Again this morning when I woke up the sun was shining too brightly and I was alone and naked in bed. I couldn’t hear the shower today so I got out of bed and wandered in to his bathroom. This bathroom was like heaven with a shower and bathtub. There were windows looking down on to the city on two sides and the most amazing shower I’d ever seen. I noticed that there were two towels on the side of the sink that did not have any of Harry’s stuff on it. He had put them out for me this morning, which was sort of sweet. I quickly hopped in the shower so I could start getting ready for my day. He had more hair products in the shower than any man I’d ever met. It was sort of amazing. I got out of the shower, dried off and scrunched my hair. I didn’t put on a ton of makeup, knowing that I’d be stuck in my office on the phone and no one would see me after I walked into my office. I threw on the black leggings, white tee and red plaid shirt I’d brought with me before grabbing my bag and heading downstairs. Be strong Everlee Mae. He’s going to try to weaken you and make you promise to go to dinner with him. Last night was the last time that was going to happen.

“Good morning,” Harry said as he turned to look at me walking down the stairs. He was in the kitchen making breakfast in just a pair of sweatpants.

“You didn’t have to make breakfast.” I softened as he smiled brightly at me.

“I know you’re going to head to work and probably spend your whole day on the phone. So I thought that I should make sure you at least got a good meal before you start your day.”

“You’re too sweet.” I went to hug him and saw that he really had gone all out for breakfast.

“Do you want a smoothie? I have yogurt and granola with some fresh fruit that I can get you. And then I thought that something warm seemed like a good idea so I made you avocado toast.” It all looked amazing.

“Oh my god. This is like heaven. I love breakfast,” I said as I sat down. He put two pieces of avocado toast with a fried egg and bacon in front of me. Next was a small bowl to put yogurt and granola in. I’d be stuffed from breakfast. But I wasn’t going to deny myself this amazing feast. He handed me a coffee and I took a sip. “You know how I take my coffee?”

“Your Instagram has a lot of photos of coffee and coffee mugs.” We did frequently take pictures of the mugs we used for our coffee because there was quite the collection.

“I need to brag about this breakfast when I get to work.” I pulled my phone out of my purse and took a picture.

“You’re cute,” he said as he sat down next to me to eat his breakfast. He leaned over to kiss me. I relaxed in to the kiss and his lips when I felt my watch buzz. Did it know I’d broken already? No, it was telling me that I had a new email.

“You aren’t supposed to be kissing me.”

“I can’t help it. Your lips are there and they need kissed.” He pulled me in for another kiss. Again I found myself relaxing into it. He moved my legs so they went across his lap and rubbed them before breaking the kiss and taking a bite of his breakfast. “Eat.”

“You’re being bossy.”

“Your breakfast will get cold. So, eat.” I took a bite of my avocado toast and moaned a little bit. Most mornings, despite my insane love of breakfast I survived on protein shakes that Kammi made before we went to the gym.

“So what are you going to do today?” I asked.

“I need to read through the scripts that your father gave me yesterday. I’m pretty sure that you will both want to hear if there are any of them I’m interested in.”

“I would like to know who I need to get meetings scheduled with or auditions scheduled with. I mean you’re okay auditioning right?”

“Yeah, of course. The only thing I can’t imagine having to audition for is something that is geared completely towards One Direction fans and that’s not what I want, which you know."

“All of the projects we gave you are awesome. I have copies of the scripts on my desk that I need to read. Maybe I’ll read them as I listen to people ask me questions today. Do we think I can multi-task that well?”

“I’d like to believe you can do anything you put your mind to. But currently, you’re barely able to eat your breakfast and talk to me. So how about you don’t try to do anything strenuous. Save it and read it after work while I make you dinner.”

“That could…wait a second. You’re trying to trick me!”

“I might’ve and you nearly fell for it. Sadly you didn’t completely.”

“Of course I didn’t. Because you aren’t making me dinner tonight. And I’m not staying here and we aren’t sleeping together again.” He leaned in to kiss me. “Stop that!”

“Sorry, can’t. You’re sexy when you get all fired up like this.”

“Ugh, you annoy me. Ya know that?”

“Yup.” He again leaned in to kiss me. “Now, eat your breakfast.” I relented and started to eat. The food was perfect. The yogurt and granola was like breakfast dessert. “Do you want me to make you a smoothie that you can take to work with you?”

“Nah, I’ve got stuff I can make for a mid-morning snack if I need it. Also remember I have a five star restaurant I can order from every day for anything I need.”

“Of course,” he said. “So what are you thinking for dinner?”

