The Reunion by Kayla Olson(61)

Three dots pop up immediately. Going that well? she sends, along with a stressed-face emoji.

I think at this point Bryan would welcome an earthquake to get them to back off, I reply.

Yeah, they sound SO helpful, she writes. Okay, be there as soon as humanly possible. I’m not far but you know LA

It takes Bryan a full ten minutes to return to set, despite the fact that he was the one who called us off for five, with Gabe and Nathaniel close behind. Andrea and Mr. Joel are still over in a dark corner, talking Ransom’s ear off in hushed, harsh tones. Somehow I don’t think this is what he had in mind when he said he needed a minute.

Cassidy appears at my side. “This… is not what I expected,” she says, seeming absolutely unfazed by my presence. “Is it usually like this?”

“Yeah, no. It’s never like this.”

Never is a stretch—I can remember a handful of tense days like this in our later seasons, coinciding with the weeks it took to negotiate our massive salary increases. Mr. Joel was on set more often than not in those days, watching every scene, giving Ransom direction from the wings. Bryan tolerated it, but only because Mr. Joel’s instincts were usually spot-on. Andrea wasn’t in the mix back then, though. Neither were two decades’ worth of fraught history between Ransom and his dad.

“You’re holding your own really well,” I tell Cassidy.

Heat floods her cheeks. “It’s easy to act like you’re attracted to Ford Brooks when he was your childhood crush,” she says, grinning. “The hard part is making it look like acting.”

I laugh. “So, I have to ask—which phase of Ford’s hair was your favorite?”

“Honestly? I’m loving this current look more than any so far,” she says. Production was all over the short-at-the-sides, longer-and-swooping-on-top look they gave him for the EW cover shoot—he’ll be stealing some of Ransom’s fanbase for sure. “I’ve gotta admit, though, I was most definitely into his man bun back in the day.”

“I will never not love that his hair was the sole reason for a massive trend,” I say, “especially because as easygoing as he is, he hated that man bun so, so—”

“Would you just drop it?” Ransom’s voice booms from the far corner of the set.

Everyone freezes. Everything’s still.

Everything, that is, except for Ransom himself, who turns on his heel and walks away from Andrea and his father without a backward glance.

I’ve never heard Ransom raise his voice like that. Never.

Old instincts kick in, and I run to catch up with him—neither of us ever left set alone in tense moments.

“What happened?” I ask, but he keeps walking, like I haven’t said anything at all. “Are you okay?”

He turns then, his eyes empty of their usual sparkle. Empty of everything, really. “It has been a day, Liv, and I don’t want to talk right now.” His words slap so hard they sting.

I stop in my tracks, stunned.

Watch as he turns a corner. Disappears.

In the twenty years I’ve known him, I’ve never known him like this.



* * *



“Ransom did what?” Bre says, twenty minutes later when she arrives on set. We’re in a bit of limbo at the moment, with Ransom stewing in his trailer and Bryan meeting behind closed doors with Nathaniel and Gabe. “Any idea what could have set him off?”

I glance over to the far corner of the soundstage, where Mr. Joel and Andrea are sitting in a pair of director’s chairs, scrolling separately on their phones. “Definitely something to do with his publicist and his dad, I think.”

My phone buzzes at my hip. It’s Attica—again.

Post something with Ransom, too, if you can!

I close my eyes, take a deep breath.

“Here, let me take a couple of shots of you on set,” Bre says, accurately interpreting the source of my increasingly irritated mood.

I touch up my lipstick to match the sparkly red vinyl of our set’s vintage diner booth and settle in for a quick pose. Bre takes a few more candids, then suggests we get a few in my trailer for good measure. We’re almost all the way there when Ransom’s door opens; his trailer is right next to mine.

We lock eyes when he steps out, but he immediately averts his. “Bryan wants us back on set.” He holds up his phone as if to show me proof of the message, but all I see is his lock screen: the photo of us with the strawberry shake, the one that went viral.

“Are you okay?” I ask, putting a hand on his arm. He doesn’t pull back, but when he meets my eyes, all I feel is distance. That, and the confirmation that whatever set him off is most definitely not over.

“I can’t—” Ransom starts, but cuts himself off, takes a deep breath. “Let’s talk later. I’ll text you, okay?”

It should be reassuring, and yet. It’s not like I did anything to set him off—so why can’t he look me in the eye for more than half a second?

“Yeah, okay,” I manage. “Sounds good.”

It sounds better than silence, anyway. Any explanation at all would be nice.

Wow, Bre mouths, once we’re on our way back to the soundstage, Ransom trailing behind us.

“Yeah,” I say under my breath. “This afternoon should be… interesting.”