Chapter Ten
Our follower count has cracked one hundred thousand since the live, and it’s still climbing.
I need it to climb much, much faster if we’re going to hit three hundred thousand.
I spend an inordinate amount of time reading comments from the various social apps in bed on Sunday morning—lots of heart emojis, lots of exclamation marks and tagging of friends beckoning them with “you have to see this”—marveling at how well James and I pulled this off.
It feels a little heady, a little magical.
Dark magic, maybe, because if I think about it too hard—the live, the kiss —my stomach churns.
We decided to argue about what came naturally to our project and to us: the various merits and marks against The Meadow.
It was supposed to be an act, our quarreling, but when James declared, “I think the series could have benefited from a different ending,” my righteous indignation flared to the surface.
“Oh my god, ” I said, throwing down our fake note cards.
“You can’t be serious.” And even though the live was going and we were supposed to be playing our roles, I squinted at him, trying to decide if he believed what he said or if he was just trying to rile me up for the camera.
“You are serious,” I said when I couldn’t find even the smallest flicker of amusement in his eyes.
“Do not tell me you’re one of those guys who thinks there should have been this epic battle or something. ”
“It’s called emotional payoff,” James retorted, his mouth quirking ever so slightly at my real outrage. “There wasn’t any. There’s supposed to be a dark night of the soul before the triumphant end, and there wasn’t one.”
“Was, too,” I argued. “They worried about their family and—”
“Fine.” James held up his hands. “A twilight of the soul. I’ll give you that. But without the total darkness, it hardly qualifies.”
“Just because there weren’t explosions and swords doesn’t mean it wasn’t emotionally satisfactory,” I said, rising to my knees as if I could intimidate James into abandoning his incorrect stance.
“And see, that’s why everyone who loves the Meadow series gets so irritated with criticism, because it’s not supposed to look like a hero’s journey because it’s not.
It’s a heroine’s journey. It’s about a girl who falls in love and will do anything to protect that love and sometimes protecting love looks more like a peaceful agreement than it does Game of Thrones World of War God of Thunder. ”
“Now, there’s a series that would definitely end with a dark night of the soul.”
James was smiling with his entire face at my fury, and even though we were supposed to be building to this, I was actually irritated at his opinion.
I climbed to my feet. Not just because it was planned, not just because we were supposed to tumble offscreen any second and make sure we moved close enough to the camera for it to pick up the sounds of us fake-kissing, but I stood to try to displace the aggravation in my throat.
“You know,” I said, “this is typical. This is why The Meadow has to keep coming back time and time again. It’s not just that it’s a story that so many people love, but it’s also because we have to continually defend our right as people to have different kinds of stories.
And just because it’s mostly loved by girls or women does not make it inherently wrong or worse or poorly plotted.
Not everything has to be for you. Not everything has to end in a Spartan battle or with a head on a stick. ”
James looked up at me and even though he wasn’t beaming anymore, the smile was still tucked into the corner of his lips.
“Fair enough, Arabella,” he said, his tone sardonic. He lifted his hand as if asking for help to his feet. “For the record, I never said anything about a battle, just that from a technical standpoint, I think the ending could have used more consideration.”
“Well, William, ” I said, grabbing his hand. “Good to see you are living up to your reputation of having archaic views.”
I moved to pull James to his feet, but he pulled on my hand at the same time and instead of James rising, I tumbled, pulled off kilter and into his lap so neatly, it was like we had choreographed it—like maybe he had.
But no, when our eyes met, we were both wide-eyed and startled to find ourselves this close.
My foot was smarting where it had hit the tripod, which tumbled on its side.
From my vantage point in James’s lap, I could see that only our lower legs were visible on the screen, my flats draped over his knee and his leather sneakers gleaming in the sun.
It was the perfect opportunity to carry out our plan. I expected to see James looking smug—because he really must have planned it this way—but instead his breath came out in little puffs that I could feel on my cheek.
“I think—”
But we would never know what I was thinking, because James leaned forward and held my face firmly between his hands and kissed me.
