I lean back into the booth. My eyes still locked onto his. “What do you think about Adam and Diana?”
“So they’re the reason you left the dinner,” Declan concludes as he bites into his pizza.
“No, no, they aren’t,” I shake my head and play with the paper plate my pizza rests on. “I had a leg spasm, I told you.”
“Right,” Declan lifts his fingers and air quotes. “Leg spasm.”
“Seriously though,” I veer back to my question. “What do you think about Adam and Diana?”
“I think they’re acting,” Declan admits. He drops his pizza down on the plate and picks up a napkin to wipe his hands. “I think the rumors of them being on the rocks are true.”
“Can you find out?”
He frowns, his head slightly jerking back. “Why do you want to know?”
“I uh, I could use it against Diana. If she tries to cause a problem for me. Collateral.”
He holds his frown, obviously not buying my fib. “Why don’t you just ask Jill’s P.I. to do it?”
I lean towards the table, my eyes wide, “She told you about that?”
“Nope,” he smiles at me and looks down at his pizza. “You didn’t turn the microphones down all the way at the carnival. Crew and I overheard it after we went through the filming and sound that night.”
Oh no.
I shut my eyes tightly and hiss through my teeth. I can just imagine Jill’s reaction if she where to find out the entire crew knows. It could get back to Diana and Adam.
Wait, Jill’s P.I. isn’t the only thing we talked about...Did Declan overhear me asking about him and Reagan? He must have.
“Don’t worry about it,” Declan says, and I tear my eyes open to see him bite into his pizza, “I’m not going to tell anyone else, and neither will the crew. As long as the guy stays out of the way.”
“Have you seen him?” I ask.
“Yeah, he’s been lurking about,” Declan chews and swallows the pizza in his mouth. “Thought he was a reporter at first.”
“What’s he look like?” I ask eagerly.
The producer smirks and sets down his pizza. “He’s tall, wears a long beige trench coat and black fedora. Walks around holding this magnifying glass for clues—”
“Okay,” I cut him off, “ha, ha. Funny.”
He laughs lightly and shrugs at me, “What do you think he looks like? A regular guy.” He glances down at my pizza, “Are you going to finish that?”
“Yes!” I declare looking from my cheese pizza to his pepperoni.
“I’m just wondering,” he shrugs as he picks up his half eaten piece. He smiles like a goof as he bites into the slice and I have to look away with a chuckle. Slowly, I pick up my pizza and take another bite.
“So, what’s with Simon?” Declan asks as he watches me chew.
I shrug as I swallow down my pizza. “What do you mean?”
“He doesn’t seem like your type.”
“You sound like Adam,” I tell him. “And Reagan.”
“The guy bugs me,” Declan admits.
“Really?” I sarcastically banter, playfully raising my eyebrows, “I had no idea from earlier today.”
“Alright,” he chuckles casually.
“He thinks you’re a jerk,” I inform him.
“I don’t care,” Declan tells me.
“Must be nice,” I mumble setting my hands on the table, “not caring if people like you or not.”
“I care if some people like me,” he confesses taking his eyes off me as he picks up his pizza. “One or two.”
He bites into the pizza and I watch him chew before asking, “Reagan?”
He shakes his head.
“But you guys are always fighting,” I say. “And stuff…”
He frowns at me. “And stuff? I’m failing to understand what you’re getting at…”
I can’t figure out if he’s playing me, since I know he overheard Jill and me.
“Aren’t you guys, aren’t you two...you know,” I gesture with my open palms. “You know...together?”
He chokes on his pizza slice and quickly swallows it down. “Uh, no. Definitely not. What the hell gave you that idea? She has a boyfriend.”
“I know, but I thought maybe, Charlie is you.”
He laughs, “No, definitely not. I’m not her type. She’s not my type.”
“Brooke and I thought…” I stop myself as he frowns again. “Never-mind. We were wrong, obviously.”
“You thought because Reagan and I are arguing we were together? How does that make sense?” he asks me.
I run a hand through my hair as I clarify. “I don’t know, you guys are always whispering on the sides away from everyone, and arguing and there’s tension…you know, Brooke and I just put two and two together.”
He sets down the crust of his eaten slice and motions at the space between us. “You and I argue, we whisper away from everyone else. Are we dating?”
“No, I’m dating Simon,” I declare.
“Right.”
His eyes fall onto mine before they run over the rest of my face, and I feel it.
