Chapter 38
Chapter
Thirty-Eight
“Well, don’t you look delicious.”
Angelica stopped short as she stepped out into the hallway from the makeup and dressing area that Ansel worked in. Hope stared back at her with a definite smirk on her lips and twinkle in her eye. She took Angelica’s hand and lifted it above her head, spinning her in a circle.
“You look good yourself,” Angelica answered, eyeing Hope’s outfit up and down.
They were both in traditional Bavarian garb, a white underdress with a corseted top and overskirt that flared out at their waists.
Hope’s was a deep forest green that brought out all the golden hues in her skin and hair, which was still short against her head.
Angelica was glad Ansel had decided against trying to braid it in some way, because she loved the way Hope wore her hair now.
Angelica, however, hadn’t been given that grace.
Ansel had spent the last hour braiding her hair and twisting it on top of her head like a crown.
She wasn’t entirely sure how he’d managed it, but he had, and it looked rather good if she did say so herself.
And unlike Hope’s green dress, hers was a deep royal blue that brought out her eyes.
“We’re quite a pair,” Hope murmured, moving in and kissing Angelica quickly.
Ansel stepped out and clucked his tongue at them. “I chose the same lip color for that very reason.”
“Did you really?” Angelica turned sharply.
Ansel shrugged before sauntering off. “Don’t mess up your hair too early in the night. I’m going to bed, and I’m not waking up to fix it.”
Angelica snorted, and Hope just shook her head in disbelief.
“Lyric and Cadence are waiting in the car.” Angelica pointed toward the front of the hotel.
No matter what, she still wasn’t ready for tonight.
She’d spent most of the afternoon buried in research for Hope’s idea, and while spending some time out of the hotel sounded like a brilliant idea, she still wasn’t ready to spend the time in crowds.
By the time they arrived, Angelica’s nerves were worse. She gripped onto Hope’s hand, not able to let go. Going into crowds like this wasn’t something she enjoyed doing—ever. But she could see how Hope would absolutely love this.
Lyric dropped them off nearby with Cadence, not a word exchanged between the two, and then drove off. Angelica frowned and leaned in as close as she could get to Hope. “Is there something going on between them?”
Hope bit her lip, looking at Cadence, who had her face buried behind a handheld camera and wasn’t paying a lick of attention to the two of them. “No idea.”
“Lyric’s been acting…odd.”
“I’ll keep my eye out.” Hope straightened up. “Come on. I owe you a beer, I believe.”
“More like three,” Angelica replied quickly.
“I’ll buy you three. We’ll just start with one at a time.” Hope dragged Angelica toward a small tent that had pints for sale.
As soon as Angelica had the first one in her hand, she lifted the glass stein to her lips and took a long sip.
Humming, she closed her eyes as the flavor of the beer hit her tongue and then settled in her belly.
God, she’d needed this. She’d needed it weeks ago.
When she’d been called back to Los Angeles.
When Christian had texted that their mother had died.
God, just a break, at any point, would have been welcome. And this wasn’t how she’d anticipated having one. Not with Cadence standing feet away from them with a camera in her hand and Lyric somewhere close by ready to do the same.
When she lowered the mug of beer, Hope reached forward and brushed her thumb across Angelica’s upper lip before wrapping her lips around it. She raised her eyebrows as she slowly pulled her thumb out of her mouth.
“You always do taste good,” Hope said.
“Fuck,” Angelica whispered. “What the hell are we doing here?”
“Showing the world who we are as a couple,” Hope answered. “I believe it was your idea?”
“That was a stupid idea.” Angelica clenched the stein in her hand tightly as arousal washed through her just like that beer had. God, if this was what Hope’s plan was for the evening, then she was going to be flat-out screwed.
“I think it was the best idea we’ve had in a while.” Hope wrapped her arm in Angelica’s and walked away from the beer and back toward the rest of the event. Tents were set up along the cobblestoned street, each serving one kind of food or drink.
