The Reunion by Kayla Olson(70)
“Oh, I know for a fact that Attica’s over the moon,” she says, tapping into the messages. “She sent me about a hundred messages, too. Honestly, she thinks this is as good for you as it seems to be for Ransom.”
“She would,” I say bitterly, and Bre laughs.
“Hey, that’s what you pay her for, right? Spinning any situation with the press in your favor?”
“See, and this is why I hadn’t told Attica about Ransom yet,” I say. “She would have blasted the news to the far corners of the planet. She would have been Suspect Number One.”
“So true,” Bre agrees. She scrolls a bit, confirming there’s nothing I need to do concerning Attica—no requests to act on, no questions to respond to. “Mars says she has an update on whatever you talked about this morning and says not to pick up the phone if Shine Jacobs calls you directly?” Her eyes grow wide.
“Well, guess that’s one good thing to come out of my phone being in prison all afternoon,” I say, nodding toward it. “I totally would have answered that call.”
Maybe Shine’s is the one call that has nothing to do with Ransom at all. She could be calling to explain the new creative direction—or urging me to commit right then and there.
“What’s that about?”
“Not really supposed to talk about it yet,” I say. As close as Bre and I are, she won’t pry; she’s been doing double duty as my assistant long enough to know I’ll tell her when I can. During sensitive negotiations like this that are still in progress, there are some times when Actress Liv has to overrule Friend Liv’s desire to talk it all out.
“Okay, so you should probably call Mars back, too,” Bre says, doing a pitch-perfect job at hiding her curiosity. “Anything else you want me to check on while I’m in here?”
I bury my face in my hands. “If there’s any chance you can make Ransom magically text me and explain what the eff is going on, that’d be great,” I say.
My phone vibrates loudly in her hand, and she looks straight at me, wide-eyed. “Uhhh… your wish is my command?”
She turns the phone so I can see it. Ransom’s name is at the top of my message list, a little blue dot beside his words: can we talk?
“I know I just gave you a raise this summer,” I say, “but I really don’t think I gave you quite enough.”
#5Facts: Everyone’s Got Heart Eyes for Ransom Joel
By Octavia Benetton // Staff Writer, Love & Lightning Rounds
Hey hey, Lightning Bugs! Is it just me, or have you also been glued to the interwebs so you don’t miss a single minute of news re: the ever-scintillating love life of Ransom Joel? (He’s reportedly dating Liv Latimer, if you hadn’t heard—!!!) I’ll probably need an updated prescription after all the damage I’ve done to my eyes squinting at screens today, but hey! At least I’m a girl who can rock the thickest of frames.
Since we’re all Ransom-crazy this afternoon, I thought it would be the perfect time to do a #5Facts on him—can you believe we’ve never done one?! Me neither. Search my archives, tell me I’m lying.
1. Ransom Joel is his real name. It’s almost as if his parents mapped out his fate as a Future Hollywood Heartthrob right from birth—and honestly, that might not be too far off. Sources say his father, Jonathan Joel (who also happens to be his manager), had a short-lived film career of his own back in the day, though you won’t find many significant credits to his name. Sources also say Jonathan’s ex-wife, Julie, was reluctant to put Ransom in front of a camera when his career first started, and that it drove such a wedge between them that it led to their eventual divorce.
2. Ransom’s activism has led to more than 100,000 kitten adoptions worldwide, according to the ASPCA. Ransom famously modeled for a kitten calendar back in the day, and you can still find the photos online—but good luck trying to snag an actual, fresh copy! If you do happen to find one, though, be prepared to hand over your firstborn and a pair of kidneys to the cruel, heartless people who put those things up for sale. Don’t they know true fans might actually try to part with both kidneys (not to mention our firstborns, who haven’t slept through the night in EIGHT MONTHS thankyouverymuch) for such coveted memorabilia?
3. Ransom’s love life wasn’t always a public spectacle. The second Gemma Gardner came into Ransom’s life two years ago, the news was everywhere—and is there a person on Planet Earth who isn’t familiar with his long line of gorgeous girlfriends in those years just after he wrapped filming on GotV? Before that, though—while he was still on the show—it’s all but impossible to find any record of him dating anyone. Was he single all that time, or just extra talented at keeping quiet about it? INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW! (Show of hands, who here believes Ransom was actually into Liv all that time, and that’s why he never dated anyone?)
4. Sources say he’s as nice behind the camera as he looks in front of it. Word on the street is that Ransom is always kind to everyone on set, not only his famous costars—according to an intern who worked on one of the Hunter Drew movies, he was always doing thoughtful things for people on the lot. “One time, he bought a brand-new MacBook Pro for one of the other interns who’d ruined her ancient laptop with a cup of coffee,” the intern told us. “I also remember this other time when he stuck around for hours helping production clean up—we’d been shooting a sequence where it looked like a bomb had gone off, and someone was stressing out about how they might miss their kid’s birthday dinner that night, so he asked permission for the whole cast to stay and help. He’s a good guy.”