Chapter Fourteen
Chapter
Fourteen
Ramona watched Dylan with Blair—or rather, Eloise with Mallory—from right outside the gazebo with a studio pass hanging around her neck. And when Dylan said, “ I don’t know how this will work ,” she said it with emotion and shyness, and Gia didn’t yell cut, an event that seemed to momentarily shock both Blair and Dylan alike.
“ What do you mean? ” Blair finally asked as Mallory. “ Of course it will .”
“ I just… ” Dylan took a deep breath, looked down at her lap, and picked at her nails. “ I don’t think I’m your family’s type of people. ”
“ Exactly. ” Blair nudged Dylan’s shoulder. “ You’re sweet and unassuming and impossible to criticize. ”
Dylan laughed. “ Impossible to criticize? Mallory, I live in a one-bedroom apartment over a hardware store. Your parents own three houses. ”
“ I don’t care about any of that, ” Blair said. “ Plus, we can, I don’t know. Dress you up. It’s just for show. Ignorance is bliss, as they say. ”
Here, Dylan frowned, opened her mouth, then closed it, the hurt on her face as Eloise apparent for a split second before she covered it with a smile.
“ Right, ” she said. “ Right, of course. ”
The scene went on, Mallory excited about how to make Eloise over for the fancy boat party, and Eloise putting on a good face, clearly telling herself that all this was fine. Ramona found herself sucked into the scene, transfixed by how Eloise and Mallory would eventually have to be real with each other, be themselves. Blair was a perfect Mallory, but Dylan…
Dylan was magic.
Granted, Ramona was probably a little biased, knowing how much Dylan struggled with the role and how badly she wanted to do well, but still.
She was good .
And when the scene ended and Gia shouted, “Thank fuck,” and the crew laughed and clapped, Dylan’s eyes found Ramona. A smile took over her face, like a sunrise over shadowed mountains. Ramona couldn’t help but smile too, offer her a double thumbs-up. Dylan grinned even broader, then jogged down the gazebo steps, stopping just short of running into Ramona, as though her original plan had been to hug her.
Ramona’s breath caught. She took a step back.
“Knew you could do it,” she said.
Dylan shook her head. “I wasn’t so sure. But thank you. And thanks for your help. I don’t think I could’ve done it without you.”
“That’s not true at all.”
Dylan tilted her head. “I think it might be.”
Ramona didn’t know what to say, but her stomach was in knots, nervous and fluttery and a bunch of other emotions she couldn’t figure out. She still hadn’t fully processed that Dylan had remembered her from eighteen years ago, albeit belatedly. It felt incredible, honestly, and April would probably chastise her for thinking so little of herself, but she didn’t think that was it. It wasn’t that the famous Dylan Monroe remembered their teenage encounter—it was that they’d somehow found themselves at Mirror Cove again after all this time. It felt magical, and, at the same time, inevitable. She didn’t dare use the word fate , but she felt lighter somehow. Lighter than she had since Dylan showed up in Clover Moon. Lighter than maybe she had in a long time.
Ramona wanted to say as much, and she opened her mouth to tell Dylan how glad she was that they’d talked about it all, when she saw her.
Noelle Yang.
She was heading straight toward them, her salt-and-pepper bob sleek and perfect, a pair of maroon-framed glasses perched on her nose. A pale person with pink hair trailed behind her—an assistant, most likely.
“Dylan, good work,” Noelle said as she reached them.
“Thanks, Noelle,” Dylan said.
Ramona just stared. She knew her mouth was hanging open— Noelle Yang was five feet away from her —but she couldn’t seem to close it. The designer was gorgeous, yet unassuming and practical. She was stylish and simple and perfect.
“I need your apron,” Noelle said. “Vee here needs to clean it and then splatter it again for the diner scene tomorrow.”
“Right, yeah,” Dylan said, untying her apron.
“And don’t leave set in those clothes again,” Noelle said, waving at Dylan’s blouse and shorts.
“Sorry,” Dylan said.
“No worries. Just get them back to wardrobe ASAP.” Noelle’s eyes flicked to Ramona. “Cute dress,” she said, and then turned and walked away as Vee held out their hand for the apron.
Ramona stood there, agog, the words thank you arriving on her tongue far too late. Still, she shouted them after Noelle, so loudly and awkwardly Vee literally startled, and Noelle didn’t seem to hear Ramona anyway, her black-clad form already swallowed up by the crew.
“So,” Dylan said once Vee had left with the apron. “What’s on that normal-person list of yours?”
Ramona blinked at her, her processing time sluggish as she tried to remember what Dylan was talking about, what day it was, and how to spell her own name.
“What?” she asked. Her tongue felt too large for her mouth.
“The list you made the other day at April’s tattoo shop,” Dylan said. “I think it’s time for Llama Face.”
Ramona laughed, Dylan’s joke working to clear her mind. “Llama Face is sacred.”
“I haven’t reached sacred level yet?”
