I had no clue what to say. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just know that I exist. For every mighty, whitey Cate Collins, there’s someone like me, winning the intersectional bingo and all the bullshit that goes with it. Not white enough for some roles, not dark enough for others.” Shoshanna’s voice splintered into a long sigh. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be unloading on you. There’s a nightmare of a reporter going around set. She likes to push buttons. Make sure you keep your distance.”
“Yeah, Julian warned me too.”
We switched to downward dog. I thought Shoshanna might be ready for silence, but no.
“Did you record that song for Cate?”
Boom.
“Um, no.” I’d finally said it. The truth wasn’t too hard, but then, Shoshanna wasn’t one of the people I was afraid to tell.
“Cate’s going to be pissed.”
“The poem was no good,” I countered.
“You’re not wrong. This fantasy crap gets so convoluted.”
“Finally someone who agrees with me.” The compliment strategy worked on my school friends, but Shoshanna’s frown peeked under her arm, unfooled as ever.
“You’re the one who insists no one gets you, Iris. I’ll always be real with you. All you’ve got to do is see me for me, deal?”
Before I could answer, a laughing Ryder scrambled underneath my downward dog, blocking any way out of the position. “Hey, giggle hound, get out from under me!”
Eamon was there too—underneath Shoshanna’s dog. He tried to tease her, but she gave him a short warning before kneeing him in the stomach and standing up.
“Ryder, move!” He crawled out from under me, but before I could come down, Eamon took his place. “Seriously? My arms are about to give out.”
“So fall on me, then,” he said, his blue eyes daring. Christ. My shoulders shook, my legs ached, and yet I was so happy to see him. We smiled at each other while a shadow fell over us.
“Don’t step on his face,” Shoshanna warned. “He has to act tonight.”
Her shadow moved on, and Ryder ran off down the shoreline. I was still in the longest downward dog of all time. “They’re going to film your scene tonight?”
“Yes, we’re going to do it. I’m going to do it.” He looked adorable when he was talking himself into something. His forehead scrunched and his lips pouted. “Iris, you’re shaking and your face is all red. You should come down.” He tickled my ribs, and I flattened him.
Not a graceful move about it.
He oofed out all his air, and I tried not to mangle his face. And then I went from embarrassed to red hot because we were all tangled on the soft grass beside the most gorgeous green lake in Ireland, the orange sun climbing. I thought he might kiss me again, and I assessed my lips and breath. Not good. Stupid yoga dry mouth.
Instead of kissing, though, he sat up on crossed legs and pulled me close. My back was pressed to his chest, and his arms wrapped around me, which was no small part stunning. “I missed you yesterday,” he said into my hair, his breath tickling my neck.
He missed me. That was a real feeling, wasn’t it?
This was real.
“How did it go?” he asked.
I closed my eyes, reality popping any semblance of happiness. What I wouldn’t have given to stay in his tight hold and tell him that I’d recorded the song as planned, that his faith in me hadn’t been foolish. “I couldn’t do it,” I said slowly. “There’s no song for your scene. I’m sorry.”
His arms loosened. He leaned away. “These things happen.”
These things happen?
I touched his hand, tried to slip my fingers in between his, but he wasn’t budging. Was he that disappointed? “I’m sorry,” I said again, flatter this time. “I’m not M. E. Thorne.”
“I know that, Iris. We all know that. No one is asking you to be.”
“Yeah right.” My anger felt weird, held in check by our sweetheart’s position before the epic scenery. All of a sudden, we felt like a joke—just like fantasy. One minute it was poetic, wild, true. The next? Plain silly. Stupid foam pointy ears and a made-up, gibberish language.
“Why didn’t you record the song you were playing on the cliff?” Eamon asked.
“I couldn’t remember it,” I said. “That’s like asking someone to remember a poem word for word they read a few days ago. If I had a few days to figure it out, maybe I could—”
“Oh well,” he said, making me grit my teeth.
“I’m not a real musician, Eamon. It was a stupid idea to begin with.”
“It was my idea. Thanks, like.” He let me go, and an awkward moment passed before I realized he was waiting for me to get off him. Once we were standing, he ran a hand through his wild curls. “I’ve got to go have my hair chopped. Say goodbye to a few inches of me.”
“Goodbye,” I said flatly.
He made a weird, exasperated sound and walked away.
I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME RUIN EVERYTHING
Cate Collins stood by the lake, a sliver of a person. Petite, narrow. Sharp.
She inspected a huge tree with gnarled roots that spider-climbed into the water. Henrik stood nearby, scribbling Cate’s observations into his notebook.
I slowly recognized the scene I’d read yesterday in the recording studio. The great white tree that Sevyn hugged through her fever dream. Wait, the tree…the tree was supposed to be Nolan. Eamon. I looked over it again. Gorgeous, reaching branches, a smooth-barked trunk.
Crew members spun around Cate like satellites, close but never too close. They put down wires and set up a base for the huge camera crane on the soft shore. They were being inspected—we all were—by the same brown-haired reporter who had spooked Julian back on Inishmore. She was talking to the cinematographer, but her eyes were trained on Cate.
This was the woman who’d
