The Reunion by Kayla Olson(31)
“Have you been looking for my nonexistent interviews all these years, Ransom Joel?”
He grins, dimples deepening. “More than I should probably admit.” His tone is light, but his eyes see right down to my soul. “It’s been okay this week, though? No one else has crossed the line?” Like that reporter on the red carpet, he doesn’t have to add. Like what happened years ago, too, in our final season.
I shrug. “You know how it goes. They’ve dug a little deeper than I’d like, but not so much it hurts.” Yet. “How about you?”
He lets out a long exhale. “It’s getting harder to keep the breakup a secret,” he says. “Everyone wants to know about Gemma, what she’s up to, where she’s been. ‘Busy season for both of us’ just isn’t going to cut it for much longer.”
“I’m sure our diner photo didn’t help,” I say. He doesn’t have to answer for me to know I’m right.
“I’ve kept quiet because that’s what she wants, but it’s going to get out eventually,” he says. “The press has been swarming her for a while now, and she’s always been so overwhelmed by it. She couldn’t even get to her bookstore without paparazzi once people thought we were engaged, and it didn’t help when she found out there was no substance to the rumors at all—so—yeahhhh.” He drags the word out with a grimace. “She’s had a rough few weeks.”
“So,” I say, at a loss. “Mutual, then?”
“Would have been, if she hadn’t broken it off first.” He looks right in my eyes. “You and Ford were the first people I told.”
We’ve had a thousand moments just like this, scripted, but no less intense. But this: this is real.
“I’m still shocked you’ve actually managed to keep it quiet,” I say, a small surge of pleasure at the knowledge that he trusted me with the news.
“It won’t be pretty when they find out,” he says. “They always make my exes the villains no matter what I say. I hate that for her.”
He’s right. Everyone loves to love Ransom—and by extension, they love to hate on anyone who hurts him. If Gemma couldn’t bear the attention from the press when they thought she’d gotten engaged to Ransom, how much worse will it be when they find out she broke up with him? They won’t care if it was mutual. They’ll spin everything in favor of their golden boy, and Gemma will take the heat—I’ve seen more than one of his exes labeled a heartbreaker even when Ransom hasn’t seemed heartbroken at all.
“It’s good of you to care about that,” I say, finding his eyes again. “Not everyone would be so kind.”
Something shifts in him, something subtle—a spark in his already intense expression, like we’re seeing each other for the very first time. Of all his many layers he’s shown me over the years, this is a peek at something I haven’t seen.
“Can I ask you—” he begins, but is immediately cut off by a piercing crest of feedback coming from one of the nearby speakers camouflaged as a large garden rock.
“Oops, so sorry about that! Is this thing on?” I hear Xan’s voice before I see her, holding a wireless mic over on the patio near the pool. “Thank you all so much for being here this evening—on behalf of Dan and myself, I just want to take a brief moment to welcome you to our home!”
Xan is radiant as ever, ten feet of personality packed into a petite five-foot-four frame. She’s wearing a black pencil skirt with black wedge ankle booties and a bright red top that perfectly complements her skin tone and dark wavy hair.
She goes on to thank the caterers, then gives us an overview of how dinner will work—there’s a buffet set up at the far back edge of the yard, there are tables, it’s eat at our own leisure—and continues on for more than what I would call a brief moment. I love Xan, but I want to know: What was Ransom about to ask me?
By the time she finishes, everyone is eager to move around and mingle again—I don’t manage a single word before Ford appears and drapes his arms over both Ransom’s and my shoulders.
“I heard there’s someone juggling fire back by the buffet!” he says with enthusiasm that reminds me of the puppy my mother adopted a few years ago. “Fire, you guys!”
And that’s when I know our moment is well and truly broken. Hopefully Ransom and I will get another chance to talk, alone, before the night is over.
We follow Ford down the path to the buffet—and, apparently, not one fire-juggler but three of them—picking up Millie and Sasha-Kate along the way. Sasha-Kate is wearing an especially dramatic scarlet jumpsuit, a backless halter with a plunging V-neck and wide-leg pants. Her greeting toward Millie is measured, lacking in warmth, but at least it’s not the silent treatment she was giving her yesterday.
“This looks amazing,” Millie breathes. A long table is set up at the back of the yard, draped in a thick black tablecloth. A gleaming row of silver chafing dishes holds everything we need for a fusion Hawaiian taco feast: tortillas in one, black beans and rice in the next, all followed by a bounty of mahi-mahi and fried coconut shrimp and some sort of vegan option; trays of papaya and strawberries and mango wait at the end, where there are also bowls full of fresh cotija cheese and lime wedges and soy sauce and pineapple pico de gallo and a sweet-and-spicy sauce that smells divine. I absolutely love a good taco bar—tacos are amazing in that you could eat them every day for a week and never have the same meal twice.