“Chinese delivery because I’ll be working all night. The delivery place knows my order based on my phone number.” It was sad that this accomplishment excited me. Most people would’ve been depressed that their favorite Chinese restaurant knew what they ordered because of how frequently they ordered it.

“That just doesn’t sound remotely good.”

“No, it sounds fucking delicious.” I stood up and carried my plate to the sink rinsing it off. “Thank you for breakfast. And dinner last night. And last night in general. And putting towels out for me this morning. But, I have to go to work now.”

“I know.” He wrapped his arms around me before bending down slightly to kiss me. He picked me up and sat me down on the island in the kitchen. For the first time I was nearly eye level with him because I was actually a little bit taller than he was from here.

“I have to go to work,” I whined.

“Can I just have a minute?” He seemed almost frustrated with me. I softened for a minute and wrapped my legs around his waist pulling him into me a little more. “You are amazing. You’re intelligent, talented, and incredible at what you do. You are going to need to put down this wall you have up. You can fight me about dinner or you coming over here again tonight. But you can’t deny that you want this as much as I do. You can’t deny that you like when I kiss you. I know you do. And I want to keep kissing you. I can’t go back in time and not hire you and I wouldn’t want to. But presently I don’t want to pick between if I can take you out for a nice dinner or if I only get work related phone calls from you. I want you in my life in both ways. So would you give some serious thought to it today?”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll think about it. But you realize that before I can even think about it I need to do my job. I need to make sure I survive today and the mountain of emails in my inbox. I’m sure that while I’m fielding questions and phone calls today I will have plenty of time to think.”

“So can we do dinner tonight to talk about it? Just us tonight. No one else.”

“I guess we can do dinner.” He leaned in and kissed me. I could feel him smiling against my lips. I don’t know why I was telling him yes to dinner. It was a mistake. I couldn’t do this. But I did have to admit it, he was right and I did like the way he kissed me and being around him was something I was starting to enjoy a lot. I wasn’t sure how to handle this. I’d never ventured in to this territory before.

“You guess? Don’t act like dinner with me is torture.”

“I’m sorry. It’s not. I just, you’re right. I’ve built a wall. I’ll do my best to tear it down, or at least put a door in it before dinner. Do I need to be dressed up or are we eating here?”

“We could go to Craig’s for dinner,” he suggested.

“Uh no.”

“Why no?”

“For starters there’s always paparazzi at Craig’s.”

“Today is probably the one day I can take you on a date that it wouldn’t appear as a date. Yesterday, you issued a press release about me. So it might make sense that we were eating dinner together.”

“Okay, I see that. Let me think on dinner. I sort of had my hopes up for my Chinese take out.”

“We can get that tomorrow.”

“I can’t do dinner tomorrow. Thursday is roommate night.”

“Roommate night?”

“Yes, every Thursday Kam, Ty, Eliza and I get dinner together at the condo. Each pick a bottle of wine and wear our favorite pajamas while we watch TGIT.”

“TGIT?” he questioned.

“Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder. It’s been a tradition since we all moved in together. We don’t miss a Thursday.”

“I could learn about this TGIT,” he said.

“Sorry, no boys allowed.”

“Ty might not like that you saying that.”

“Probably, but the more accurate description is no non-roommates allowed. Nick isn’t even allowed to come over for it. He sometimes shows up at about 11:00 when the last show is over and crawls in bed with Kammi.”

“I could do that too.”

“Or you could just stay here. I mean you should get used to not having me here for a night. I’m basically gone for the two weeks after tonight.”
“Why?”

“Friday morning I leave for Malibu for the weekend with the crew. I get back super late Sunday night. Monday is an all day photo shoot and the second half of my interview with LA Magazine. Then I leave Tuesday for New York, I’m there until Friday when I head to Chicago and I’m in Chicago until Wednesday when I fly home. And then I’m back in Chicago at the end of the month for Bricks and Ivy.”

“Why didn’t I know this?”

“Umm I don’t know. I don’t tell my clients my travel schedule usually.”

“Not your client,” he said.

“You are though.”

“Not just a client.”

“Not someone I’m dating.”

“Not for lack of trying.” He pouted at me. “You’re really going to be gone that much.”

“You should get used to it. I travel a lot and you spend like half your year in London. I’m going to be completely honest with you right now. The reason Rizzo and I never worked was that I was never going to be a good baseball girlfriend.”

“What does that mean?”

