Chapter 22
A full week of exchanging emails with Grace went by before she suggested me coming out to Los Angeles instead of waiting for her to return to New York.
I’d had a virtual meeting with her agent, who was interested in representing me, another one with Grace’s producer friend, and who knew?
Maybe L.A. was where I needed to be right now.
Not a pivot, but a clean slate. A fresh start away from New York and all its ghosts.
My share of the Duke of Harding proceeds was enough that I could afford the plane ticket and a week’s stay and also pay my rent.
The steady stream of viewers and subscribers had become a deluge after Lady Cerulean’s livestream and even though Dash and I hadn’t seen each other in person after meeting in Second Chance, we were back to collaborating on multiple scripts per week, enough to update Fling and OnlyFans with new videos every couple of days.
Even though the Google Docs were sadly devoid of flirtatious comments these days, things were going surprisingly well.
We had a publicist now, and partnerships with brands, and a producer of romantic audio had reached out to ask us to pitch him a new project.
Best of all, we had a fandom. Like, for real.
The self-named Hardies were going hard (heh), writing fan fiction about the Duke and making fan art and edits and tagging us in requests to do a meet and greet at Fling’s annual romance con.
We’d even gotten duetted by other creators in Regency costumes.
Being the inspiration behind such a thriving community was more than I’d ever even dared to hope for and not being able to squeal over it with Dash did feel kinda like a thorn in a bouquet of roses.
A crisp breeze was coming in through my open window as I finished zipping up my suitcase and rolled it to the door.
With only three and a half hours until my flight, I should have probably started heading out.
Instead, I leaned against my counter and thought about how Dash was probably on his way to the premiere of the Georgie Hart series, in the fancy new Duke of Harding evening wear we’d ordered when we thought we’d be going together.
My own dress had arrived a couple of days before, and I hadn’t even opened the package before shoving it deep under the mess in my closet.
I must have had some kind of masochistic streak, because I opened up my Fling app and checked the updates Dash was posting on the Duke of Harding account. He was at the ball—with Lady Cerulean on his arm.
Something like bittersweetness kindled inside my chest as I scrolled through Dash’s clips and pictures and thought of how incomprehensibly spectacular it was that in the course of three months, we had gone from me being chased by people wanting to believe I was Lady Cerulean to Dash attending the premiere of a streaming series with the real deal as his guest.
He was handsome in dark blue, as at ease in the spotlight when it involved dozens of cameras pointed at him as when it was just the two of us in his spare room. Lady Cerulean was also in blue, her Regency costume embellished with what looked like tiny feathers and beads.
I went into the premiere’s hashtag, telling myself I just wanted to see a detail shot of her star-shaped necklace. There were more clips of the two of them than of the show’s actual cast—understandable, seeing as how the two of them shimmered and sparkled with a light all their own.
The bright sting of tears prickled at my eyes. They were proud tears, I guess, if not entirely happy ones. Dash and I had come so far. We’d flown so high. And against all odds, instead of plummeting back down to earth, we were both still soaring.
My intercom chose that moment to make a rude noise. I’d have ignored it, seeing as I wasn’t expecting anyone, but the intercom went off again with a series of buzzes in quick succession that had me lunging for the receiver.
“I didn’t order anything,” I said irritably.
“Mariel, it’s Aria. Shy and I are downstairs and if you don’t buzz us up right now, I swear to all that is good in the universe that I will—fmphh!”
“As much as I really like being fmphed—” I started to say before another voice cut me off.
“Sorry, Mariel,” Shy said over Aria’s muffled protests. “Would you please let us up? We came to bring you ice cream and books, not to issue threats against your person.”
“I have serious doubts about that,” I said, but I pressed the button.
“We’ve been worried about you,” Aria said as she came inside, her Doc Martens making her look like she was stomping. Well, okay, and also the fact that she was stomping a little bit.
Shy glided in with a little less force, wearing a short-sleeved shirt in a shade of deep blue that matched the blueberries on their tote, and cradling a brown paper bag that did, in fact, contain All The Ice Cream.
They busied themself lining up the cartons on my counter—then realized my counter was way too short and started stacking them instead—and setting out the cone-shaped bowls and colored plastic spoons they’d also brought.
