LITMIR.BIZ

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her favourite. ‘Oh, yes. A beer, pork larb and a green papaya salad, please.’

      Jake leaned back and looked at her, laughing. ‘There was me thinking I was going to wow you with unusual flavours and yet you know more about it than me.’

      ‘I travelled around Asia in my uni holidays...vacations. Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.’ It had taken her days to convince her parents to let her take time off. They’d had jobs lined up for her, but she didn’t do them. Her first strike for freedom. ‘It was brilliant. Madly busy but brilliant. And I learnt so much about the food. We even had cooking lessons over there. I came back ten pounds heavier.’ She patted her hips where the noodles and rice still clung in lumps and bumps. Her dad had gone mad about that too. You can never be too thin, he always said.

      ‘You look great to me.’ Jake’s eyes wandered to her hands, then slowly up her body until blood rushed to her cheeks just at the moment his gaze hit hers, and there it lingered for just long enough that she felt unsettled. There was something happening—and she knew it wasn’t the magical lighting or the steamy atmosphere, and it certainly wasn’t the beer because she hadn’t had any yet—but there was definitely something scary and weird happening inside her. And if it was just happening to her then she was going to feel like an idiot if it continued.

      Jake took a slug of the beer that Panit brought over and broke the connection. ‘I’d love to travel more. I just haven’t gotten round to anywhere that far away.’

      ‘You’ve been focusing on work?’

      ‘You bet. My plan is to get to the top of my field and then take a little time to smell the roses... But, first, no rest for the wicked, right? You’ve got to push, push, push. I get the feeling you’ve got the same kind of drive.’ Confidence oozed from him, particularly in his smile. She wondered how it would be if this were a real date rather than a non-date. How it would feel to have those hands touch her... And suddenly she wanted them on her.

      Was this chemistry real?

      No. It couldn’t be. She shoved such fanciful ideas to the back of her mind. He’d made his intentions very clear and she was perfectly fine with that. She didn’t have time in her life for anything more intimate than this sort of dinner.

      The food arrived so quickly she was surprised when the server returned with steaming plates of mains and bowls of rice. Jake picked up his two chopsticks, and one of hers, and held them aloft in front of him. ‘So, here we go...brain surgery one-oh-one. Basically you need one head, three probes...’

      ‘You’re not really going to...?’ She squeezed her eyes half-shut and shuddered.

      ‘And a drill...’ He made a drilling sound. Then stopped as she screwed her eyes up even tighter. ‘You okay? You’ve gone a bit green.’

      ‘Please. No. That is so gross.’

      ‘And I thought you had guts, Lola Bennett.’

      Did he? How? Why? ‘Well, you’re going to see them in a minute if you don’t stop.’ But she was laughing and not really grossed out at all. Although she wouldn’t be queueing up to see him in action for real.

      He winked. ‘Another day, then. Seriously, if you decide to incorporate some medical scenes into your story I’ll be happy to help with the technical details.’

      ‘Who knows? I may just take you up on that. I do have a few medical scenes in there. Perhaps you could write them for me and I can just edit them peering from behind my fingers?’

      He smiled. ‘The trick, I imagine, is to just give a few spare details and not a lot of gore—unless you’re writing a horror movie, in which case the more gore, the better. Everywhere.’

      ‘Especially in the scene where it’s night-time and someone hears a noise in the cellar. But no one has a torch...and they go down anyway...while we’re all screaming, “No, don’t do it!”’

      ‘Aw, no? Lola, I never realised they did that—but now you mention it...every horror movie. Ever. Now you’re analysing it and spoiling it for me too.’ Laughing, he tucked into the food and she followed suit. It was delicious, totally authentic and quite spicy. The cold beer washed everything down well. They ate in companiable silence until he put his chopsticks down and looked at her. ‘So, give me a synopsis of your story.’

      ‘Oh. Okay. Right. Well, I’ve been practising my elevator pitch—basically that’s for when I’m caught in an elevator with a famous director and I have two minutes to tell them about my script before they get out.’

      ‘You get caught in elevators with directors often?’

      ‘Not often enough. Well, never...but I’m prepared anyway in case I do. So...listen up...’ No point being nervous. He wasn’t going to poke fun at her. He wouldn’t criticise it. He was a...friend. She tested how that felt, and it felt good. He was funny and attentive and knew great authentic places to eat and was... Did it matter whether friends were gorgeous to look at? Just looking at him was putting her off her stride, never mind about the scary fluttery thing happening inside her. ‘Right... Oh, this is too hard.’

      ‘Come on, Lola. You can do this.’

      I can? He believed in her, so why didn’t she?

      Because so far things hadn’t worked out according to her plan, and before she knew it she’d be back on the plane, the second one in her family to give up on Los Angeles hopes and dreams. And she’d have to admit the truth to her parents and she didn’t want to do that until she was successful. ‘Okay. Here goes: Jane Forrest is thirty, brilliant, and...dying. Her father is missing, estranged and may hold the key to her survival. How far does she need to go to find him before time runs out? How strong are the ties that bind them together after years apart, and what will it take to convince him to help?’

      ‘Wow.’ Jake nodded, not looking as if he was overly impressed. ‘Great, Lola. Yeah.’

      ‘You’re not convinced?’

      ‘Good to hear there are no outer space desert warrior princesses.’ He took a mouthful of noodles. Swallowed, licked his lips and grinned. ‘Sounds pretty intense.’

      ‘It’s actually very funny in parts. I’m told it’s uplifting...and sad too. I cried buckets when I wrote it and my tutor said it was one of the best scripts he’d read. It’s about a woman trying to find her long-lost father, as she needs a bone-marrow transplant. Her investigation takes her all over the world to all the places he’d visited, and she learns about the great man he’d become. But she eventually comes almost full circle and finds him in the town next to where she grew up. And she gets to wondering, if he was so great, why didn’t he look for her too? But also he’s dying, so he can’t help her. It’s...I guess it’s about their relationship, forgiveness and healing—even when healing isn’t always possible.’

      Elbows on the table, he steepled his fingers. ‘Sounds brilliant. So why haven’t you sold it yet?’

      ‘It’s not that easy—you don’t just advertise online and get it optioned. I’m tweaking it. It needs work.’

      ‘You need someone else to look it over...a script assessor? Your dad?’ Jake’s startling blue eyes lit up. ‘He’s been an actor and a teacher, so what’s the harm?’

      The harm was that no one in her family knew she was writing. There’d be too many questions—too much she’d have to tell them. And then there’d be the letdown, the disappointment, the betrayal. And, after all that, even if her dad was still interested in reading her screenplay, what if it was rubbish? She’d never live it down. ‘I don’t know. It’s like...it’s like handing over your heart and giving someone carte blanche to stomp over it.’

      ‘Stomping runs in the family?’

      ‘We’re champion stompers actually. Won awards for it... We are stomping elite.’

      ‘But he wouldn’t do that. Surely not?’ Jake studied her for a moment. His eyes really were stunning and she

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