“The majority of women I know who are a wife or girlfriend of a baseball player, or really any athlete, doesn't work. They are wives and mothers. There’s the ones like Juliana Zobrist who have careers but she marches those kids around the country to be with their Dad and a lot of the time her career comes second to Ben’s. I mean when they had Blaise last fall it was right after the Royals won the World Series. They had to arrange for her doctor to fly with her so she could be with her husband. I wasn’t going to be that girl. I couldn’t quit my job, move home to Chicago and follow him around the country. I like my job too much. I’m gone a lot. It’s something anyone who dates me has to be okay with.”

“I understand you’re going to be gone a lot. I just didn’t realize that it was starting so quickly.”

“Yup. Malibu, LA, New York, Chicago and when I’m home I have a trip to make to Evanston to speak to a group of students at Northwestern.”

“That’s sort of awesome. Okay, I get that you travel. I’m fine with that. So tonight that means you have to let me take you on a date.”

“Okay. Craig’s is fine. Do you want me to meet you here and then we can go?”

“Sounds perfect.” He kissed me sweetly. “Have a good day at work.”

“Thanks.” He helped me down off of the island, I grabbed my bag and was out the door. A date? Had I just agreed to go on a date with Harry tonight? I was crazy, wasn’t I? This was career suicide. I needed advice but I wasn’t sure who to turn to. I couldn’t ask Pops for advice on this. Fathers and daughters didn’t talk about relationships in the way I needed to talk. Kammi would of course encourage it because she liked Harry and liked torturing me. Eliza would be the cautious one. Of course she’d want me to follow my heart but she knew how important my career was to me. That’s when it clicked. I knew who I had to call.

“Good morning, Everlee Mae. How’s my girl?” Mom. Of course Mom would know what to do.

“Stressed as fuck. I’m sorry I haven’t called.”

“You signed Harry Styles, I get it. You have clearly been working hard to land that client. And it’s understandable that you are stressed. That’s a big thing to do.”

“It didn’t take a lot of prep work. Pops hid it from me. I found out about a half hour before he appeared in my office for the meeting. But that’s not the stress.”

“What is it Evie?”

“I don’t want Mom judgement about this. I need you to give me solid advice here.”

“You need me to try and be a female version of your father. Leave the lecture for after the advice.”

“Yes,” I said. “Can you do that?”

“I can do that. What’s going on, Evie?”

“So Monday night we took Harry out to dinner to encourage him to get to know our team better. Nick came along because he’s sort of my walking example of how I can help Harry make that transition. Well he was being flirty all night, Pops left and he got more flirty. I got drunk and I slept with him.”

“Oh, Evie,” she said. She sounded sympathetic.

“It doesn’t stop there. I stayed at his place Monday and we slept together again Tuesday morning, I went to work and then he appeared in my office and told me he’d decided to sign with me. He promises that it’s not because of the extracurricular activities involved in the whole process of proposing SME to him. But he asked me on a date yesterday. Of course I said no. So then without even realizing what she was doing Kam suggested that we all do dinner with Nick so he can provide insight about my process. He had us over to his house for dinner last night, cooked the most delicious steak and lobster meal I’ve had in my life and I stayed there again last night.” I took a deep breath. “And before I left for work this morning he told me that I needed to remove the wall blocking him from me and stop thinking I was going to ruin my reputation. And he asked me out on a date to Craig’s tonight. And I stupidly said yes.”

“Evie, honey. I know you’re probably stressed out and I get that. Sleeping with a potential client was probably not your best first move.”

“Mom! You promised no lecture until after advice.”

“Sorry, sorry. Okay, well he’s right. You need to take the wall down, whether it’s for him or someone else. Honey, I love you and I can’t even begin to tell you how immensely proud I am of how far you’ve come in your career. But you need to allow yourself to have a life. You haven’t done that honey. Not in a long time.”

“I mean you act like a year is a long time.”

“It is. And you know that the last probably two years of your relationship were tough. When you helped Drew move to New York and got home you sobbed for days on end. You knew when he moved that things weren’t going to work anymore. You were a mess. Then about a year ago you smiled again. You were free of the burden of always feeling like you needed to be less impressive.” I’d never heard her talk like this. “You always downplayed your success because of Drew. You didn’t want to upset him and he wasn’t really that good at having a girlfriend who was more successful than he was.”

“I didn’t know you thought like that.”

“I did. I just couldn’t tell you. I was your mother and I liked Drew, he was a sweet guy. He was just insecure about your career. You need someone who understands that about you. Maybe Harry would have a better understanding of the requirements of your career because of what he does. It works so beautifully for Nick and Kammi.”

“But Pops, he will be so disappointed in me. I’m not supposed to be sleeping with my clients.” I felt the first tear slide down my cheek.

