One Less Problem Without You by Beth Harbison

heroine !” He slapped his forehead. “God, I haven’t done a female lead in ages.”
    She looked around the room, not sure if trying to act like she didn’t think of herself as an option was the right choice. But he wasn’t paying attention anyway.
    â€œDramedy. Heroine. Something scandalous. Something big. Scary. Taking the classic ‘let’s make light of this in a slightly terrifying way’ thing, but taking it darker.”
    Chelsea watched him.
    One thing she would give him was that he was an actual mad scientist when he really started working or had a stroke of inspiration. His eyes simultaneously unfocused and intensified, as if he were focusing on something in another dimension that no one else in the room could see, something he knew he had to capture while it showed itself to him or it would vanish.
    â€œSpunky girl. Sweet. Smart but trusting.” At this point, he was making senseless gestures in the air, like a wizard conjuring his vision. “Dark filthy corner of hell on earth, one which she never even saw coming. She can’t lose that mojo, though.”
    Chelsea could tell he was about to digress into disjointed details, and she would need to be silent. But she also knew she needed to stay and be part of it in his mind. She removed the wineglass from his hand, which didn’t shake him from his reverie. It reminded her of posing as the statue.
    When she returned, the glasses were refilled with a Syrah blend she’d found on the counter.
    â€œDid you do a red wine rinse?” he asked, accepting the glass, still zoned out.
    â€œYes?”
    He took a sip and then gave her a teasing glare. “Another night…”
    She leaned back and let him keep thinking. It wasn’t until his silence had lasted nearly twenty minutes, and she envisioned the hangover she would have in the morning if she continued to sip her way through the discomfort, that she decided she needed to be smart and leave.
    â€œI’ve got to go now,” she said, making a point of yawning and stretching broadly as she stood up. “We’re both up too late.”
    â€œProbably true. Let me call a car for you.”
    â€œOh, no, no, I’ll take the Metro.”
    He looked aghast. “Darling, you are way too Gigi Hadid for that.” He went to his leather man purse on the desk and took out a fifty. “Uber, cab, I don’t care, but no Metro at this hour. Besides it’s closed by now.”
    Knowing she’d make a profit, she reluctantly accepted. It was what he’d intended; neither of them acknowledged it, even while they both knew it was true.
    And that’s how, a mere six hours later, she came to be exhausted but on the train, relieved to have even twenty minutes to lean back on the window and rest.
    She drifted fast into something resembling sleep but awoke with a start when the train rattled to a halt at her stop. Despite her exhaustion, she managed to stand, then floated like a ghost to her audition.
    The waiting room was filled with girls that looked so similar to Chelsea that it might have been a casting call to fill her role in the story of her own life. Instead, it was just a small part in a political drama taking place in the city, Veto. Veto was centered on Connor McNamara, an intense, completely misogynistic—but sexy!—“right hand of the president” type. He knew everyone’s secrets, but hid his own.
    In season one of the show, he described his perfect woman as “a tall, waifish thing with an ass I can grip with one hand and lips I’m afraid to puncture with my teeth.” So far, every woman—except for one—his character had been with had been some version of this. Evidently, since these were callbacks, which meant everyone in the room had already passed some level of acceptance, this season’s character would have big eyes and no tits.
    That explained what she was doing here. At least her