“I mean . . .” I flounder, remembering how it felt when Austin turned his attention to everyone else in the room, and the meeting dissolved into a blur of acronyms and under-the-breath instructions to make note of Langdon’s schedule for the script kickoff and see if we can get the P&L to Mitchell by noon. “Yes? There were a couple people there who were sort of quiet and stiff, but the executive producer—Austin Adams—is so genuinely nice. I was so overwhelmed that I don’t know how much I was processing.” I run both hands into my hair and tilt my head up to the ceiling. “This is all so insane. A movie.”
“A movie,” Oliver repeats, and when I look back at him, I see him watching me with his mysterious, warm blue eyes.
He licks his lips and I have to look away. Oliver is both my former husband and my current crush, but it will forever remain unrequited: our marriage was never really a marriage. It was that-thing-we-did-in-Vegas.
Of course, the other two couples who hooked up in Vegas—our friends Mia and Ansel, and Harlow and Finn—are happily married. But Oliver and I occasionally (especially when drunk) like to commend ourselves for being the only ones who did the shotgun Vegas wedding thing like normal people: with nothing but regret, an annulment, and a hangover. Given the emotional distance he’s always kept, I’m pretty sure he’s the one out of the two of us who really means it when he praises our choice.
“And it isn’t just oh, we like the idea, let’s buy this option and sit on it,” I say. “They bought it and already have a director in mind. We talked about possible casting choices today. They have a big effects guy asking to be involved.”
“Unreal,” he murmurs, leaning forward to give me his undivided attention. And if I didn’t know Oliver better, I would think he just glanced at my mouth. But I do know him better: he just looks at every part of my face when I’m speaking. He is the best listener.
“And . . . I’m going to cowrite the script,” I tell him, a little breathless, and his eyes widen.
“Lola. Lola, holy hell.”
While I launch into a replay of the entire meeting this morning, Oliver goes back to unpacking the newest shipment of comics, looking up at me occasionally wearing his absorbed, little smile. I thought that over time I might figure out what he’s thinking, how he’s reacting to something. But he’s still largely unreadable to me. The loft apartment I share with my friend London is only two blocks away from Oliver’s comic store, and even though I see him nearly every day, I still feel like I spend half the time we’re together trying to work through what he might have meant by this or that single-syllable answer or lingering smile. If I were more like Harlow, I would simply ask.
“So you’re looking forward to seeing it on the screen?” he asks. “We haven’t talked about this because it all happened so fast. I know some artists aren’t wild about the idea of an adaptation.”
“Are you kidding?” I ask. How can he be serious with that question? The only thing I love more than comics is movies based on comics. “It’s overwhelming but amazing.”
And then I remember that there is an email with seventeen scripts attached in my inbox, for me to read “as reference,” and a wave of nausea sweeps through my torso. “It’s a little like building a house, though,” I tell him. “I just want to be at the part where I can go live in it, and skip all the parts where I have to pick out fixtures and knobs.”
“Let’s just hope they don’t George Clooney your Batman,” he says.
I give him my best eyebrow wiggle. “They can George Clooney anything of mine they want, sir.”
Not-Joe, Oliver’s sole employee and a mohawked stoner we all feel a certain pet-owner level of fondness for, steps into view from behind some shelves. “Clooney is gay. You know that, right?”
Oliver and I both ignore this.
“In fact,” I add, “if George Clooney is ever accepted into the Oxford English Dictionary as a verb, that activity is immediately getting added to my bucket list.”
“As in, ‘Have you ever been George Clooneyed?’ ” Oliver asks.
“Exactly. ‘We went for a walk, and then George Clooneyed until around two. Good night.’ ”
Oliver nods, putting some pens away in a drawer. “I’d probably have to add that to my bucket list, too.”
“See, this is why we’re friends,” I tell him. Being near him is like a dose of Xanax. I can’t help but be calmed. “You would get that George Clooney as a verb would be such a monumental thing that, gay or straight, you’d want a piece of it.”