“Everlee Mae, your father has no room to talk about sleeping with clients. He married one!” She was right. Step-mom #2 had been an actress he was representing. I hadn’t even thought about it like that. My father had married and divorced a client and then immediately started dating another one. “While I know you idolize your father in many ways and this is one instance in which you can know that he can’t judge you for dating a client I also don’t want you to repeat your father’s behavior completely. You deserve to be happy and have a family someday. You don’t need to work every hour of every day to make your father and I proud. We were proud of you the moment you took your first breath and haven’t stopped since then. Don’t ever worry about that. But as your mother I want nothing more than for you to be happy and someday have the kind of relationship that you deserve.”

“But is it worth the risk?”

“Do you like him?”

“It’s hard not to. He’s charming, smart, unbelievably cute and his accent is about the best thing I’ve ever heard. He asked me about my family. He admitted that he’d done more than just read my company bio which was actually awkwardly funny. But Mom, he asked about the boys. No one asks about my brothers, they read that I’m Pops’ only kid and assume that I’m an only child. He asked about the boys.”

“They are important to you and anyone who knows you knows that. You love your little brothers. I'm glad he wants to know about your family. You are so family oriented that if someone didn’t care to learn about your little brothers they wouldn’t make it very far. Maybe you should FaceTime them soon. Christopher misses you. He wanted to show you his new paintings.”

“I’ll FaceTime everyone Saturday morning, that way all of the boys are home and you and Dad are both there. We haven’t had a family FaceTime for a while.” She was right, it was important to me that someone cared not only about me, but my family. Not just me or even just my father. But everyone. I wanted someone who wanted to know about my Mom and our relationship. Who got that I didn’t just have one Dad, but I had two. I had been so young when my parents divorced and when Mom started dating Marco. He had been part of my life since I was six and had been a huge influence on who I had become. Before Marco I basically survived on macaroni and cheese and cereal. I’d been a picky eater and Mom was usually too busy to want to fight me on what was for dinner. Marco would take me out to dinner or lunch at least once a week at a different place in Chicago. It took him a while but I became a foodie because of Marco. And he was the Dad that mine wasn’t always able to be. He took me to dance classes if Mom had to work. He was who taught me how to drive and who grilled the boys that would pick me up for a date. I’d been lucky to have him in my life growing up.

“Text me a time and I’ll make sure that they are all home.”

“Okay. Thanks for talking to me today Mom.”

“You’re welcome Evie. I’m always here for you. And I can’t wait to have you home next week.”

“I’m excited too. And yes, we can have girl time too. I need a little mother/daughter time in my life.”

“Maybe Saturday since you are taking the boys to the game on Sunday.”

“Sounds perfect. A little bit of Mom and Michigan Avenue time seems like a good idea.”

“That I can handle! Have a good day Evie.”

“You too Mama. Love you.”

“Love you too.” I ended the call and finished my drive to the office. I said hi to Eliza and Ty and made my way to my desk. I opened my email and watched the number rise, 374. Considering I’d been in my email at 1:00 it was surprising that by 8:30 I had this much already. I started scanning through. Our head of our London office had sent me a few, obviously with Harry being from England they had questions on how involved they would be with his career and were getting a fair amount of phone calls with questions. I quickly replied to one scheduling a conference call with them to go over things. That’s when the notification came up in my corner.

New Email - Everlee (SME) - Ransom Note

I clicked the email and waited for it to open. I hadn’t sent this to myself. Had my email been hacked? Today would be the worst possible way for this to happen. Of course some crazy person would try to hack my email today because of the press release that went out. The email finally opened.

Did you know that my internet works all the way to the pool? Come find out or the laptop tests the water.
-H

“Hello,” he answered sounding cheery. I hadn’t even thought about texting him back I knew I just needed to call or he’d take the text as an invite to bother me all day.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh you’ll have to come home to find out.”

“But I have to work,” I whined.

“Then the laptop gets it.”

“I already agreed to a date tonight. Isn’t that enough?”

“Nope. Say you have an important meeting and come home.”

“I do have an important conference call with my London manager in twenty minutes.”

“You know what the beauty of a phone call is?” he asked.

“What?”

“You can do it from anywhere.” The door opened and Eliza walked in with her iPad to go over my schedule for the day.

“I’m aware and today I’m choosing to do my conference call from the couch in my office or my desk.”

“How long do you think it takes a MacBook to sink to the bottom of my pool?”

“It takes the same amount of time it would for me to murder you and less time than it would for you to have to go to the Apple Store and buy me a new one.”

