The Reunion by Kayla Olson(62)
Interesting is an understatement, as it turns out. More accurate would be disaster. Ransom’s clearly struggling to get his head in the scene. His eyes are void of their trademark sparkle, and his lines—when he remembers them—are flat. The chemistry that usually comes so easily between us is nowhere to be found, and it’s starting to spiral, bleeding into my own ability to focus. We do take after take, each one worse than the last. By the sixteenth attempt, even Cassidy and Ford are starting to founder, Ransom’s dark mood an anchor dragging us all to the bottom of the sea.
“Cut!” Bryan calls, but it isn’t half a second before Mr. Joel starts speaking over him.
“Cardboard would perform better than you right now, Ransom,” he says, eyes steely and dark. “Pull it together.”
I feel Ransom tense beside me, see his knuckles go white. He glances across the table, at Ford, who subtly shakes his head in solidarity.
“We’re going to take five,” Bryan says with authority, his voice even but terse. “And in those five minutes, we are going to remember how to leave our personal lives out of our professional ones. We will try this scene one more time, and if we can’t manage to get it right, we’ll shoot it at five in the morning tomorrow. Five minutes starts now.”
As soon as we’re all out of the booth, Ford drapes a casual arm across Ransom’s shoulders and pulls him off set, presumably to some quiet place where Ransom’s father and publicist can’t escalate things any further. I make a beeline for Bre in hopes she can calm my fraying nerves—but as soon as I get close, she looks up from her phone and I see stress all over her face.
“What?” I ask. “What’s wrong?”
She flips her hair over her shoulder, closes whatever she was looking at on the phone, and puts on the most obviously fake smile I’ve ever seen. “Nothing! Nothing. Everything is fine.”
“Bre.”
She sighs. “Okay. Everything is not fine. But. It’s nothing you need to worry about right now, okay?”
“I’m only going to be more distracted now that I know something’s going on. What is it?” Maybe it will explain what’s going on with Ransom and his team.
“You’re sure you want to know right now? I really think it would be best if—”
“Just show me.” The more she builds it up, the more I’ll worry, so I might as well know now.
She nods, unlocks the phone. Hands it over.
The first thing I see is my name in big, bold letters, with the purple-pink-orange YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST! logo just above the headline: LIV LATIMER IN LOVE—EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HER SECRET ROMANCE WITH COSTAR RANSOM JOEL!
This—what—
“Aaaaaaand time,” Bryan says, slicing through the dizzying haze as I read back over the headline.
“Liv. You’ve got this.” Bre looks me straight in the eyes, one hand on each of my shoulders. “You do not want to have to shoot this scene at five in the morning tomorrow. Dig deep like I know you can—I know it’s hard, but I promise you can do this.”
I blink, take a breath. My head is spinning.
People know.
“You can do this,” Bre says again.
I nod, swallowing down everything I want to say, every question I want to ask. She’s right. I can do this, I can. I close my eyes, slip into Honor’s world. Her thoughts, her feelings. Not mine.
It doesn’t come easy today. It takes effort to slide into the booth with Ransom, to put love in my eyes when all I have are questions. It’s like an out-of-body experience to hear Honor’s lines coming out of my mouth, to laugh, when all I am inside is numb.
It works well enough until Mr. Joel opens his mouth again.
“Son, you can do better, I know you can.”
And that’s it, it’s over. Whatever thin thread was holding Ransom together snaps. “Get your cardboard cutout, then,” he says. “I’m done.”
12:05 p.m. (last updated 23 min. ago)
Liv Latimer in Love—Everything You Need to Know About Her Secret Romance with Costar Ransom Joel!
By Lila Lavender // Staff Writer, You Heard It Here First!
You guys.
YOU GUYS.
Your eyes do not deceive you, and you are not misreading that headline.
LIV LATIMER AND RANSOM JOEL.
TOGETHER.
THEY ARE A THING.
Apologies in advance for any car wrecks, falls down stairs and/or from balconies, and any other general mishaps that may or may not result in hospital bills from this news—this is a reminder that you read at your own risk, and we are not liable for any pain/suffering you might experience as a result (physical or emotional or otherwise).
BUT YES. That sound you hear? It’s the glorious sound of two parallel universes colliding in perfect harmony! Everyone’s favorite teen heartthrob ship, Honor St. Croix and Duke Beaufort, is finally sailing off into a Snapaday-worthy sunset on a sea of shimmering rainbows IN REAL ACTUAL LIFE. Does any more perfect relationship exist??!
How do we know this particularly tasty bit of news, you ask?
Insert all the winky faces and zipped-lips emojis here—sorry to say the source has asked to remain anonymous, and in the interest of getting alllllll the juiciest tidbits dropped in our lap in the future, we’re doing our best to honor it (pun intended, because how could I not?). Take it from my BFF Raina, though, who practically had to retrieve my jaw from where it landed—all the way down on my flip-flops, for the record (and not just because of the news itself, but also because of who delivered it)—when a Certain Well-Known Someone quite close to the lovebirds called in to blast the news: they’ve been on set this week with Liv and Ransom, and they’ve clearly SEEN some behind-the-scenes things.