Chapter 15
Now
“You want to know everything, huh?” I force a laugh, doing my best to downplay my discomfort at the idea of Ryder doing a deep dive on my life. “That might be hard to cover in an hour.”
“Anything I’ve missed over the past ten years. Your deepest thoughts to your pettiest grievances. Whatever pops into your head first.” He grins, all easy charm. A warm breeze ruffles his hair as he reaches for his water, condensation beading on the glass bottle.
I stall, focusing on twirling the buttery pasta noodles around my fork with painstaking precision—then proceed to shove it all down my gullet. Mmm, that’s the stuff. “My deepest thoughts are how amazing carbohydrates taste,” I say around my mouthful. “Whoever came up with zoodles belongs in jail.”
He watches me eat with a lopsided smile, sunlight catching the sharp angles of his face.
That one tooth on his bottom row is still crooked, and I’m irrationally grateful none of his advisers ever convinced him to “fix” it, or worse, replace it with a set of those nightmare-inducing veneers.
Ryder’s teeth have character. They’re a microcosm of him, really—flawed, authentic, distinctive.
They’re perfectly imperfect, just like him.
I take my time chewing and swallowing, unsettled by the direction of my thoughts. “Everything you’ve missed. You mean work-wise?”
“Sure, we can start there.” The boat rocks gently beneath us, the soft lapping of water against the sides filling the pauses between our words.
“Ten years,” I murmur. I think back, mentally skipping past our breakup and its immediate aftermath.
“The years after The Lost Letter were a whirlwind, one movie after another. They all run together a little, honestly. I shot in Vancouver, London, the Pacific Northwest. I went to Italy and Morocco. My parents said it was better than any semester abroad.” I eye him slyly and reveal my dirty little secret.
“Did you ever accept a role just because of where it was filming?”
He grins. “Diamond Hustler, South Africa. The Taming Wars, New Zealand.”
I point to my chest. “Matchstick Girls, Croatia. And Italy for Postcard from Positano.”
He casts me a sidelong look. “Did you know they offered me that role?”
I raise an eyebrow, then shovel some cornbread in my mouth to avoid answering directly.
Postcard from Positano was the second film I costarred in with Jase—the one that sparked all the “new Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks” chatter—but I know the producers originally wanted Ryder for the male lead.
Eager to capitalize on the runaway success of The Lost Letter, they pitched the film as a chance to reunite us together on-screen—only this time, giving our fans the happy ending they deserved.
I never would’ve taken the role if Ryder had been cast as my love interest—that was a red line I would not cross—and yet, my heart still broke a little all over again when I learned that he’d turned it down.
“I knew you’d never agree to costar if I accepted it,” he says, reading my mind. “And it was so perfect for you. I encouraged them to go with Jase, for what it’s worth. I wanted to get away from romances anyway.”
“Why?” I ask, genuinely curious. He was so natural as a romantic lead, so convincing as a lovestruck suitor. It didn’t feel like a performance at all, but something raw and real pulled from deep inside him. No one did yearning quite like Ryder.
“The fandom freaks me out. All the hysterical women, the Ryde or Dies, the obsessive fans…” He shakes his head.
“They take it all way too seriously. Letterheads will literally accost me in the street and demand to know why I didn’t fight harder for Melody.
They yell at me like it’s my fault. One even tried to hit me!
Which I don’t understand, by the way. Melody broke Holden’s heart and somehow I’m still the bad guy.
” He shakes his head again, balling a napkin in his fist. “To them, I am Holden. That doesn’t happen with my other roles. It’s all just too much.”
I hum. “They act like that because you’re so convincing. You did too good a job selling them the dream man. You’re the hero who launched a thousand ‘ships,’ ” I tease.
“Nah.” He runs his thumb down the side of his bottle before flicking his eyes back to mine. “I was only good because it was you.”
His gaze lingers on mine, the air between us shimmering with heat and tension.
Sunlight catches in the creases near his eyes and glints off his beard, lightening the color and turning it from ruddy to spun gold.
His eyes are a riptide, sucking me in deeper the harder I fight against them. I’ll drown if I’m not careful.
