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and opened his script, and the rest of us did the same.

Scripts were broken up into four acts, each act accounting for approximately fifteen minutes of the show and containing three to five scenes. The script was a good one, revisiting some of the threads from previous shows involving Robyn, and playing up the tension between her character and mine from the infamous wall-slamming scene in 'Snap' .

The bombshell didn't come until halfway through the fourth act, in the next to final scene.

The scene was once again between our characters, Rita and Judith, trading barbs during a run-in at Judith's office.

I read my lines then skipped ahead a bit as Robyn read hers, noting that this time, it was Robyn's character that gets physical, pushing Rita against the wall and…

I turned the page absently.

…kissing her.

I re-read the last few lines, blinking in shock. Beside me, Robyn's voice stuttered to a halt.

"What!?!" Liz screeched, jolting me out of my dazed state. I looked swiftly over at Robyn.

She was staring at the pages, her eyes wide and her face very pale.

"Grant, this was supposed to be me!" Liz fumed. "This story line was for me! Remember our conversation? Me wanting to take a few risks, and branch out a little?"

"Liz, honey, calm down," the man said soothingly, "we really liked the idea, but when we ran it by our test groups, people just didn't want to see you kissing another woman."

"But they wanted her ?" The words and the look she cast my way were venomous, disbelieving.

I drew in a sharp breath. It had been a while since I'd been on the receiving end of one of Liz's tirades. I'd forgotten what a bitch she could be.

"Well, actually, yes. Her character, at least," Grant said, nodding at one of the exec-producers. "Raj?"

Raj Matis shuffled through some papers in front of him, pulling out a pale blue sheet. "We polled a group of eighteen to thirty-five, and only thirteen percent of the group believed that Jen would kiss a woman, and only two percent thought she would work as a lesbian. For Rita," he glanced at me, "seventy-one percent believed she would kiss a woman, and forty percent thought she worked as a lesbian, with several commenting that they already assumed she was."

Jesus. Forty percent of the public knew before I did.

"Numbers for Judith are higher than Jen's, but not nearly as high as Rita's, except when asked specifically about the Judith/Rita pairing - most say the scene in ' Snap ' left them wondering."

"Holy shit!" Danny said, finally cluing into what all the commotion was about. "You're gonna make Caid a lesbian? And Robyn ?" His voice was incredulous.

There were other murmurs around the table.

"I'm fairly certain he means our characters, Danny." Robyn said drolly, having regained her cool. "Caid and I won't suddenly be morphing into lesbians…sorry to disappoint."

Danny looked crestfallen.

I felt his pain. I wouldn't mind Robyn morphing into a lesbian, either.

Liz's anger had faded into a slightly shell-shocked expression. I doubted she'd ever polled that low in anything in her career. She stared at the script, and then gently closed it.

Uh-oh.

It was never good when Liz did things gently.

She stood, and looked at me for a long moment. The look on her face was wounded, as though I'd betrayed her somehow.

It killed me.

"Liz…" I didn't know what I would say, but I wanted to say something, anything, to stop that look.

"I don't want to talk to you right now, Caid," she said, holding up a hand. "I can't believe you'd…" She shook her head, picked up the script, and left the room.

"Goddamnit!" I spit out after the door had closed behind her. I tossed my script down and ran an aggravated hand through my hair. "I didn't do anything!" I rounded on Grant. "Thanks for the heads-up there, big guy. This may just fuck up our working relationship beyond repair, not to mention our friendship - a little notice would have been nice."

The room went deathly silent.

No one talked to Grant