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Alison and the camera crew dogged every move Juliet and I made, and I was beginning to feel more like a crime suspect than a movie star. Every time I turned around, one of them was there, waiting to catch any remotely interesting action on film, to overhear a romantic tidbit shared between my fake girlfriend and me.
They were certainly disappointed, because I was quickly learning that either due to the stress and strangeness of the situation, or because of simpler, biochemical causes, Juliet and I didn’t have much to say to one another.
“Tess looks happy at least,” she said at one point, sending my gaze back across the lawn to the front of the big tent where Tess was standing with the tall man I’d seen kiss her earlier. I hadn’t noticed him returning, and I wasn’t pleased to see him now, standing there in his too-short suit and staring at Tess like she made the sun rise.
Maybe she did. I didn’t really blame him.
And Juliet was wrong, I thought. Tess was smiling, but she wasn’t happy. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I just knew. There was a tightness around the corners of her smile, a hesitancy in her posture as the tall man leaned in to say something next to her ear. I might have known her only a few short days, but Tess was the one thing in the world that made sense to me, the one thing I knew I understood. And I hated seeing her fake happiness almost as much as I hated faking it myself.
Watching him close to her perturbed me. No, that wasn’t it. It infuriated me. I wanted to stride over there, yank him away from her and demand that he never touch her again.
Which would have been insane, but what about this weekend hadn’t been? Between my sudden heartsick love over a girl I couldn’t have, Gran’s not-so-subtle jabs at everyone, a lovesick house-chicken…the weekend had been weird. Insane, really. Punching out a stranger would fit right in.
“Who is that guy?” I asked Juliet, pleased when the question came out interested instead of crazy.
“Oh, that’s Tony Myers. He and Tess have had a thing, like, forever.”
Jealousy leapt into my gut, a green-eyed horned imp with a thirst for vengeance. “A thing?” What kind of thing?” That question came out much closer to crazy, and Juliet side-eyed me.
She waved her hand in the air. “They dated forever ago. He’s still hanging on.” She narrowed her gaze at me. “Why? Do you think whatever’s between you two could be … serious?” I couldn’t tell if she sounded concerned or just curious. Either way, she didn’t sound happy.
“Do you think she likes him?” I hated that the question sounded like something I would have asked in fifth grade and even more insane than the last one. And then I made it worse. “Like,likes himlikes him?”
Juliet laughed, but her words didn’t reassure me. “I think she likes him enough. He’s local,” she said. “And eventually they’ll probably end up together. It just makes sense.”
It didn’t make sense to me. Tess didn’t love him. I could see that across the wide space between us. I had a sudden urge to sweep in, rescue her, cameras be damned. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Tess is a local girl,” Juliet went on. “She’s never had big plans, never wanted to leave here.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s the right guy for her.”
Juliet turned to face me, her posture more relaxed than it had been all night, and her interest in whatever I might say clear. The camera crew noticed her sudden shift, and flashes strobed as she stepped in even closer. “Youdothink there’s something serious going on with my sister,” she said, her eyes widening.
“Not that I can do anything about it with the vultures here,” I said, wishing I hadn’t voiced my regret aloud as I watched Juliet’s face morph from amused to sad. She let out a sigh.
“I’m sorry, Ryan. For all of this.” She said the words to me, but looked over my shoulder at the security team next to the tent entrance as she spoke. She really did look sorry in that instant, like this pretense was every bit as difficult for her as it had become for me.
“Come on, movie stars. Time to eat pig and celebrate me not being dead. Tess made a fantastic cake.” Gran stepped between us and took each of us by the elbow, dragging us toward the tent where the rest of the crowd was already sitting down and a pit-roasted pig was being paraded in on an extravagant platter.
Wow. That was something you did not see in Los Angeles every day.
Juliet and I were seated at a table across from Tess and Tony, who I was beginning to despise. He was leaning in close to her, kept draping an arm over the back of her chair, and was generally acting as if they were a couple. The guy in my gut poked me a few times with the stick I imagined him holding, trying to prod me into doing something crazy.
While I was essentially being paid to act as if Juliet and I were a couple.
Everything was a disaster.
But it was made impossibly worse when Alison and the camera crew set up on the opposite side of the tent, cameras aimed directly at Juliet and me. There wasn’t a moment when I might dare to stare at Tess, or throw a knife at Tony, since it could potentially be caught on camera and would undoubtedly be splashed across the Internet almost instantaneously. We were under a microscope, and I owed it to Juliet to remember that. I’d made her a promise, and she’d been hurt enough. My career wasn’t even my focus at this point—I would see this farce through and then… I didn’t know what would come next, but more and more I thought there was a different life for me. Waiting here in Maryland. My mind flashed to the other space the real estate agent had shown me—the vacant restaurant on the square in Leonardtown.
“So, you guys … how long have you been together?” It was Tony, leaning across the table to talk to Juliet and me. He waved between us with a steak knife, and I suppressed a shudder. Not that I hadn’t used my flatware to converse before, it was just one more thing I could choose to dislike about this guy.
I tried to impale him with tiny daggers fired from my eyeballs as Juliet smiled sweetly at him. “It’s new,” she said. “Just a few weeks now.” She leaned into me and I wrapped my arm around her, rubbing my hand up and down her arm. The motions came naturally, but they felt forced and wrong.
Tess’s eyes were on my hand, and I had to keep my heart from leaping out of my chest. It was killing me to know I was hurting her, and the way she was watching us made it clear that despite telling me to stay away, there were feelings there. A tiny hope inside me was trying to elbow Mr. Jealousy out of the way.
“Love in Hollywood,” Tony said, grinning. And then he reached for Tess and pulled her into his side. “We kind of have that too, right Tess? Just Hollywood, Maryland.”
Tess said nothing, but busied herself with her drink before stealing a glance up at me. Our eyes locked and heat washed through me. This was all so, so wrong.