He nudges his knee lightly against mine under the table, snapping the spell between us. “And now look at you. America’s sweetheart.”
I laugh wryly. “Something like that.”
“You must enjoy it, all the romance hoopla. You’ve handled it better than me, that’s for sure.”
I shrug. “It’s more that I understand it.
Life is hard, you know? The world is full of suffering and disappointment and loneliness.
Rom-coms give people hope, an excuse to laugh and forget the hardships of their lives for a few hours, and you know what?
I’m damn proud of that. How many people can say it’s their job to make people happy?
” I’m on a roll now, brimming with the collective indignation of a perpetually scorned, misunderstood audience.
“And what’s so wrong with a happy ending, anyway?
I reject the idea that a story is more meaningful because it’s sad. ”
He blinks at me, a forkful of risotto frozen halfway to his lips. I think I’ve scared him. “Seems I’ve struck a nerve.”
I wave a hand, letting him know it’s not him I’m mad at.
“I guess I’m just tired of the genre not getting the respect it deserves.
Loving love stories isn’t anything to be ashamed of.
” I think about how to explain it. “I once had a woman tell me that The Throwback was her mother’s favorite movie, and they watched it together when she was dying in the hospital.
” I swallow the lump in my throat, emotional at the memory.
“It’s always stuck with me. Something I did gave someone else happiness in their final moments.
What we do is a privilege, and I don’t take it for granted. ”
He’s quiet for a moment, taking that in.
“I never thought about it that way. You have a great perspective on it, which proves you’re the exact right person to be in those movies.
And The Throwback is one of my favorites of yours too, by the way,” he adds with a sly smile, like he’s daring me to deflect the compliment.
“It’s everyone’s favorite,” I say with a laugh, reaching for a coconut shrimp. “But I can’t take credit. It was a great script.”
“Are you kidding?” he says, incredulous. “You can absolutely take credit. That rant, the ‘expectations of women haven’t changed in seventy years’ speech? No one else could’ve delivered that monologue the way you did.”
I glow under his praise, made all the sweeter because I know how difficult he is to impress, how high his expectations are of both himself and others.
Even with ten years and countless movies under my belt, no actor has ever challenged me more than Ryder.
He made me better, drew out my deepest, most vulnerable performance, something that could only have been achieved through total trust in my scene partner.
Our off-screen bond helped spark an explosive dynamic on-screen that’s proven impossible to re-create or fake with anyone else.
Subconsciously, I think I’ve always sought his approval, even in absentia.
To this day, his opinion still means more to me than just about anyone else’s.
“That rant did win me a Golden Globe,” I acknowledge coyly, popping another shrimp into my mouth.
“Well deserved,” he says, raising his bottle in “cheers.”
I cast him a sidelong glance, then smirk and shake my head.
“What?” he asks.
“Just strange to think of you watching my movies,” I admit, ripping off a hunk of the baguette and dunking it in the thick tomato broth.
I avoid Ryder’s films like the plague. It’s a defense mechanism I put in place years ago—if I wanted to get over him, I had to enforce a strict media blackout on all things Ryder Perry.
I couldn’t watch him chase, flirt with, touch, or kiss other women—especially knowing how easily on-set relationships can go from reel to real, as ours once did.
I know my threshold for pain, and that’s a hard limit.
“Why wouldn’t I watch them? You’re something special, Scar, you always have been. I’ve acted alongside some of the biggest names in the business, but you’re still the best I’ve ever worked with.”
I chortled. “Oh, please. Better than Tom Cruise?”
He looks at me deadpan like, Don’t be ridiculous. “Excluding Tom, obviously. You know he’s in a class by himself.” I start giggling, and he holds up a finger, as if to amend his statement. “Though Tom doesn’t look half as good naked.”
“Ryder.”
He grins wider, smug and unrepentant, his dimple peeking out from under his beard. That dimple has magical powers. “You ever watch it?”
“Tom Cruise nude?” I ask cheekily, pretending to think about it. “Can’t say that I have.”
He throws his balled-up napkin at me. “The Lost Letter, smartass.”
I shake my head. “No. Not if I can help it.”
“Never?”