Being jealous of Juliet was exhausting. And useless.
And letting myself believe anything was possible with Ryan was just a symptom of that same old jealousy. He was hers. Real or pretend, he was hers. He came with her, he’d leave with her, and together, they were part of a world I wanted nothing to do with.
I told myself I’d be happy when they were gone again, and sat down to console my aching heart with a huge piece of black forest cake.
Chapter Twenty-One
Ryan
I felt, more than saw, the moment when Tess had come back inside the tent. While my body was on autopilot, dancing along to Uptown Funk with Juliet, much to the delight of the cameras and Alison Sands, who was furiously scribbling something as she stood at the edge of the dance floor, my mind was laser focused on the door. Where had Tess gone? Was she coming back?
The relief I felt when she had stepped back in with too-tall Tony was like dropping a load of rocks I didn't even know I was carrying. I just wished Tony would go ahead and move on. I didn’t like that he shared history with Tess, that he knew things about her I was dying to learn. I didn’t like the light in his eyes when he looked at her, the hope he clearly felt. And I didn’t like it when she held his arm as if he was providing some kind of support she needed, like right now.
Tony walked Tess to the microphone at the front of the tent, and the music cut off, so Juliet and I went to sit down. And then Tess began her speech.
Juliet might have been the actress in the family, but that didn’t mean Tess wasn’t well spoken or captivating in her own right. She was incredible—delivering her heartfelt words with perfect timing, confidence, with a shine in her beautiful eyes.
If I had doubted my feelings for her—crazy and too fast as they were—I was certain of them now. I couldn’t explain it, and if you’d told me I would ever believe in love at first sight before, I would have told you to fuck right off. But here it was. I loved her. I loved the sweetness she exuded, the grace with which she moved, the gentle smile she gave her Gran. I loved her hesitation when she caught my eye, and I loved her honesty.
Maybe I loved Tess because it was so clear she knew exactly who she was. And that kind of certainty wasn’t something you found in folks who spent their days pretending to be other people for a living.
When she finished speaking, I stood without thinking much about a plan. I just needed to talk to her, to be close to her, cameras be damned.
She had just taken a huge bite of cake, and I sank into the vacant seat next to her, feeling Juliet’s eyes on me from across the table, watchful and curious.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hello Brian,” Tess said through her cake, emphasizing the name Tony had given me.
“Funny.” I shook my head as Tess lifted a shoulder and turned back to her cake. “Listen, can we talk? Maybe outside?”
She swallowed and looked up at me again, something sparkling in her eyes that gave me hope. But then she killed it. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
My heart dropped and disappointment flooded me. No. This could not be over. “Please,” I said, hearing an edge of desperation in my voice I didn’t like at all.
Tess heard it too, because she looked at me another long minute, our eyes connecting and sending off sparks in my gut. Then she stood and gave me a quick nod. “Come out a few minutes after me,” she said quietly. “I’ll be in the barn.”
She left then, and hope turned into a lovesick house-chicken inside me, all moony and soft. She was giving me a chance—a chance to tell her how I felt, to convince her not to ignore what I was sure she felt too. I sat there a minute longer, every cell in my body screaming at me to follow her. But she was right, it was smart to wait, not to appear to be dashing outside in pursuit of the wrong Manchester sister.
Just as I stood to go, my heart in my throat, a hand landed lightly on my arm.
“Ryan.” It was Alison. “I have a few questions. I thought maybe we could chat for a minute.” She sat in the seat Tess had just vacated, and my heart sank to the floor as I slid back into my own seat.
“Sure,” I heard myself say, but my mind was already outside, already crossing the wide expanse of lawn, stepping into the big darkened barn. Where Tess was waiting for me.
“Well,” Alison began, looking down and turning through pages of notes in a small moleskin book. “So, your last film,” she said, still flipping pages. “That was the one most critics are referring to the Titanic of your career, right? With the zombies?”
I hated that reference. There had been memes online with an iceberg covered in zombies and me at the helm of a ship. Because part of it had been set in Antarctica, and I was supposed to be the captain of this research vessel—you get the idea.
“Right.”
“So on the heels of that failure, and after everything that happened with Charade, how much do you think this new relationship with Juliet Manchester will help?”
I felt my eyes narrow. She had my full attention now. “First of all, I don’t know how many years I’ll have to apologize for the way Charade ended. I mean, everyone knows the actors don’t actually write the show, right?” I was so tired
