Page 97 of Keep Talking

Bryn bit her bottom lip. “Yes, ma’am.”

Two hours later they’d finished recording the big declaration of love scene in Yenni’s latest book. Bryn wiped her eyes with the bottom of her tank top.

“We should record that again,” she said, nose stuffy.

“What?” Vivian’s expression sharpened. “Why?”

“Because I love the way Yenni Montoya makes you say the most over-the-top mushiest things,” she confessed, heart still racing from Vivian having maintained eye contact with her while her character poured her heart out. There was something about falling in love with each other again and again. In new skin but the same hearts.

Vivian chuckled. “Well, she sent over some kind of bonus she wants me to record. You can stay if you want.” She moved things on her iPad, but something about her energy was off.

Bryn narrowed her gaze. “What bonus? I didn’t get an email with a bonus.”

Vivian shrugged. “I guess it’s just for Harper’s character. A promo.”

The most annoying thing about audio production is that everyone was copied on every email all the time. Why had they left her out of promotional material?

Unconcerned by how freaking weird she was being, Vivian adjusted her headphones, hit the button on her laptop, and looked down at her iPad. When she looked at Bryn again, she was still using her speaking voice. Not her performance voice.

“You build your life around control. Around the precise management of how you are seen and heard and perceived. You learn early that vulnerability is weakness, and you spend decades making sure no one gets close enough to test that theory.”

Vivian took a breath, glancing between her screen and Bryn’s confused expression.

“Then she walks in. Uninvited, late, and completely uninterested in the version of you the rest of the world knows.”

There was something about the way Vivian delivered the lines that made Bryn hold her breath. Not only did the tone not match Yenni’s voice at all, but the words didn’t match the story.

“She has freckles you want to memorize and a laugh that undoes every lock you’ve ever installed. She brings you a plant and bets you can’t keep it alive, and you resent her for being right. But then she shows the depths of selflessness… of her compassion… and you can’t look away.”

Vivian’s tone wavered, but Bryn’s eyes were already watering. Her heart already hammering.

“She sees the worst of you,” Vivian faltered, voice cracking, tear falling.

Bryn couldn’t move. Couldn’t console her.

“She sees the sharp and the cold and the impossible, but stays. Not because she doesn’t notice all the reasons not to love you, but because she’s decided she wants those too. When she says she wants all of you, she means it for reasons you’ll never understand.”

Vivian was crying and Bryn was bawling.

“And you follow her into the water and everything that scares you because she asked, and you’ve run out of reasons to say no to her. Because she’s reminded your heart how to beat and your lungs how to breathe.”

Vivian inhaled, not bothering to pretend that she needed to look down at the screen. Not pretending she needed to read the words she’d written herself. The words that were systematically dismantling Bryn.

“You learn a hundred ways to make her smile. You learn that her happiness tastes better than your own. And you hope that when you ask her the only question left burning in your heart?—”

She pulled off her headphones and Bryn tore hers off so fast she yanked out the cable.

“When I ask you, the most incredible person I’ve ever met, will you marry me?—”

Bryn bounded toward her. Arms wrapped around her and grin so wide it hurt.

“Yes, obviously, yes.” She kissed Vivian’s lips, her cheeks, her chin.

Bryn was still holding Vivian’s face, still laughing and crying at the same time, when her eyes drifted past Vivian’s shoulder to the laptop screen. The waveform was still moving.

“You’re still recording,” Bryn whispered.

Vivian didn’t look at the screen; she stayed nestled in the crook of Bryn’s neck. The place she’d always called her favorite on earth. “I know.”

It took several seconds for Bryn to understand. Vivian hadn’t just written the words. She’d wanted to capture what came after them.

Bryn pressed her forehead to Vivian’s and tried not to start crying again.

“That one’s not going to need pickups,” Bryn said quietly.

Vivian closed her eyes. “No,” she murmured. “That one was right on the first take.”