The Rom-Commers

Four weeks into living together, Emma acknowledges that she and Charlie are working surprisingly well together. One day, they take a drive through the Hollywood Hills, where Emma becomes carsick on the winding roads with few guardrails. As Charlie is telling Emma that they will not fall off, they nearly hit an animal and spin out, ending up teetering on the shoulder of the road. Charlie calls for help as Emma panics, and to distract her, he tells her about his horrible first kiss. Emma asks him about his cancer and his divorce, and he also tells her about how his mother left his family while he was recovering from his near-drowning accident. Charlie realizes how two of the most important women in his life left him when he was close to death, and Emma points out that he is in this situation again, but she is not going anywhere. To continue the distraction, Emma tells Charlie about her mother’s death and her grieving process. Emma also confesses something she has never said before—that she was the one who chose to go camping while everyone else in her family wanted to go to the beach.

Once the fire engines arrive, things go smoothly, and Emma feels elated, but she notices Charlie doesn’t bounce back so quickly. Charlie later admits he is angry with himself for almost killing Emma. They had plans to do research for a scene in the screenplay by going line dancing, but Charlie refuses to go, telling her he only does research for serious projects. They fight about whether love exists, and Emma figures that he is bitter about his divorce. Emma can’t convince him, and she decides to go line-dancing by herself, but when she talks about dancing with someone else, Charlie agrees to go.

At the line-dancing class, Emma is extremely attracted to the handsome instructor, Lorenzo, and Charlie acts jealous. Charlie ends up apologizing for how he acted earlier, and Emma feels her fondness toward him growing. They continue to discuss the feeling of love, which Charlie worries he doesn’t feel and can’t remember how it feels. Though Emma wanted to take Charlie line-dancing to prove that the line-dancing scene he included in his screenplay was not romantic, she begins to doubt herself.

The next day, Charlie has a meeting with the movie executive’s lover for whom they are writing the screenplay, who also happens to be T.J.’s stepmother. As T.J. might show up at the meeting, Charlie suggests Emma should make herself scarce. At a nearby coffee shop, Emma runs into her favorite director, Donna Cole, and she debates pitching her latest screenplay. However, she can’t remember her pitch and has left her backpack with the screenplay at Charlie’s house, so she texts him to bring it, saying it’s an emergency. Charlie runs over, thinking it’s a medical emergency, and Emma begins to approach Donna. However, Donna is surrounded by other important people in the industry, including T.J., which causes Emma to lose her momentary confidence. She wants to leave, but her feet can’t move until Charlie comes up behind her, and Donna hugs him. Everyone at the table is shocked when Charlie mentions he is writing a rom-com under the tutelage of Emma, whom he introduces to Donna. As they are leaving, Charlie guides Emma to compliment Donna rather than give her the screenplay, and Donna asks her to stay behind for a minute. When Charlie is gone, Donna asks if Charlie is in love with Emma because she has never seen him look at someone like that. Donna mentions to the table not to spread the rumor that Charlie is in love and tells Emma not to break his heart, despite her denial of the whole thing.

On the way home, Charlie asks Emma what she was thinking when she planned to give her screenplay to Donna. Emma finally mentioned that she heard what he had said in the bathroom at brunch with Logan, and she mentioned that she wanted to convince him. Charlie admits that he heard what Donna said, and he knows it was just her way of trying to increase Emma’s status. Charlie admits that he isn’t in love with Emma because he Googled how long it takes to fall in love with someone, and they haven’t known each other long enough.

They get to the final act of editing the screenplay and revising the scene with the kiss, which Emma thinks is dreadful. She pulls up several examples of kissing scenes in movies as examples to help him craft the emotion behind the scene. However, they keep arguing about how much detail they should include in the scene, and Emma tells him he just needs to kiss someone and begins making a list of possible women to proposition, while Charlie vehemently disagrees. Ultimately, they agree that only another writer would understand why he needed to do this research, so Emma tells him to just kiss her. Charlie rejects her, and Emma feels like he must find her so repulsive that he wouldn’t even kiss her for research, leaving her feeling humiliated. Charlie admits to Emma that he didn’t want to kiss her for research, and when he realizes that Emma is disappointed too, he kisses her. Afterward, Charlie says he now understands why they are rewriting the screenplay.

Sylvie is disappointed the next morning when Emma tells her about kissing Charlie and then doing nothing else afterward. Both of them overthink whether the kiss was, in fact, for research or not. When she comes downstairs, Emma sees that Charlie has bought her flowers. Emma is anxious as they work throughout the day as they normally would, still debating whether Charlie has feelings for her. Toward the end of the day, Charlie gets an important phone call and goes outside to take it. When he comes back inside and Emma asks how he is, Charlie is mean to her and berates her for trying to fix everything before storming off. When Charlie returns in the middle of the night, Emma learns he has been in a bar fight as his face is bloodied and bruised. After she cleans him up, Emma asks again about what the phone call earlier was about. He doesn’t answer but drunkenly admits that she is his favorite person he’s ever met and hugs her, telling her that she’s going to hate him so much tomorrow.

The next morning, Emma wants to talk to Charlie first thing and confesses her feelings for him. When she does this, Charlie doesn’t react positively and deflates as the conversation continues. He tells Emma that they’re not going to have a romantic relationship and that he shouldn’t have kissed her because he doesn’t like her like that.