“You should try to save it’s life.”

“I was thinking I wanted a gold one. So go ahead, throw it in the pool. Then you can buy me the gold one I can’t rationalize buying.”

“You know, you make this whole ransom thing not fun anymore.”

“Sorry, looks like you’ll just have to put my MacBook inside on the kitchen island and have it wait for me to leave work.”
“Fine. But you should be concerned about me responding to emails and texts on this thing. Your Mum texted you to say she was glad you called this morning, to have fun on your date tonight and that you need to be open to new things. I take it I’m the new thing.” Okay, now I was nervous. Of course I have the messages app open. I always do. I don’t even pick my phone up to text at work, I do it all from my computer. And now he could too.

“You might be.”

“So what do you think would happen if I text messaged your Mum?”

“She’d probably collude with you on how to win me over by telling you what my favorite things are. You do realize though that I can see anything you text people. Like the one you just sent Eliza that say that I think you’re hot.”

“I don’t care that you can see it. You do think I’m hot and she will find it funny that I’ve hacked your computer.”

“A) You haven’t hacked my computer. You just opened it. B) Eliza is sitting here listening to me on the phone.” I clicked to put him on speakerphone. “Eliza, do you think it’s funny that Harry has ‘hacked’ my computer and is texting you from it?”

“Sort of.” I glared at her.

“Do you think it’s funny that I am threatening to text her Mum?” Harry asked.

“That would actually be funny. Grace would enjoy it.”

“I hate you,” I said to her. She only shrugged before laughing.

“I told her I’d leave her laptop alone if she came over here this afternoon.”

“No, you threatened to throw my laptop in your pool if I didn’t come over.” I turned the monitor on my iMac to show her and she started laughing. “She should come work from home today, right?”

“Well, she has a pretty brutal schedule today. She might be lucky if she gets out of here before 8:00.”

“She’s leaving work today at 5:00,” Harry declared.

“I agreed to go to dinner with him tonight. I’ll make sure I leave at 5:00 today.”

“Works perfectly. I’ll call and make reservations.”

“I can do that for you,” Eliza said. “Where is dinner?”

“Craig’s,” I answered. She made a face, she knew that I’d dislike the amount of photographers that hung out at Craig’s. It was also a favorite place of Nick and Joe’s so we ate there a lot, but I hated the photographers. Despite not being a celebrity they still all seemed to know who I was because of my job and who I hung out with.

“I can make reservations. What time would you like to do dinner?”

“8:00 work for you?” Harry asked.

“Sounds perfect.”

“Harry, I’ll text you to confirm,” Eliza said.

“Thanks,” he replied. “Now I think you need to let Everlee leave work early so that she can relax a little. All this work is sort of my fault.”

“Then tonight you should be nice to her, but I can’t let her leave work. She’s technically my boss and she’s the biggest workaholic I know.”

“Fine,” he relented. “Text me when you leave work. Okay, love?”

“Okay. I’ll text when I leave. Do something productive today. Read a script or something.”

“Fine, slave driver. Bye Eliza.”

“Bye Harry.” I hung up the phone. “Going to dinner tonight?”

“Yeah, I know. I suck. I haven’t been home the last two nights.”

“I’ve noticed. Is it a date?”

“It is. I’m a bit nervous but I talked to Mom about it this morning. She told me to not worry about what Pops might think by reminding me that step-mother #2 was one of Pops’ clients.”

“He’s dating one now,” Eliza said laughing.

“I block these things out.”

“You deserve to be happy. If he makes you happy that’s all that matters. He is however making you late for work.”

“Technically I can work whenever I want. And I was in by 8:30 this morning which is better than most of our agents. Plus I’m normally eating breakfast with all of you until 9:00 and he fed me breakfast at his house before I left.”

“What did he cook for breakfast? Oh and how was dinner?”

“Dinner was amazing. One of the best meals I’ve had in a while. Probably the best steak and lobster I’ve ever eaten. And he made avocado toast with a fried egg and bacon along with yogurt, granola and fresh fruit. It was like heaven.”

“You are a breakfast fanatic.”

“I am, it was a sweet gesture. And he was adorable this morning. I told him I’d work today to at least put a doorway for him in the giant wall I’ve got up right now.”

“That would be a good thing to do. I’m glad you're going to try to put a doorway for him. He seems really sweet.”

