The Show Must Go On

Chapter Eight: 91

Chapter Eight Soundtrack: 91 by Bleachers

'Nice dress,' Nas greets me as I sit down. I used to love this dress. Now I can never wear it again. I should bill him.

Natalie from IT, with the tiny red dress and the plump red lips, has RSVPd yes to tonight's work drinks. Natalie is great. I like Natalie so much. Maybe I'll tell her drinks are cancelled.

And Nas has put in a meeting to pitch his idea to me. Normally the opportunity to reject it would thrill me. But I don't have time to change clothes and I don't want him to pitch me when I'm wearing an ugly dress.

It's just... it's just unprofessional.

'Are you coming?' He interrupts my musings. I tug at my collar.

'Where?'

'I'm pitching you.' It's a perfectly normal sentence, but his tongue rolls over the words until they sound like something else entirely—something dark and tempting. 'I booked us a room.' Him persuading me under the fluorescent lights of Barry's waiting room—unappealing. But in a tiny, private room?

Not unappealing. Not at all.

I stand so quickly that I knock all my pens off my desk. They roll beneath my feet and, grateful for the excuse, I drop to my knees to gather them. Nas is looming against my desk as I stand back up, thumbs in his pockets. There's that smell again, of smoke and cloves, from the flight. He offers me a hand up which I ignore, instead tugging on my ring until it scrapes my palm.

I stumble behind him to a meeting room down the corridor. Inside is a small desk and an enormous, leafy fern rustling in the breeze from the open window. He pulls his chair next to mine. Our forearms brush.

I wish they'd turn down the heating.

Nas takes a deep, shaky breath. Is he nervous?

'My friend is an illustrator,' he tells me. 'Really prolific—he's freelancing right now as a character designer. He's based in Mexico City, and for the last few years, he's made a Webtoon in his spare time. It has 210 million views.'

On his phone, Nas scrolls down a webcomic. It's striking. Mexico City looms in dark, woodcut backgrounds. A glowing green egg slowly cracks open as Nas scrolls, and a tiny dragon emerges onto the pavement, blinking as pedestrians' feet step around it.

'It's inspired by local folklore, but set in modern Mexico, and based on his experiences growing up with adoptive parents. It's—'

Nas pauses, flushed. 'Shit, I'm not explaining it right, but it's beautiful.' He gestures widely. 'So many people connect with it. They love it. And I think we should make it a TV series. Flesh out the other characters more. 2D backgrounds, CG characters. Really invest in the visuals.'

'You're talking about animation.'

'Yes.'

'I don't know anything about animation, Nasir.'

'We'd learn together.'

'There's not really a market for YA content like this, outside of anime.'

'So we'll make one.'

Nas's tripping over his words. I've never known him so excited about something. It splits his face open with something new: vulnerability, maybe, or hope. He's looking at me like he wants to hear my answer, rather than crafting his snarky response.

Maybe that's why I say, 'Okay. Send it all to me. And let's try.'

His eyes warm and crinkle into a smile. I'm close enough to see the green flecks around his pupils, like someone has carved into a rock and revealed tiny geodes within.