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“Right, Miss Grace,” Jordan said, swiping down playlists on his phone. “We are choosing you a song by the time we get to the bar.”
“ ‘Since U Been Gone’?” suggested April. “ ‘Thank U, Next’?”
“I don’t think so,” said Will.
“ ‘Breakup Song’? ‘Potential Breakup Song’?”
“Too on the nose.”
“ ‘Don’t Speak’? ‘All Too Well’? ‘Someone Like You’?”
“No, no, and no.” On and on came the heartbreak anthem suggestions, until finally Will took the device out of Jordan’s hands and started conducting his own search. “I think,” he murmured, “I know what I want to say.”
Jordan grabbed the phone back and peered down at the screen. “J’approve,” he said. “And look! Perfect timing.” The car pulled up outside the Village, and Jordan jumped out immediately, marching inside to give the sound guy (also known as Dave in the DJ booth) instructions.
“Drink?” April asked.
“Absolutely.” Will nodded. “I’ll be right in.”
All those stories on Jordan’s phone. They started right here. And the more time that went by, the more Will began to feel that another story that began here, the unlikeliest one of all, remained unfinished. Even if it wasn’t happily ever after, didn’t Will deserve to know how it ended? Weren’t they both owed that?
He reached into the jacket he’d put on over his dress because it was September in the UK, which meant summer had left the building, and drew out his phone.
“Time to be brave,” he muttered, and dialed. Nothing happened at first, and he began to wonder if he’d forgotten to enter the international dialing code again.
“Hello?” came a voice on the other end of the line, crisp and clear. Funny. Will had expected the voice to sound farther away.
“Hello, Simone,” he said.
Chapter 34
The day before the premiere of the first Kismet movie, Patrick, Corey, and Hector had hiked Runyon Canyon. It had been a pivotal moment in each of their careers: the biggest movie Corey had ever worked on as a stuntman, marking Patrick’s ascent as a leading man with a body built by Hector. They had all been more nervous than any of them had wanted to admit, and walking up a big hill had felt like a good way to burn off some of that anxious energy.
The day before the premiere of Kismet 2, in what Patrick hoped would now be a tradition of theirs, the three of them met at the bottom of Runyon again.
“And he tried to do it with you right there? In the bathroom?” Corey whistled. “That seems risky. And retro, sort of.”
Patrick had given Hector and Corey an abridged version of the events at the gala, taking great care to obfuscate Reece’s identity.
“What did Simone say?” asked Hector.
“Oh, get this.” Patrick jutted his chin out and recited: “ ‘This is how it’s done, Patrick. You don’t want to come all the way out? Fine. This is the middle ground.’ I told her it felt grubby, and she said, ‘Compromise always is.’ ”
“Maybe Simone has a point,” said Hector. “Not that you should be having your management team pimp you out like that,” he added, seeing Patrick’s mortified expression, “but come on, man. You’ve got to figure out some way of meeting guys.”
“I don’t know,” said Patrick. “This town makes things kind of impossible.”
“And you and Will are definitely…” Corey ventured.
“Over? Yes. Me and Will are one hundred percent over. It’s for the best, for both of us. For him especially. I asked too much of him. It wasn’t fair.” Some people simply weren’t supposed to hide away. Patrick understood that now. Will was born to shine. It would have been a crime to let that light flicker out in a closet.
“That’s a shame,” said Corey. “I really liked him.”
Patrick turned to look at him. “Really?”
“Sure! He was funny. He has, like, that dry English sense of humor where I feel like I’m constantly being called an idiot, but in a nice way, plus a little something extra.”
“He’s got spice,” added Hector.