“He is. But now for my day,” I said. She went through the phone calls I needed to return, the requests for comment we’d gotten so far and the other items on my list for the day. After a while she was out and back at her desk. I had my conference call with London, answered emails and returned as many calls as I could. I only took a break for lunch knowing that I’d be back at this again tomorrow. At 5:00 on the dot I got a text on my phone from Harry making sure I was leaving work. I quickly went in the bathroom to pick out clothes for dinner and for tomorrow. It meant more clothes and I knew my Louboutin purse wouldn’t suffice today. So I grabbed a Louis Vuitton carryall I had. I walked out of the office and headed for the elevator just as Kammi, Ty and Eliza were.

“And she has a larger bag today than she did yesterday,” Kammi said.

“Not coming home again tonight?” Ty asked.

“Probably not, which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.”

“It’s not,” Eliza said.

“I’ll be home tomorrow night for TGIT, promise. I told him he had to stay at home by himself tomorrow night.”

“Nick is coming over after Grey’s since everything is a re-run tomorrow night. He could come over after we get through our dinner and friend time,” Kammi said.

“He should learn that I’m not his girlfriend and he can sleep alone.”

“He’ll just keep calling you,” Eliza said. “I can see when you’re on the phone in your office and what number it is that you’re on with. You were on the phone with him at least three
times today.”
“I was,” I admitted. “He wanted to talk through some of the scripts he was reading today.”

“How many did he get through?”

“Three of them I think. He wants me to read some of them before I go to Malibu which should be fun.” I felt hands on my shoulders and turned to see Pops.

“You should be reading the scripts before Malibu,” he said.

“Not if I ever want to sleep,” I replied. “I was literally on the phone all day today.”

“Have Eliza deflect the calls or pawn them off on a junior agent.” He reached into his bag and handed me another stack of them. “And give these to him. We got them in this afternoon for him. There’s a copy for each of you there.” I groaned.

“Maybe you should work from home tomorrow,” he said.

“No, I’m fine.”

“You won’t get the phone calls at home. You can still return to anything that is important and get your email. Eliza keep her home tomorrow. You two can powwow over the stuff she needs to do and she can read scripts. Maybe she can relax for a day. She’s seems a bit stressed.” That was the understatement of the fucking century.

“I can do that James. I’ll keep her home tomorrow and enjoy a day working from home myself.”

“Good. That way she doesn’t have a million people trying to break her concentration. Ty transfer her calls to her work phone tomorrow during the day.”

“I can do that.” My father was clearly stepping in and telling me what I was doing.

“You know that he’s going to make me work from his house, Pops. He wants to talk through the scripts. He wants my opinion on what he should be reading for.”

“Then work from his house. He needs to get to know you and Eliza better. You’re his team.” Did Pops just give me permission to work from Harry’s house tomorrow? This should be interesting. “Eliza is a pro at auditions. She can help him with what to expect.”

“That’s true,” I said looking at her. “We can go over there in the morning. I’ll call him tonight to work out a time.” She tried not to laugh at what I was saying. She knew what was in my bag, my father must’ve assumed I just wanted to take some of my clothes home.

“Sounds good to me.” We got out of the elevator and started walking through the parking garage to our cars. It wasn’t often that we had three or four cars here, today we had three. Pops said nothing and climbed in to his and pulled off. I started to laugh so hard.

“I’m terrible at lying to him. Maybe tomorrow will be a good thing to have us not in the office. I can avoid Pops figuring out that I’m sleeping with my newest client. Then we head to Malibu for the weekend and can have a weekend to relax.”

“Do you really want me to come over to his place tomorrow?” Eliza asked.

“Yeah, though he may start to annoy me and I’ll end up thinking we should work in the office. Though Pops is right. He’s a complete novice, totally green. You could help him prep for auditions in a way that I can’t. I’ve never auditioned for anything before. And the auditions are likely to start really soon. Like in the next week or two if we can get meetings with people.”

“Sounds good to me. We can do audition boot camp tomorrow.” She’d done this before with a few clients before they had gone off to auditions, no one of his recognition. They were mainly people who either royally sucked at auditions or were a musician who thought they wanted to act. Eliza was an auditioning pro. She’d landed a lot of roles since moving to LA. She’d been a guest in a few episodes of TV shows, been in a few independent films and had the lead in a few plays. She would be able to help Harry.

“I’ll call you when I’m at his house and let you know when to come and give you his address. It’s not to difficult to find.”

“Sounds good,” she said as she climbed in to her car with Ty climbing in the passenger seat.

“Have fun on your date,” Kammi said as she winked at me before climbing in her own car. I was in mine and on the road to Harry’s house. Traffic wasn’t great but at least I could put on some music and just enjoy the drive. I had the final track listing for Nick’s next album on my phone and listened to that the whole drive. I pulled up and parked quickly before grabbing my bag and walking into the house.