As for Aria, she had dropped a load of paperbacks on my bed, shoved aside the ever-present bundle of clean laundry, and was sitting there with her arms crossed, glaring at me.
Between the two of them, the parent energy was so strong that I was half-afraid they would pick up and leave.
“Where the hell have you been?” Aria asked as Shy dished out the ice cream and toppings. “And why the hell did you go radio silent on us?”
“I replied to your texts,” I said defensively.
“Lol idk is not a reply. Especially not when someone’s asking how you are.”
I took the ice cream Shy offered me and sat cross-legged on the sliver of floor in front of the bed. “I’m sorry I haven’t been better about keeping in touch.”
“We were worried about you,” Shy said, passing Aria a bowl and joining me on the floor. At the collar of their shirt was a pin shaped like a stack of pancakes smothered in syrup. “Dash told us that the two of you decided to keep things strictly professional?”
They said it with a question mark, as if they weren’t sure they’d heard right.
“Yeah,” I said, picking at a toasted coconut flake. “We should have never gotten involved in the first place.”
The noise Aria made conveyed exactly how incorrect she thought my statement was.
I pushed back a stray curl. “Look, it’s just too complicated to date someone when you’re working on a project together. Which is actually doing really well. It’d be silly for us to jeopardize everything we’ve been working toward just for—”
“For the sake of true, everlasting love?” Aria snapped. “Yeah, seems silly.”
I didn’t bother correcting her, and not just because I knew she’d argue back.
But because the word love had snagged against something inside me, like when your sweater gets caught in someone else’s bracelet and you’re momentarily brought short.
And I remembered feeling it before, when we’d been working on the window display and I’d been so full of this sense of possibility and connection and I hadn’t flailed my way out of… everything I’d ever wanted.
“Well anyway, it’s too late.”
Aria looked thoroughly unconvinced by my shrug, but she did soften a little, much like the untouched ice cream in my bowl. “Do you know why Shy named the store Second Chance?”
“Because it’s their favorite romance trope?”
Shy shook their head. “It didn’t used to be. Not until Aria and I got back together after being apart for six years.”
“You broke up for six years?”
Aria nodded. “And they were pretty good years for both of us. We dated some amazing people, got head starts in our careers, we figured out what we really wanted from our lives… and more importantly, we grew as people. So when we came across each other again, we were better equipped to be part of a mature relationship.”
“Are you trying to tell me that I should stay away from Dash for another few years?”
“No, you bonehead,” Aria said, rolling her eyes. “I’m trying to tell you that it’s never too late.”
Shy set their ice cream down. “Obviously,” they said, shooting a look at Aria, “no one can tell what’s going on in any given relationship except for the people in it.
From the outside, though, it looks like you and Dash make each other happy.
If that’s not the case, then maybe you made the right decision. ”
“But given your tendency to run when you get scared,” Aria put in, “I’d say there were some deep, unresolved issues at play.”
“I’ve been working on resolving them,” I admitted. “But I’m still scared. Not of Dash hurting me, really, not anymore. But what if I do run again? What if I hurt him?”
“Then we really will issue threats against your person,” Shy said, making me crack a smile.
Aria gestured with her spoon. “I don’t know, Mariel. People hurt each other all the time—over big stuff and little stuff. And it’s always easier to leave than to stay. But remember the new beginnings we talked about? And the ace of cups?”
I’d taken the card out of my mirror frame when I was cleaning up the apartment for Yaz’s visit, half-afraid she’d comment on it and I’d be forced to disclose yet another flail.
Which yeah, felt a little silly, given everything that had happened.
The card was still buried under several layers of socks and underwear, where I didn’t have to look at it every day and know that I had undone the tiny bit of progress Aria had managed to wring out of me.
“I’m trying not to avoid feeling my feelings anymore,” I said.
“And?” Aria prompted.
“And I hadn’t realized how scared I was to fight for the things and the people I wanted.
And I guess I’m still scared. But I’m also…
I’m supposed to be leaving for L.A. tonight.
” I checked the time on my phone. “Shit, I’m late.
I’m going to have to race to the airport and there won’t even be a declaration of love at the end of it. ”