Chapter 3
THREE
RYAN
Fuck me.
I’ve been in hiding for a day already, and I can’t help myself any longer.
Against my better judgement, I pull up Jasmine’s Instagram account. She hasn’t updated since the fight on set between me and Dan, her husband, that happened two weeks ago. Even so, my eye is directed toward her last post. A photo I took of her at a cast get together a month back. She’s wearing a red kimono, her black hair done up in a tight braid resting on the crown of her head. Thick eyelashes surround big, soft brown eyes.
Beautiful eyes that hold an entire universe inside of them.
I’m lying on the king bed in the master bedroom on the second floor, the double French doors ajar, leading to a balcony with views that should astound me. Instead, I’m unphased. A soft breeze has been whipping against the drawn curtains. The Alexa Echo is playing a calming, instrumental rendition of some movie soundtrack I don’t recognize, the enchanting melody of a violin dancing through the room.
Yet despite my relaxing environment, all I see are the dark features that make up Jasmine’s face; all I hear are the memories of soft promises whispered into my ear as we made love in my home back in LA; and all I feel is the pang of regret that I’m not back there with her, or that she’s not here with me.
It took everything for me to leave.
Absolutely everything.
I asked her to leave with me, too—which really would have made Frank’s day, let me tell ya. She said no. Of course, she said no. Said she had her kid to worry about.
And her marriage to save.
That last part hit me on the head like an anvil.
So, here I am. Alone. Something I hate to be. Staring at her picture and wishing she were here with me, despite her inability to leave Dan.
Down below the photo of her, there are a slew of comments from random strangers, all posted within the last few hours. I read twenty before I stop myself. All of them, one way or another, warn Jasmine that I’m a chronic cheater (that rumor has been circulating the inter webs almost from the beginning of my career on Ungratefully Yours ). All the commenters insist that I shouldn’t be the reason she ends things with Dan.
Yeah, wonderful fucking wholesome Dan. As far as I know, the man’s been faithful to her, but he’s never really heard her or listened to her needs.
Or loved her.
Not the way I have.
Forcing myself to click out of the comments, I stare back at only her picture.
When you’re a celebrity, no one takes into consideration that, while your name is in the spotlight over some scandal, you might also be hurting, too.
No one seems to remember that I’m still a human with emotions.
Now, it’s as if I’m a caricature of someone, devoid of all feeling and thought beyond the parameters of the show I’m on and the character I’m portraying. I’m not Ryan Lane—he doesn’t exist any longer. I’m either the brand Ryan Lane—the polished actor, photographed a particular way to show a suave man in suits and slicked back hair. Or I’m Taylor Johnson, the sometimes funny, sometimes sensitive guy who always fails in his relationships on Ungratefully Yours .
In either scenario, I’m not the real me.
Ryan Lane isn’t at home crying over some woman he’s dreamed of being with for the last ten years. Ryan Lane isn’t anxiously staring at his phone every second, wondering if she’ll text or call him back. And Ryan Lane isn’t dealing, simultaneously, with the heart ache of losing Jasmine as well as the ramifications of what this will do to his career.
If you listen to the tabloids, Ryan Lane’s not a man in love. He’s a man’s man. A homewrecker. A womanizer. A guy breaking up a couple, Jasmine and Dan, who are meant to be—and Ryan Lane’s doing it with a glib smile on his face.
The public thinks I’m a bad guy. They have a tendency of thinking that about me, and I don’t get it. I don’t play a villain on the show, but something about me must come off a certain way, I guess.
Thing is, I can’t exactly figure out whether they’re right or wrong. Or who I even am anymore.
When Jasmine started seeking me out in my trailer, started leaning on me as her marriage began to crumble, it was selfish of me to hope it would lead to something more. It was selfish of me not to think about their child. It was selfish of me to put my own desire ahead of what was best for her.
It was selfish of me to tell her, after months of our deepening friendship, that I’ve always loved her.
And it was especially selfish of me to lean in and kiss those lips, even if she kissed me back deeply. Even if it led to her ripping off my clothes and with us on the top of a pool table, passionately pressing into one another as if our lives depended upon it.
The pool table was the first of countless times of us exploring one another’s bodies, spanning over the course of six months.
The memories consume my mind, consume my heart.
One fatal misstep, involving two men getting into a fist fight in front of a live studio audience, and the whole affair came crashing to the ground—and exposed for all the world to see.
My hands tighten around my phone, chest heavy, on fire.
I keep staring at Jasmine’s face, of the picture I took, hoping that somewhere in there are all the answers I’m seeking.
That she’ll call me.
That she’ll love me.
That her love would be enough to help my heavy, tortured heart.
Slipping my phone into my pants pocket, I shake my head.
I sulk too damn much.
As another breeze of air blows through the open doors, I decide that being in here, alone and stuck with only thoughts, isn’t doing me any favors.
A second later, I’m reaching for a mask (leftover from the COVID days), sunglasses, and my bucket hat, and I’m rushing out the door, heading for my car.