“Honey, I’m home,” I called laughing.

“Hello, love,” he responded as he came almost skipping down the stairs to me. “Is there a door for me in that wall yet?”

“There’s a door, maybe even like a full set of french doors.” He leaned down and kissed me. “So how many scripts do I have to read through?”

“Just the three I called about earlier. Your father did let me know that you had more.” I reached in to my work bag and pulled out the stack.

“Eight?”

“Nope, just four. He sent a copy for both of us. Evidently tomorrow is audition bootcamp.”

“Audition bootcamp?” he asked.

“Eliza will be coming over in the morning and working with you on audition skills and tricks. She’s an expert at auditioning. In the last six months alone she’s booked a play, a role as a patient on Grey’s Anatomy and a three episode arch on some new TV show with the potential of getting work as a series regular, which means I’d need a new assistant. But she usually handles teaching our clients who are looking to branch out into film and television how to audition.”

“Does this mean you will be here tomorrow?”

“Yes, I will be reading all of the scripts Pops has given me and taking the occasional phone call but I’ve been told not to worry about them tomorrow and get to know my client better.”

“I can help you get to know your client better,” he said as he pulled me down onto the couch kissing me. I leaned back and looked down at him. I moved to lay next to him resting my head on his chest. “You look like you wish we weren’t going out tonight.”

“I do sort of wish we were just staying in and watching movies or something. But I agreed to a date.”

“Do you want to take a nap before we got out?”

“No, tell me about what you read today.” He started to play with my hair and talk about the scripts he’d read. The one he was most drawn to was Christopher Nolan’s script, a World War II drama based on the battle of Dunkirk. “Dad really liked that one too. We can work it out with Eliza tomorrow.”

“That would be awesome. So how did your day go?”

“Good minus not having my laptop. I got a text from my Mom saying she’d gotten a phone call from a boy with a British accent.”

“I might’ve called your Mum.”

“You decided you wanted to know what she would spill.”

“I did. She was rather helpful. Told me that you needed to relax and that I should help.”

“And she’s going to die for that.”

“No, it was sweet.” We talked for a while longer before I changed clothes and touched up my makeup so we could go out to dinner. The drive to Craig’s wasn’t long and we were seated at a table in the corner. “Did you want wine with dinner tonight?” he asked.

“Sure.” I scanned the list and picked a bottle we could split. The bottle was delivered along with our salads. “So this film, you realize it is a lot of physical work, right?”

“Yeah, but the story is wonderful.”

“Everlee?” came a voice I recognized. I turned to see Rachel, step-mom #1’s oldest daughter, she was a year younger than me.

“Rach! How are you?” I said as I stood to hug her.

“I’m great. Luke had to take a phone call and I thought that was you I saw over here.” She slid in to the booth next to me. “How are you?”
“I’m good. Busy, you know how work goes.”

“Oh I do. You’re about as bad as your father. How is he? I haven’t seen either of you since the wedding.” She was right, the last time I’d seen her was four months ago at her wedding. Pops and I had both gone. He was married to her mother for two years when I was 10 and they’d managed to stay in touch. Rachel and I had stayed friends, she was the only step-sibling I’d ever liked. She made sure that when I was with Pops in the summers in high school that I had fun things to do with her friends and not just either hang out at home alone or work a part-time job at SME.

“Pops is doing well.” I saw Harry smile at me out of the corner of my eye. “Harry, this is Rachel. Rach, this is Harry.”

“Nice to meet you,” Harry said extending his hand to her.

“You as well,” Rachel said. “Are you my sister’s new boyfriend?”

“Rach! No, he’s a client.”

“Never stopped your father.”

“No, it didn’t.” Harry obviously heard this and was going to bring it up as soon as Rachel wasn’t at the table anymore.

“We are actually on our first date,” Harry said.

“Oh my god. I’m such a bitch for sitting down at your table when you’re on a date. Luke should be back in a second. I’ll leave you alone.”

“No, it’s okay. How is married life?”

“Wonderful. It’s not public yet, but you’re family so I can tell you. We are pregnant!” I was happy for her, she was the closest thing I’d ever had to a sister I could stand, every other step-sister made me want to rip my eyes out, including Rachel’s two younger sisters. She was just a genuinely sweet person, her sisters hated me. But she was younger than me, married, and pregnant. And I’m sitting here on a first date. If it was possible for me to feel like a slacker for this, I did right now.

“Congratulations, Rach! That's amazing. You’re going to be a great Mom.”

