective of Harry and Sally, The Princess Bride and Westley, and Diane Court and LloydDobler.
To my great horror, during the ceremony, when I started to imagine myself up there with John Cusack/Lloyd Dobler, my brain played a terrible trick on me. John Cusack suddenly morphed into Scott Braddock, and my imagined self, in her slip dress, looked happier than she usually does. I physically jerked back in my seat. Scott, who had his arm around me, furrowed his brow. “You okay?” he mouthed. I nodded. He squeezed my shoulder. I realized I wascrying.
I’ve never imagined myself marrying anyone other than Lloyd Dobler before. I’m not sure which is more of a fantasy—the movie character or the amazing version of Scott that I would actuallymarry.