“I don’t know. It’s a pretty elite level.”
Dylan pursed her mouth, nodded. “Okay. What do I need to do to reach this god tier?”
Ramona felt her cheeks warm, and she tapped her cheek. “A hole in one.”
Dylan frowned. “A hole in one?”
“Putt-Putt,” Ramona said. “You get a hole in one at Dickie’s, and I’ll invite you into the Llama Face sanctum.”
Dylan grinned and stuck out her hand. “You’ve got a deal.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Dylan said.
Ramona tilted her head back and laughed. Dickie’s Miniature Golf was about five miles outside of Clover Lake, and it was infamous for its intricate courses and wild props and animatronics. Right now, they stood at hole one, staring down three rusty red loop-the-loops in a row. Meaning, a player had to aim exactly right for the first loop, then hope and pray to the Putt-Putt gods that enough force would shove the ball onto the second and third.
“This is deranged,” Dylan said.
“It’s iconic,” Ramona said, setting her bright pink ball onto the green. She loved Dickie’s, had been coming here since she was a kid, and the best part was, most summer people had no idea it was here. They frequented the newer, flashier course near downtown with the lake view and greens without mold growing in the corners.
“Whoever created this course is cruel,” Dylan said. “They’re a cruel person.”
“And it’s a par two.”
“I don’t know what that means, but it sounds bad.”
“It probably means you won’t be seeing Llama Face anytime soon,” Ramona said.
Dylan narrowed her eyes. “Oh, so you’re in cahoots with this cruel creator of impossible Putt-Putt courses.”
Ramona just smiled. “Cahoots with Dickie? No. But I might’ve thought about how I usually take six or seven strokes on these courses to get the ball in the hole when I made the Llama Face deal.”
Dylan flattened her mouth. “I will get a hole in one.”
“No one has ever gotten a hole in one at Dickie’s. Except maybe Dickie himself.”
Dylan groaned as Ramona lined up her shot. “At least tell me about Llama Face.”
Ramona swung her club, smacking the ball into the first loop hard enough that it followed the correct path, but then veered off to the right instead of zooming onto the next loop.
“Damn,” she said.
“Okay, if I can get my ball onto the second loop, you tell me about Llama Face,” Dylan said, setting her purple ball on the ground.
“It’s not that thrilling of a story.”
“Deal?” Dylan said, lifting a brow.
Ramona laughed. “Fine.”
“Excellent.”
“But you’ve never even played Putt-Putt before, so I think I’m safe.”
Dylan ignored her, lining up her putter with the ball, studying the loops with narrowed eyes. She was very patient. Very…very…patient.
“Wow, you really want that story,” Ramona said.
“I want the Llama Face.” Dylan glanced up, eyes meeting Ramona’s, a wry smile on her face.
Something happened in Ramona’s stomach then—a low flutter. Too fluttery to be ignored and too low to be chalked up to nerves.
“Guess we’ll see,” Ramona said.
“Guess we will,” Dylan said, then went back to her very focused analysis of the hole.
Ramona watched her, amused and intrigued. And when Dylan hit the ball and it made it onto the second loop—though not the third as it veered off to the left—Ramona groaned dramatically.
“Baby steps,” Dylan said, then leaned on her club. “Story please.”
Ramona sighed. “April used to be scared of llamas.”
Dylan blinked. “Scared. Of llamas.”
Ramona nodded.
“Do you have a lot of llamas ’round these here parts?” She put on an affected Southern accent.
“No,” Ramona said through a laugh. “But we took a field trip to a farm in the fifth grade that had llamas, and April said they looked like alien goats and they freaked her out, especially when they opened their mouths and made noises and stuff.”
“Opened their mouths,” Dylan deadpanned.
“So on the bus on the way back, I offered her some exposure therapy.”
“With a llama face.”
“Naturally,” Ramona said, smirking. “It worked too. She is no longer llama-phobic.”
“There’s got to be an official word for that.”
“We’ll look it up.”
Dylan pursed her mouth, watching Ramona intently.
Ramona widened her eyes as if to say, What?
“I need Llama Face, Ramona.”
“You’ll live,” Ramona said, lining up her club with her ball.
“I need it. Like air.”
“You’re breathing just fine.”
“It’s integral to my creative process for Eloise. Is it like this?” Dylan stretched her mouth open, top lip going one way, bottom going another. It was horrific and ridiculously cute.
Ramona swallowed her laugh, trying to remain stern. “Eloise would never be so uncouth.”
“She would be if she was sweet as honey whiskey pie and trying to cure her BFF’s llama phobia.”
Ramona cracked then, laughing and giving up focusing on her shot. She straightened up, then leaned on her club as she looked at Dylan, who was so adorable in her begging, Ramona couldn’t keep the smile off her face.
“Okay, maybe we can figure out a new deal,” she said. “But I—”
She cut herself off when she saw some other Dickie’s patrons a few holes ahead of them, a group of four. They were young, maybe college aged, and they were aiming their phones in their direction.