“Thanks. Well get back to your date. And call me soon, E. We will go for some tea, since coffee for me is a no-no for a while.”

“Definitely. I’m in New York and Chicago over the next few weeks. I’ll call you when I get home.”

“Sounds perfect. Nice to meet you Harry,” she said.

“Nice to meet you as well, congratulations.”

“Thank you.” She was gone and he looked at me.

“Sister?”

“Step-mother #1 had three daughters. Rachel was the only one I liked. We are still friends and despite the fact that her mother has been married a half million times she still calls me her sister.”

“That’s nice. Do you feel that way?”

“Kind of. She’s a friend. I was never really their sister. Our parents were only married for two years so when you consider that I wasn’t here all year round we spent time together but not the way most people do with a step-sibling. I care about her a lot though.”

“I see. Nice that you and your Dad went to her wedding.”

“Yeah, her Mom is nice. She’s an interior decorator. Pops fell in love when she did his house.”

“That makes sense. So your Dad dated a client?”

“Well, technically step-mom #2 was a client.”

“So you aren’t prohibited from dating me.”

“I guess not. Mom pointed that out to me today.”

“I’m glad she did.”

“I figured you would be.” He reached for my hand where it was sitting on the table and held it in his before kissing my knuckles.

“So shall we talk about this set of french doors in your wall? Are they willing to allow me in for a little while?”

“On a very limited, precautionary basis.”

“What does that mean?”

“As much as it may not be prohibited for me to date you, I am nervous about it. I don’t want people in my industry to think badly of me. So we need to be cautious.”

“I don’t know why you worry what people think of you. You’re amazing. When I met with other places they asked who I was meeting with. The second I included SME, every single one got this look on their faces knowing they had lost. They know how good you are.”

“I have an edge. I’m not a 50 year old man.”

“That you are not. Thank god. I am not sure I’d like waking up next to you if you were a 50 year old man.” We finished out dinner and Harry paid the check.

“Thank you for dinner. You didn’t have to do that.” Craig’s wasn’t cheap.

“I know I didn’t. But I wanted to. And it’s our first date, what kind of man would I be if I made you pay for dinner?”
“A normal one, in LA at least. I think most of the first dates I’ve gone on in this city we split the check. When you’re being set up or meeting on some dating app that only makes sense. So it is refreshing to have someone buy me my dinner.” We headed out of the restaurant and climbed into the car to head back to Harry’s house. It was still relatively early and considering I didn’t have to get up to go into the office in the morning I wasn’t concerned about needing to wake up early. “So what do you want to do now that I’ve gone on a date with you?”

“We could be like a normal couple and watch TV?”

“Okay,” I replied. We sat down on the couch and he turned TV on. He flipped channels until we found something we agreed on. We both had our feet up on the coffee table. He put his arm around me pulling me in to him. I rested my head on his chest as he started to play with my hair.

“Love, wake up,” Harry said. I opened my eyes and looked up at him. “You fell asleep. Let’s just go upstairs and go to bed.”

“I’m okay. I’ll wake up.”

“No, you’re tired. Let’s get you in bed.”

“Okay.” I grabbed my stuff and we headed to his bedroom. I pulled the old cut up Northwestern t-shirt I’d grabbed on as my pajamas and climbed in bed. He climbed in after me and pulled me in to his arms kissing me.

“Thanks for opening the french doors and letting me in. I had a nice time on our date.”

“Me too,” I replied burying my face in his chest. “Thank you for being kind of pushy. I had fun.”

“Good, I’m glad.” It felt nice to just have someone hold me, he played with my hair again making me get tired quickly. It didn’t take long before I drifted off to sleep in his arms with my face buried in his chest.

Notes

She built a set of french doors for him. *collective awwwwww*

I hope you enjoyed Chapter Seven as much as I enjoyed writing it. I love writing these friends and the developing relationship between Everlee and Harry. I'm glad her Mom talked some sense into her. She does deserve to be happy and if her Dad has a history of dating clients she shouldn't feel like she can't, right? I don't know that he's going to get off easy. She's got a crazy inner monologue that will likely try to talk her out of and back into this over and over. She's a smart girl but she prides herself based on her work and she is so career focused. She needs to have fun for a while.

I can't wait to hear what you think of this chapter. I have so much ahead for this story and can't wait to share it. Let me know what you think! You can also read this on Mibba , Wattpad and Tumblr . I'm going to be off and on over the weekend (cooking for Easter and spending time with family). But feel free to message me or connect with me onTwitter !

Thanks for reading!