The Reunion by Kayla Olson(64)
Bre saves me from myself, slipping my phone gently out of my grasp. She shuts it off and puts it facedown between us. “I swear, I wasn’t the one who told.”
It hadn’t even crossed my mind that Bre could have told. She would have never—and to shut the door on any doubt I might have otherwise had, her gut reaction to the post was most definitely of the Oh no, how did this get out? variety and not a thinly disguised Ohhhhh CRAP, I told someone and now it’s in headlines panic. It isn’t Bre I’m worried about.
Besides, there’s no possible way Bre could have taken that photo. There was a crowd of paparazzi that morning, as always, but Ransom and I weren’t facing the gates—whoever took it was on the studio lot.
“I don’t understand the existence of this photo,” I say, zooming in on our (admittedly obscured) faces. It really is a terrible shot, but it could definitely be us if someone suggested the idea and you were to squint in just the right way.
“Wait, that’s real?” Bre squeals. “You had a sunrise date with Ransom and you didn’t tell me?!”
It seems like ages ago. “Quite real, unfortunately. And yes—it was actually incredibly sweet, he brought my flat white and every—”
The coffee.
On no planet would Ransom ever order a flat white for himself. Everyone knows it’s my drink, especially the cafés on the lot. The one in our building hadn’t opened yet that morning, and there’s only one other place Ransom would have gone.
“Liv?” Bre says tentatively, and it’s only now I realize I must have the strangest look on my face.
“The coffee,” I say, dazed. “It could have been one of the baristas, maybe? From the café near the studio?”
We weren’t facing the gates that morning, where all the paparazzi were, but the café is most definitely on the perfect side of the building for a shot like this. If I were to stand just outside the front doors of the café, I could almost certainly replicate the camera angle. Hardly anyone else was on the lot that early—I can’t think of another way someone could have figured out we were there together.
“Okay,” she says, her mind clearly working on fitting the pieces together. “But it says whoever dropped the story was ‘a Certain Well-Known Someone’ and that they were on set with you. That doesn’t sound like a barista.”
She makes a good point.
“Could a barista have sent the photo to someone, you think?” she suggests. “Someone else on the lot?”
“It’s possible,” I say, because what other explanation could there be?
Bre shrugs. “Maybe someone paid them upfront to watch out for anything juicy? I’m sure a photo like that could be worth a small fortune.”
“Good theory,” I say, running through every moment Ransom and I spent on set this week. We weren’t that obvious—could Evy have picked up on the spark between us? Doubtful, but not impossible. “Only two other people knew. Sasha-Kate figured it out on her own, I think—and Ransom’s dad, uh, saw us kissing.”
If Ransom’s dad leaked our news, that would certainly explain the tension between them. But then again, his behavior on set would have been enough all on its own.
“Okay, let’s consider Sasha-Kate first,” Bre says. “If she’s the one responsible, what’s in it for her?”
Before Bre even gets the question out, I know the answer in my bones: I can’t think of a single thing Sasha-Kate would stand to gain by spilling our news to the world, other than the petty satisfaction of doing it just because she can. Why would she want to remind the world how much they love seeing Ransom and me together—especially when it finally looks like she might get her moment to shine in the reboot? Not even Sasha-Kate would jeopardize her own chances like that.
“I’d bet money it wasn’t her,” I say. “She’s too self-centered to care about blasting my love life to the world.”
“What about Ransom’s dad, then?”
“I think he’s definitely a possibility.”
Something Ransom told me on the beach surfaces in my memory, though: I never should have listened to my dad.
“Actually, I’m not sure,” I say, turning the thoughts over in my head. “I found out that Ransom’s dad was the one who suggested the step back we took when Girl ended—I’m not sure if he was just trying to keep Ransom from being tied down at all, or if he disliked the specific idea of Ransom being with me.”
“Wow,” she says. “Yeah, if he didn’t like the specific idea of you for some reason, it wouldn’t make sense for him to tell the whole world you’re dating his son.”
“Exactly.”
Bre bites her lip but says nothing.
“What?” I say.
“I don’t want to be that person, but as your best friend, I think someone needs to say it,” Bre says. “Do you think there’s any possibility Ransom might have set you up?”
No, is my immediate gut reaction, followed just as quickly by another less certain word: Maybe.
Ransom knows I’m on the fence about signing on for the reboot—a real-life love story between the two of us could make us invaluable to the show and give us significant leverage in negotiations. He also wants to move into more serious work like I have, break away from the typecasting his father’s built an empire on.