Lights were strung above their heads, making it so that they could easily see where they were going from one place to the next.
Angelica looked over her shoulder to find Lyric had finally joined them.
But again, the silence between Cadence and Lyric was way too out of place.
Normally, the two of them chatted nonstop.
But this silence was unnerving.
“Ignore them,” Hope whispered, wrapping an arm around Angelica’s back.
“It’s hard to ignore two women ignoring each other as they follow us around.”
Hope chuckled. “Fair.”
“Logan said the first journalist will meet us at the pretzel place,” Cadence said loudly, as if announcing it to anyone who was willing to listen. As if this was supposed to propel them to move in a certain direction.
“I think that’s this way,” Lyric chimed in, leading the way.
Angelica followed dutifully. This was what she paid Lyric for anyway, so why not? Hope kept their arms wrapped together as they walked side by side. Angelica took another long sip of her beer, enjoying every sip she was going to get.
“You will get me another beer, right?” Angelica asked.
“Of course.” Hope smiled. “You realize this is probably our first proper date.”
“What? No.” Angelica wrinkled her nose. “We’ve been on plenty of dates.”
“No, we’ve spent the night together many times, but in terms of actually going out together as a couple? We haven’t actually done that.”
They had. Hadn’t they? Angelica racked her brain, trying to come up with at least one actual date that they had set up and gone on, but she couldn’t honestly remember one.
Everything they’d done together had been unplanned, and it was most often also work conversations rather than simply conversations about them and their relationship.
“Fine, you win that one,” Angelica murmured, still not quite ready to give up. But again, going out after a long day of work and making everything a big to-do wasn’t something she often wanted to do.
“I’ll give you the break that for most of the work break from filming Hotel Bombshell we weren’t exactly in the same country.” Hope bumped their shoulders together.
“Here we are,” Lyric said.
They stilled in front of another small tent that had beautifully baked Bavarian pretzels. Angelica’s eyes locked on them instantly. She turned toward Hope. “Those look delicious.”
“We can get you one.”
Angelica’s stomach rumbled.
Hope laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes, then.”
“Here she is!” Cadence rolled her shoulders as she faced a woman and a man standing together.
Angelica paused. Their setup was a camera and a handheld fluffy microphone thing, like one of those that an influencer would have, not an actual journalist. Who the hell had they set up to meet with them?
She probably should have insisted on having a bit more control over that when they’d discussed these plans.
She noted that for future situations like this. Retain control and power.
“I’m Melodee, and this is my brother Roman. We run a YouTube channel all about travel.”
“Oh.” Angelica blinked.
“Since you two travel a lot and we happened to be in the same place as you this week, it seemed to be kismet that we would run into you and be allowed to interview you.” Melodee grinned awkwardly.
She was nervous. Angelica clocked that a mile away, but she wasn’t the person in this couple who could easily make others comfortable. Hope stepped forward and held out her hand. “I’m Hope.”
“And I’m Angelica,” she said, following Hope’s lead. Her head spun a little, making her feel like she was floating for a second before she settled back down. “It’s good to meet you,” she added.
“You too! I’m a huge fan of Hotel Bombshell.” Melodee winced, her cheeks reddened.
“Good to know a fan,” Hope chimed in, thankfully taking the response that Angelica never would have come up with.
They really were such a good team. Cadence set up the camera and nodded to them. “We’re ready whenever you are boss.”
“Oh right.” Melodee winced again. “Do you mind if I just interview you right here? The backdrop is amazing.”
“Sure.” Hope wrapped their fingers together tightly.
Angelica lifted the stein to her lips, taking another sip. She could enjoy herself. This was work, but it was enough like a date that she wanted to be able to enjoy what little time they had away.
“I’m here with Chef Hope Lawrence and Angelica Shields, a step away from where they’re filming for the fourth season of Hotel Bombshell, a show that I’ve absolutely fallen in love with like so many other people out there in the world.
” Melodee giggled slightly as she looked at the camera her brother stood behind.