Well, in Dylan’s direction.
“What is it?” Dylan asked, then turned to follow Ramona’s line of sight, her smile dropping when she saw the oglers. “Ah, shit.”
“It’s fine,” Ramona said. “They’re just kids.”
“Yeah, armed with these little computers that connect them to every single person around the globe.” Dylan’s jaw was tight as she turned back, her cheeks a little red. “Let’s just play.”
“You sure?” Ramona asked.
Dylan nodded. “This is my life. If I let every single asshole with a phone keep me from doing what I wanted, I’d never leave my house.”
“I’m sorry. I thought Dickie’s would be safer.”
Dylan met her eyes then, her expression going soft. “It is. It’s as safe as it can get.” She waved her hands around to the otherwise empty golf course. “I’m still determined to see Llama Face.”
Ramona smiled, nearly giving in right then and offering it up, but she had to admit, she liked this push and pull. This…flirting.
Because she was pretty sure that’s what they were doing. Granted, other than with Logan, whose flirting strategy consisted of so you wanna get outta here and take your shirt off , she hadn’t flirted with anyone in a while.
“Okay, hotshot,” Ramona said. “Let’s see what you got.”
“Hotshot?”
“I live with my father,” Ramona said. “Cut me some slack.”
Dylan laughed, and then they played. They made terrible shots and got several holes in eight and holes in nine, but no holes in one as they made their way through the course, battling haunted windmills with moldering ghosts popping out of the rotating arms and clowns scarier than Pennywise, aiming at their gaping red mouths.
By the time they reached hole fifteen, Ramona’s stomach was sore from laughing and the college kids were gone.
“This is it, I can feel it,” Dylan said, wiggling her hips as she set up her shot. “A hole in fucking one.”
“Dream on, Dylan Monroe.”
Dylan stuck out her tongue but smiled, then eyed the giant plastic orange cat on the green, through whose animatronic paws she had to hit the ball. “Okay, I can do—”
“Dylan, who’s your friend?”
Dylan froze, and when Ramona turned toward the deep voice just outside the course’s peeling-paint fence, a flash went off in front of her face, momentarily whiting out her vision.
“Who are—” she started, but the flash ignited again, and she put up her hand instinctively.
“Dylan, come on, give us a name,” the man said. He wore a maroon Dr Pepper T-shirt and sunglasses, and as he angled the camera for another shot, a second car rolled into the parking lot, spitting out a woman with frizzy blond hair and a green bomber jacket.
“Dylan, over here,” she said, jogging toward the fence.
It took Ramona a second to realize they were paparazzi—actual, real paparazzi—and those college kids had probably called someone for ten bucks or free pizza or something else completely pathetic.
“Fuck,” Dylan said under her breath. “We need to go.”
“Yeah, okay,” Ramona said, still dazed, and headed toward the gap in the fence that emptied into the parking lot.
“Not that way,” Dylan said, grabbing her hand and pulling her away from the cameras.
“Right, sorry,” Ramona said, but the flashes kept going, and Dylan’s hand kept holding hers, the paparazzi’s voices still pummeling them with questions.
“Who is she?”
“What’s her name?”
“Are you two dating?”
“How did you two meet?”
Dylan answered none of them, just headed toward the wooden building that held the run-down arcade full of games from the seventies and eighties. As they climbed the steps, Dickie came out on the porch.
“Oh, no,” Ramona said, but a smile tipped her mouth upward.
“What?” Dylan asked as they ran past Dickie, who was a famous get off my lawn sort with anyone who didn’t pay a fee.
“Hey, jackasses,” his cranky voice called. He stuck his hands in his cargo pants’ pockets, rolled back on his heels. “You got exactly five seconds to either pay for eighteen holes or get the fuck off my land.”
The paparazzi ignored him, still clicking away as Dylan and Ramona ran inside the building. Ramona looked back to see Dickie take out his flip phone, gnarled fingers poised to dial. “One…two…”
“God bless Dickie…what’s his last name?” Dylan asked as they shot out of the front entrance and toward Ramona’s car in the corner of the parking lot.
“I don’t think he has one,” Ramona said, laughing as the paparazzi spotted them and aimed their cameras in their direction. They threw themselves in the car, tires squealing as Ramona reversed. She slowed down on the way out though, giving Dylan plenty of time to present both of her middle fingers at the photographers as they drove away.
Dylan sighed once they were safely out of view and on the road back to town, head flopping against the headrest. “I’m so sorry that happened.”
“It’s not your fault,” Ramona said. “I’m sorry—I know you don’t like showing up on the gossip sites.”
Dylan sighed, angled her head toward Ramona. “I’m not sorry for me. I’m sorry for you.”
Ramona frowned, her hand tightening on the wheel. “What do you—”
Who’s your friend?
Are you two dating?
“Oh,” she said.
“Yeah,” Dylan said. “Oh.”