Seth looked up, almost like he was embarrassed for her. “The way you’ve been taking your laptop with you to the bathroom, just in case your phone rings.”
“I have to leave it plugged in,” she said.
“Get a new phone.”
“I’m going to. I’ve been busy.”
Seth drew his lovely auburn eyebrows together. He looked like a concerned junior senator. Like the actor who’d get cast to play a concerned junior senator. Like the star of a lighthearted procedural on the USA Network. “Can’t you just tell him this is all my fault? Throw me under the bus.”
“That doesn’t actually work,” Georgie said, fisting her hands in the comforter in her lap. “Making you seem like an ass**le just makes me seem like a person with ass**le loyalties.”
Seth rolled his eyes. “He thinks I’m an ass**le no matter how you make me out.”
She sighed and looked at the ceiling. “God. Seth. This is why we can’t talk about this.”
“What? I’m not saying that he’s an ass**le. I’m saying that I know he thinks I am.”
“Neal is not an ass**le.”
“I know,” Seth said.
“And I hate that word.”
“I know.”
She wanted to rub her eyes, but she didn’t want to let go of the comforter.
“I mean, he is sort of an ass**le . . . ,” Seth said.
“Seth.”
“What? That’s his shtick, isn’t it? You know that’s his shtick. He’s like a Samuel L. Jackson character.”
“I can’t stand Samuel L. Jackson.”
“I know, but you like that whole ‘You wanna mess with me, punk, huh? Do ya?’ thing. You love that.”
“Shut up, you don’t even know Neal.”
“I know him, Georgie. I’ve been sitting one seat away from him my whole f**king life. I secondhand-smoke know him. It’s like we’ve got shared custody of you.”
“No”—Georgie pressed her fingertips into her forehead—“this is why we don’t talk about this. You don’t have any custody.”
“I have some. Weekdays.”
“No. Neal is my husband. He has full custody.”
“Then why isn’t he here trying to figure out what’s wrong with you?”
“Because!” Georgie shouted.
“Because why?”
“Because I f**ked up!”
Seth was angry. “Because you didn’t go to Omaha?”
“Most recently because I didn’t go to Omaha. Because I never go to Omaha.”
“You go once a year! You bring me back that Thousand Island dressing I like.”
“I mean, metaphorically. I always choose the show. I always choose work. I’m forever not going to Omaha.”
“Maybe you should ask yourself why not, Georgie.”
“Maybe I should!” she practically shouted.
Seth stared at his lap.
Georgie stared at hers. This wasn’t them—Seth and Georgie never fought. Or rather, they always fought; they bickered and they insulted and they mocked. But they never fought about anything that mattered.
She knew that Seth knew things weren’t great between her and Neal.
Of course Seth knew. He’d been sitting right next to her for twenty years. He’d watched it all go bad—at least that’s how it would look from his perspective—but he never mentioned it.
Because there were rules.
And because some things were sacred. Not Georgie’s life, but work—work was sacred. Seth and Georgie checked their lives at the door, and they worked. And there was something really beautiful about that. Something freeing.
No matter how badly they messed up their lives, the two of them would always have the show, whatever show they were on, and they’d always have each other—they protected that.
They protected work so they’d always have it there, an oasis that ate up their days.
God. God. This was how Georgie had ruined everything.
By being really good at something. By being really good with someone. By retreating into the part of her life that was easiest.
She started crying.
“Hey,” Seth said, reaching out to her.
“Don’t,” Georgie said.
He waited until she was just sniffling. “Did you get to work on the script last night?”
“No.”
“Are you coming in today?”
“I—” She shook her head. “—I don’t know.”
“We can work here, if you want. Change of scenery might do us good.”
“What about Scotty?”
Seth shrugged. “He’s already working from home. He even finished an episode. It’s . . . not bad. It doesn’t sound like us, but it’s not bad. It’s something.”
Work. Georgie should go to work. She was missing Christmas so she could work on the show. If she didn’t work on the show, this whole week would be a waste; Georgie would have destroyed her marriage for nothing. She was about to tell Seth, “Fine, fine, I’ll come in, I’ll work,” when the phone rang.
The landline.
She and Seth both looked at it. It didn’t ring again.
“Come on,” Seth said. “I brought coffee. I don’t know where it ended up—I handed it to your sister to get her out of my way. God, she’s protective, have you been getting death threats?”
Someone thumped down the hall, and the door opened. Heather shoved her head and shoulders through. “It’s for you.” She scowled at Georgie. “It’s Neal.”
Georgie’s heart skipped a beat. (Great. Now she was having heart palpitations.) (Wait. Neal could call the kitchen phone, too? This was out of control.) “Thanks. Hang up when I pick up?”
“You want me to hang up on him?”
“No,” Georgie said, “I’ll get it in here.”
“Can you do that?”
“Are you serious?”
Heather scowled some more. “Sorry I’m not up on your twentieth-century technology.”
“Go to the kitchen, wait until you hear me pick up, then hang up.”
“Just pick up now,” Heather said.
Georgie looked at the phone, just out of reach, and at Seth—and not at her mom’s pajama shorts lying on the floor. “In. A minute,” she said.
“Fine.” Heather watched Georgie closely, like she was trying to crack her game. “I’ll just go talk to Neal while I wait.”