“They are. I was . . .” He dropped the Post-its in her palm, careful not to make contact with her skin. Didn’t matter. His fingertips had entered the space surrounding her, and electric tingles leaped from her hand to his fingertips. “Lost in thought.” He put his hand behind his back. It didn’t help. The sensation continued up his arm, to his torso, where the tingles expanded, radiated outward, filling his chest cavity with an unfamiliar, unsettled feeling. He didn’t like it. Who was she to march into his home and turn it upside down, causing him to long for things he could never have? “Have a seat.” He gestured to the chair in front of his desk.

She sat, uncapped the pen, her eyes on the yellow legal pad. Her unbound hair fell forward, partially obscuring her face. “Ready.”

Mick wanted to lean across the desk and nudge the silky strands behind her dainty seashell ear so they wouldn’t obscure his view of her face. He sat in his leather desk chair, picked up the script and flipped through it. “At the top of the page. Heading. Crushed Dandelions Notes. Page seventy-one, scene one forty-two, this is where the script starts jumping the shark. The screenwriter”—Mick flipped to the title page—“Ed Swartz, made certain promises to the moviegoers at the start of the script. The setup was great. Unique. The characters were for the most part engaging.” He could hear the scratch of her pen on the pad. “I kept reading because I was intrigued by said promises and was curious about how the characters were going to solve them. Then something happened. From page seventy-one onward, it reads as if the screenwriter scored some potent BC bud and wrote the rest of the script stoned.”

*   *   *