The Reunion by Kayla Olson(42)
If you’re losing sleep at night over how anyone could toss Ransom Joel’s heart aside, hey! Look at the silver lining—he has yet to be seen around town with anyone else, right? You could be next!
A word of caution, though, if you do turn out to be his next special someone—just keep those superfans in mind! You could be next in that sense, too, if you follow in Gemma Gardner’s heartbreaker footsteps. A good rule of thumb: if you see someone who’s gone to great lengths to craft an outfit covered in your face, eyes x-ed out or not, that’s always a bad sign.
Until next time (hit me up at [email protected] with all your juiciest tidbits so there can be a next time)!
xo, Lila
13
Despite my best efforts, I sleep through yet another alarm in the morning—I could have sworn I turned the volume up while plugging in my phone last night, but apparently not.
I have eight missed calls from Bre before I finally pick up. “How bad is it?”
I stuff my script in my bag, along with a slim cylinder of ibuprofen and a banana that’s already developing brown spots. The digital clock on my microwave reads 6:32—I was supposed to be on set half an hour ago.
Bryan’s going to kill me.
“Bad enough that I had to stop in the middle of my Peloton ride,” she says, a touch breathless. Translation: quite bad. “Bryan called me four times in a row. Everything okay?”
I think back to the beach, the cold water lapping at my ankles. Ransom’s eyes sparking gold under the setting sun, laughing until we cried out in the ocean. Waking up together on the couch, him finally heading home just over five hours ago.
“Ransom was over pretty late,” I admit, unable to keep it to myself. It’s Bre, for one—and it also feels more than a little relevant. “Not that I’m going to tell Bryan that.”
“Liv Latimer! I need to know everything!” she squeals, and I know I’m forgiven for the interruption to her workout. “I mean, uh. You know. After your first big day on set. Which, I’m sure, is on hold until you get there. I’ll call Bryan back for you in a minute and report that you’re on your way—right?”
I peek out my front window, see Jimmy’s Mercedes idling in my driveway. He’s got a thing for thrillers, and I can see his latest read open and resting on his steering wheel. Still, I feel bad for making him wait, and that I didn’t hear either of his two attempts to call me.
“Yes, please and thank you.” I tighten the lid on my water bottle, sling it into my tote with all the rest of my things. “Could you also do me a favor after that?”
I tell her about a book I recently saw advertised on Snapaday, a new release by Eric Zhang that comes out at the end of next month—I’ve spent so much time in Jimmy’s presence, the algorithms in my social media have started giving me ads for his favorite authors. I ask Bre to work whatever magic she possesses that will make an advance copy of the book appear on my doorstep.
“So sorry I’m late,” I say to Jimmy, which I’m sure is only the first time I’ll say that this morning. By the time I’m on set and settled in at hair and makeup forty minutes later, I’ve definitely said it at least six more times.
“You’re not the only one who was late,” my hairstylist, Emilio, says conspiratorially. “Your boyfriend rolled in at six twenty this morning. I thought Bryan was about to lose his mind when neither of you showed up on time.”
My heart leaps into my throat until I realize he’s only talking about Ransom in the context of being my on-screen boyfriend and that he has no clue anything more could be going on behind the scenes.
“Well, I’m glad I’m not alone,” I say smoothly, hoping it isn’t written all over my face that Ransom was at my place last night.
By some miracle, we’re not too far behind schedule—Emilio made quick work of my hair, and my makeup artist, Gretchen, is some sort of wizard whose gifts allow her to simultaneously bend time and make me look effortlessly luminous. I get a death glare from Bryan when I walk on set, but that’s it—Sasha-Kate and Millie are mid scene on whatever he shifted around to shoot instead of the scene Ransom and I had been slated to do first thing.
Ransom’s hanging out on the far side of the soundstage near craft services, sliding a pile of doughnuts onto his plate; an assistant around Bre’s age looks on hungrily with heart eyes—at Ransom, not the doughnuts. I doubt she even realizes she’s staring.
I slip across the room as silently as possible so as not to interrupt the scene. “Morning,” I whisper once I’m close, loud enough that only he can hear. He gives me a lopsided grin, the same montage flashback from last night clearly playing across both our memories.
I join him in front of a tray of tropical fruit. At the sight of this particular fruit mountain, my stomach unleashes a startlingly loud growl—I whip around to make sure the noise hasn’t interrupted the shoot, but in doing so, I accidentally knock a pair of tongs from the table. They hit the floor with a clang, which earns me yet another death glare from both Bryan and Sasha-Kate. She and Millie were in the middle of a quiet, serious moment, and I’ve just ruined it.
Sorry, I mouth in their direction.
Ransom passes me a clean pair of tongs, and I pile a sunny selection of mango and pineapple on my plate. This day needs a turnaround, and fast. It isn’t like me to show up anything less than perfectly on time—had I actually delayed the schedule instead of just causing it to shift around a bit, I would be getting more than just a series of not-so-subtle death glares from Bryan. I’ve seen extras fired for less. Even though no one would ever fire me from this particular production, there are other ways to remind a girl who’s running the show. If anyone—from Bryan all the way up the chain to Bob Renfro and Shine Jacobs—decides I’m not taking this seriously, word could spread around town and affect the reputation I’ve worked so hard to earn.