Chapter 15 #2
I waved a hand in the air. “Oh, they appreciate me. It’s not their fault that I can be a handful sometimes. And by handful I mean an infuriating yet lovable chaos demon who flits from project to project and never actually follows through on anything and then needs to be bailed out of trouble.”
Because it wasn’t that I didn’t have goals. They were just too unwieldy, too large to grasp easily. And it was much easier to give up on them than to keep trying.
“You followed through on the Duke of Harding,” Dash pointed out.
“There’s hope for me yet, I guess.” And Dash had been there alongside me the whole time, keeping me on track and from crashing into poles every time I got distracted.
“I love that for me. Dash, you don’t have to worry about Yaz.
She’s not this mean, demanding monster and I’m sorry if I’ve been making her sound that way.
She’s a marshmallow, and she’s going to love you. I know that for a fact.”
“You do, huh?”
Dash’s smile didn’t look quite as easy as it always did. I buried my face into the crook of his neck, trying to coax the tension out of him. Or to convince him, I guess, that everything was fine and it would stay fine.
“Don’t forget, I’m about to be besties with a bona fide psychic. I had Aria read our cards. The stars are all aligned, the universe is on our side, and the cards say…”
It was meant to be a brief pause, partly to build anticipation and partly because my brain hadn’t yet caught up with my mouth and I hadn’t actually asked Aria to read my cards after that one day.
But then Dash pulled back far enough to look me in the eye. “What do the cards say?”
The ace of cups card I had tucked into my mirror frame flashed into my mind’s eye. I forced myself to smile. “The cards say, ‘Don’t worry, be happy.’ ”
Dash looked mildly disappointed. And it wasn’t like I’d been expecting to be hit with a hair flip and eye twinkles and a slowly broadening leading man smile, but his expression went directly to the knot that was forming in center of my chest. “Mariel, I—”
I sat up straight and placed a hand on Dash’s arm. “Look, I’ll have Aria read your cards, too, if it’ll make you feel any better. Though I already know what they’ll say.”
“Oh yeah?”
I nodded. “You are destined for great things. All you have to do is believe in yourself—and the short, curvy stranger you’ve already met.”
Dash let out a laugh that sounded a little bit like surrender. Or maybe resignation. I didn’t really get a chance to find out which it was, because my phone buzzed just then with an emailed query about whether Dash was interested in doing an appearance at a screening of Kate & Leopold.
I read it out loud to Dash, who gave me a quizzical glance.
“Dash. Dash.” I scrambled up onto my knees so that my head was roughly at the same level as his, and I planted both hands on his shoulders.
“Kate & Leopold—a.k.a. the movie where Hugh Jackman plays this nineteenth-century guy who gets transported to present-day New York City. Well, present day as in more than twenty years ago, but you know. Close enough. We have to do it, right? Opportunities like this don’t come around every day.
It’ll be good practice for the Georgie Hart ball next month. ”
He looked at me for a couple of seconds, then shrugged. “Why not?”
“Could you be any more enthusiastic?” I said in my best Chandler Bing impression, already starting to tap out a reply.
My fingers were flying over the screen, and I was so focused I barely noticed when Dash got up from the couch and padded over to the fridge for a couple cans of sparkling water.
I took the one he passed me and hugged it to my midsection, enjoying its coolness as I babbled about how I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought about doing live appearances and wouldn’t that have been a huge missed opportunity?
I made a mental note to ask Chase if he wanted to explore the possibility of dancing at bachelorette parties as Lord Loving.
“Also,” I added, now on a roll, “how do you feel about doing personalized videos? I think we could charge a good amount for those. Not steamy ones necessarily, but like birthday messages or whatever? Like celebrities do on Cameo.”
“Sure.” Dash took a swig from his sparkling water.
After all that, we still had comments to reply to and fresh teasers to upload and new scripts to record.
Just hearing Dash murmur sweet little nothings into the camera was enough to make every single thought flee my head and leave behind only floating stars and twittering birds, so it wasn’t until we ended up in his bed at the end of the day that I remembered that he had been trying to tell me something before we’d gotten interrupted by the email.
I snuggled in closer to him and buried my face in his neck. “Mmm, you smell like a cinnamon brown sugar oat milk latte.”
“Shocking, considering I had my evening latte with almond milk.”
“Blasphemy,” I said, wrinkling my nose.
Dash turned in my arms, his smile almost back to normal. “The almond milk or the fact that I have evening lattes?”
“Both.” I kissed the juncture of his neck and shoulder.
And look, I would’ve been happy to leave things there.
But try as I might, I couldn’t completely ignore the awkwardness from that afternoon.
So I took a surreptitious deep breath and asked, “By the way… Was there something you were going to tell me earlier?”
A beat went by, then I felt Dash’s shoulder rise into a shrug. “Don’t worry about it.”
And yeah, I did breathe a sigh of relief.
It was getting harder and harder to postpone the talk we were more than overdue for—you know, the where is this going, who are we to each other talk.
But if that day had proved anything, it was that we were on the verge of hitting it big.
We’d worked so hard to get here. I couldn’t let things go sideways just because one of us was getting a little sentimental.
I gave Dash one last kiss and put my undies back on. And then I walked home, trying to pretend like apprehension wasn’t following me the whole way there.
INT. THE DUKE’S DRAWING ROOM—NIGHT
A candle burns on the table, next to a discarded pearl necklace, an unfolded cravat, and two wineglasses.
The sound of a crackling fire can be heard.
The DUKE OF HARDING sprawls in the armchair, wearing only a pair of trousers.
His hair is a mess, as if someone has been raking their fingers through it.
THE DUKE OF HARDING (gazing intently at the camera)
We shouldn’t be here, you know. We shouldn’t do this again.
I shouldn’t call you my darling, or trail my fingers down your neck, or wonder what those lips of yours taste like.
I know all that, and yet I can’t help myself.
I can’t help the longing that comes over me whenever I catch a glimpse of you in another room.
Earlier, when we danced at Lady Ashdown’s ball, I thought I would expire on the spot if one more second went by without touching your skin.
The way you gasped when I slid a fingertip inside the wrist of your glove…
The way your cheeks flushed and your rosebud of a mouth parted…
Come here, my darling. Let me touch you. Let me taste you. Let me make you mine.