Spoiler Alert (Spoiler Alert #1)(51)

Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: That’s the crux of the Lavineas story. As much as I adore Summer Diaz in the role, I can’t help but think casting her was a fucking waste of a meaningful story that people needed to see on their television screens.

Book!AeneasWouldNever: I understand what you mean. I’m not sure any other actor could embody Lavinia’s intelligence and determination quite so well, but—yes. You’re right. It’s yet more potential wasted.

Book!AeneasWouldNever: I imagine the actors see all that too. Even Summer herself.

Book!AeneasWouldNever: Aeneas’s story . . . I just Book!AeneasWouldNever: I just have the feeling the heart of his story will be destroyed too. A man questioning his relationship to the values he’s been taught by his parents and making his way in the world. Finding his own moral code. Falling in love and learning to value both himself and that love more than his past and the duties imposed on him by others.

Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: That’s a lovely way to put it.

Book!AeneasWouldNever: And in the final season, the showrunners will lay all that to waste. It’s going to hurt, Ulsie. The way it plays out will hurt me, and it’ll hurt you too. I’m so sorry.

Book!AeneasWouldNever: I mean, that’s what I guess will happen.

Book!AeneasWouldNever: But the Lavineas relationship is always there on the page, if not on the television screen. And I’m always here too, on your computer screen. Anytime you need me.

Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I’m not sure I deserve a friend like you, BAWN.

Book!AeneasWouldNever: You don’t. You deserve so much more.





14


“I’M NOT ENTIRELY CERTAIN THE WORLD NEEDED A COCROFFINUT.” April popped the last bite into her mouth, sugar crystals sparkling on her lips. “However, I can now feel individual electrons orbiting the nucleus of every atom in my body. If that was the creator’s intent, mission accomplished.”

Marcus had to laugh, despite his preoccupation with her mouth. “I love it when you talk science-y to me.”

She smiled at him, freckled cheeks pink in the sun, and God, he’d never been happier to ignore Alex’s advice and his own best judgment. Never.

When she’d written him Monday evening, apparently willing to let him emerge from the hole he’d inadvertently dug for himself, he hadn’t hesitated or thought twice. Not given the misery of their days without contact.

The absence of April in his life had hollowed out each and every day. For an hour or two at a time, maybe, he could distract himself from that emptiness. With writing, with reading the scripts his agent sent, with binge-watching British baking shows alongside Alex. But in the end, there he was, always, alone in his echoing LA home. Lonely. Missing a dear friend and—more. Whatever else they were becoming together before he’d tripped one of her personal land mines.

So, yeah. Good judgment be damned. Despite all the complications of the situation, any chance to be with April, he’d take.

“Funny you should say that. The people at my new job have a group T-shirt, I found out this week.” With a careless sweep, she brushed crumbs off her chest and onto the sidewalk, where curious birds were edging closer. “It says Talk Dirt-y to Me.”

Apparently science people enjoyed puns too. Good to know. “Nice.”

In the sunshine, her hair resembled a flame, and Marcus couldn’t resist huddling closer to the heat. He shifted until they sat hip to hip on the wooden bench. As she watched him, brown eyes intent behind her glasses, he stroked his thumb along her plush lower lip to tease free those clinging crystals.

Her neck arched, just a little.

Without breaking eye contact, he licked the sugar from his thumb, and she took a shuddering breath.

No. He wasn’t going to kiss her actual mouth for the first time on a park bench in public, not where everyone could see and document the occasion. Again.

After a fraught moment, he managed to look away. Clearing his throat, he fumbled with the paper menu he’d grabbed inside the shop and took his time reading aloud the description of the item she’d just finished.

“The coco—” He sighed. “Shit, this one is hard. Okay, let me try it again. The cocroffinut—”

She clapped. “Well done.”

“Save your applause until we find out whether I can do it twice.” One syllable at a time. “The cocroffinut, the world’s first and most delicious coffee/croissant/muffin/doughnut hybrid, contains the caffeine equivalent of four espressos.”

She glanced down at the empty box on her lap. “Damn. Four espressos?”

He reread the description. “Yup. Well, that would explain your newfound sensitivity to orbiting electrons.”

Getting to her feet, she rolled her eyes. “Hipsters, man. Hipsters.”

He grinned up at her. “You said it was delicious.”

“It was,” she agreed, gathering their trash. “I also thought the glazed doughnut we shared at our last place, the one the size of my head, was delicious, and it cost approximately one-tenth as much as the croco—”

“Cocro—” he corrected automatically.

“—muffinut or whatever the hell I just finished eating. It also didn’t leave me in possible need of a defibrillator.” Once she’d thrown their trash in the nearest recycling and waste bins, she laid a palm over her chest. “I think my heart is doing the jitterbug in there, even though I actually have no idea what the jitterbug entails.”