“I just wanted to ask you a few questions, ones that I’ve been dying to ask you from the start. ”
“Well, shoot.” Hope laughed lightly, already making this way easier than Angelica would.
“Okay, umm, so hi.” Melodee shifted her gaze from Hope to Angelica. “And yes, if anyone out there is wondering, Ange’s Icy Fairy look is even worse in person than it is on the screen.”
“My Ice Fairy look?” Angelica raised an eyebrow at Melodee and then looked directly at Hope. “I don’t—”
“You do,” Hope interrupted, moving in and kissing Angelica on the cheek quickly. “But I love that look.”
Angelica narrowed her gaze at Hope before she focused back on Melodee. “What question did you have?”
“Oh, um…” Melodee rubbed her lips together nervously, holding the small fluffy microphone in front of her mouth. “When did you know that you were in love?”
Angelica stilled. She hadn’t expected that question tonight, and she certainly hadn’t expected it to be the first one. Then again, she’d been surprised more than she cared to admit since they started filming this season.
“I knew I was in love right around the time you were in that car accident,” Hope said, her tone sobering slightly.
“And I hate that it took me that long to figure it out.” Hope turned to Angelica, lifting her hand to kiss her knuckles.
“It wasn’t the accident itself that did it.
I knew before then, but it was right about that time. ”
Hope had never told her that before. Then again, this wasn’t exactly something that would come up naturally in conversation with each other either. It was something that would need to be asked.
“And what about you, Ange?” Melodee held the microphone in front of her.
But what was she supposed to say in response to that?
Because when she figured out that she was in love with Hope was well before the divorce.
Hell, it was before they’d really even dived into any kind of relationship.
She’d tricked herself into thinking it was nothing more than lust, or wanting someone she couldn’t have, or being tempted by the taboo aspect of a relationship, but it wasn’t that.
It had never been that.
Angelica finished her first beer and held the stein down at her side.
“The first time I knew there was something special about Hope was the first time we met, which yes, I realize takes this way back when. But when we met right before we started filming season one, there was a moment of instant connection, something that helped us click. I think that’s why the show became such a success, honestly.
There were three people in line for the job before Hope.
” Angelica focused on Melodee for that last bit. “None of them worked out in the end.”
Hope was unnaturally still next to her.
“But the first time that I knew I was in love with her?” Angelica repeated the question, knowing that oftentimes that would help for sound bites, not just for Melodee but also for Cadence.
“The first time that I knew I loved her was when we were in the mountains, dancing under the fairy lights to a band that I can’t even remember the name of if I ever knew who they were. ”
“Honey Hole,” Hope murmured.
“Oh, did you look them up?” Angelica asked.
“I bought all their albums.”
Angelica’s lips curled upward at that. “It was that night. We weren’t supposed to be out there, but we snuck away for a few hours and found ourselves on the edges of downtown, and you asked me to dance with you.”
Hope’s cheeks reddened. “That’s a much better answer than mine.”
Angelica snorted lightly before focusing back on Melodee.
It felt so good to share that, publicly, openly, to actually be able to talk about their relationship like it was a real thing and not something that shouldn’t ever see the light of day.
Because love was something that should be celebrated.
Every second of every day. “I’ve loved her for a long time, but with everything going on in her life and mine, we wanted to take our relationship slowly and make sure that we didn’t repeat past mistakes. ”
“That sounds fair.” Melodee smiled, looking between the two of them. “Well, that’s my one question.”
“One?” Angelica asked.
“Yeah, I only ask one.” Melodee put the microphone away. “Thank you so much!” She held out her hand to shake again.
And then she was gone. Angelica looked directly at Hope and shook her head. “That was not what I expected.”
“Me either. You really knew in Estes Park?” Hope bit her lip nervously.
“I did. Could I have named it then? Absolutely not. But thinking about it, that was the moment that came to mind when everything changed.” Angelica squeezed Hope’s fingers. “Come on, you promised me three beers tonight, and I plan on holding you to that.”