Really kissed me.
Whatever magic was left in the world, it felt like it had been concentrated into an elixir that James used as cologne.
His smell was everywhere as his lips, soft and urgent against mine, continued to rattle what was left of my senses.
Gone were the lists, the concerns, the argument: My brain could think of nothing but the goosebumps rising on my arms and back.
So this is what they were writing about, my brain mused from beneath its stupor of endorphins. This is what the books were trying to say.
James moved a hand to the back of my head, pulling me closer with a groan as he angled his mouth in new and luxurious ways that made every hair follicle on my body stand at attention.
I tried to wriggle closer to him, to move my legs in such a way that they weren’t a barrier between us, but instead I felt something firm press against my butt that hadn’t been there just a minute ago and—
It’s impressive how quickly I managed to scramble from his lap to get to my phone and end the stream.
“Good job,” I told James after I double- and triple-checked the live was ended. “I…” I couldn’t catch my breath. My lungs were half the size they were yesterday. I inhaled deeply. “I bet that convinced them.”
James was already on his feet, his expression carefully neutral as he watched me busily pack away the supplies.
“I’m sure it did,” he said. “We play well together.”
There was something buried in his words, but I was too bewildered and kiss-drunk to find it.
And maybe I was supposed to ask, maybe he wanted me to dig, because I haven’t heard from him since yesterday after a perfectly cordial lunch and a perfectly cordial drop-off in which he said goodbye to Dad and didn’t so much as glance at my lips.
So naturally I’m distracting myself from checking my phone for texts from him by…looking at my phone.
A cursory Google search reveals articles in the low-level celebrity gossip sites with headlines like James Neely Sets Aside Superhero Cape for Audiobook Series …and Love and Lily Newman-Smith’s Old Flame Makes New Sparks .
I click through a few, but they seem mostly bot-generated with information about me pulled from my old podcast website accompanied by screenshots from our live.
In high school, I spent an inordinate amount of time considering how I would behave if I was “discovered” (for what, I have no idea) or dated someone super famous. I blame the self-insert fanfictions that were popular at the time.
What I settled on after much consideration was that I would ignore it and do my best to go about life like nothing had changed. It felt very grown-up, very mature to be resolute in my imaginative life in which I ended up dating a world-famous musician or actor or Internet personality.
But James isn’t a movie star, not really. I’m more interested in how the articles talk about him. He is subjected to the same commentary as me, a quick rundown of his professional life and the obligatory nod to his relationship with Lily Newman-Smith to justify the leading article titles.
It’s a bit ridiculous how right James was to pull this stunt. The gossip sites are eager for any fodder, and most seem more interested that James’s relationship with me wasn’t meant to be revealed than in the relationship itself.
I’m looking at a screenshot—from the final moment of the live where my face is fully in view of the camera as my arm reaches forward to shut it down—when I decide to fold and call James.
The phone barely finishes its first ring before he answers.
“What?” James says, his voice angry and tired. “What could you possibly want to discuss now?”
It’s said with such strained vitriol, it shocks the words straight from my head, leaving me mouth open and breathing like a fish out of water.
“ What do you want, Dad? ” James continues like the silence is a personal attack. “If you think this has anything to do with you, you are sorely mistaken. It’s none of your business who I date or don’t date. And if you so much as—”
“James,” I interrupt, forcing myself to speak. “It’s me.”
A pause.
A long one.
Infinite.
“Juniper.”
He sounds relieved, but my body is still on high alert, my cortisol levels through the roof, so I babble out an apology.
“I should have said sooner,” I say. “I just assumed you saw my name on the phone and thought…I thought maybe you…”
“I’m sorry,” James says, and there’s no anger left in his tone and I wonder at how hard it was to erase it that quickly. Maybe it’s easier for actors. Maybe they’re used to performing emotions on cue, and it bleeds into their real lives in the form of superhuman control.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he says. “I didn’t even see the phone number. I just assumed…I’m sorry you had to hear that.”
My heart is still beating too fast to allow me to slow down and choose my words carefully.