My chest tightens, almost anxiously and my breath catches. For a moment I can hear my heart in my ears. The butterflies awaken and I have to pull my eyes away from him.
This can’t be happening again.
Not again.
Declan clears his throat loudly, “Are you going to finish your pizza?”
I push it towards him, “Have at it.”
“Uh, excuse me? Did you guys come in on the segway’s?”
We look over at the teenager behind the counter, who’s pointing out the front doors. “Some girls just made off with them…”
Declan stands up in the booth and looks out the window, I follow his lead.
Our segway’s are gone.
Five minutes later, after running around the parking lot trying to figure out who stole from us, we gave up and headed back to the resort. Stomping into the dark snowy path. Declan snapped up one the lanterns from the trees as we decided to backtrack on foot the same way we came about the plaza. Our boots crunch in the snow at the same time and every time we speak we can see our breath.
“I can’t believe we were robbed,” I whine as we trek through the snow. “I know it was the girls from earlier, the girls on the snow mobiles. They’re obviously following us.”
Burberry Coat Girl and her friends. I can’t believe they followed me and Declan, all because I threw a stupid snowball?
I shake my head. “Why would they even steal the segways?”
“They’re about six grand, so why wouldn’t they?”
“Six grand?” My voice echoes around us.
“Besides,” Declan looks over at me, “you don’t know it was the same girls.”
“It was the same girls, trust me. I hope we don’t have to pay the resort back,” I say as I duck under an overstretching pine branch.
“Somehow, I don’t see the show covering the cost,” Declan tells me. He holds the lantern in front of us and it sways with each step he takes.
“I feel like were in the 1800’s or something,” I confess as I tap the lantern with my left hand. Declan remains silent and after a few more steps together, I break it. “How much longer do you think?”
“I don’t know, maybe ten minutes?” He guesses as he looks ahead. “I think we’ll get back on the right path soon though.”
“Good, cause these trees are giving me the creeps in the dark.”
He looks up at the trees surrounding us and then back in front of us. We enter a comfortable silence, where only the crunching of the snow beneath our boots echoes around us. I look over at him once or twice, but he seems too focused on the path ahead of us to notice.
“I can’t believe you thought Reagan and I were dating,” he finally says and there’s humor in his tone.
“It w
as Brooke really!” I defend quickly, and loudly. “She made a good case so I thought it must have been true.”
He shakes his head and says nothing else.
“It seems to bother you, us gossiping about you,” I say as I watch my feet in the snow.
“Don’t you guys have anything else to talk about when you’re off camera?”
“Contrary to what you think, we do not talk about you twenty four seven,” I tell him, my eyes stay at the snow flying around our feet. “You’re not that interesting.”
“Oh, I’m plenty interesting,” he shoots back and I have to look up at him to realize he’s being funny. “You have no idea how interesting.”
I can’t help but snort through my laugh, “right, sure.”
We end up turning the corner and stumbling onto the string light lit pathway with snow completely trampled down by segway’s. Both of us let out a sigh of relief and Declan steps off to the side to hang the lantern on a nearby branch.
“What if the branch catches fire?” I ask him.
“It’s a battery operated lantern,” he tells me as he successfully hangs it off a prickly branch. He turns around and steps back over to me, “Let’s go.”
We begin down the direction we came down and I can’t help but notice our pace has slowed down considerably. I look over at him, “What time is it?”
He rolls up his left sleeve and peers down at his wrist watch, “Seven thirty.”
Damn it, I was hoping it’d be later.
I sigh loudly, “I guess I should join them back at dinner. Knowing Oscar, they’ll be filming till at least eight thirty.”
“Nine,” Declan corrects. “It’s scheduled till nine.”
“A four hour dinner?” I remark, “Nobody eats a meal for four hours.”
“They do for a television show,” Declan states.
We fall back into a comfortable silence, and I notice that it’s begun to snow. Big, fluffy flakes fall down slowly from the dark sky above us and I stick out my hand to catch a few in my glove as we walk.
“Are you filming tomorrow?” I ask Declan.
“Just for the day. You guys have a free night tomorrow.”
“Brooke wants to go ice skating, Diana wants to go dog sledding,” I inform him.
Declan puts his hands into his pockets, “Hmm, we may be working tomorrow night after all.”
Why does this conversation feel so, forced?
Ever since we started walking back it’s been tense, and awkward.
Correction, he’s been tense and awkward.
“Did I weird you out, when I told you we all thought you and Reagan might be together?” I can’t help but ask. He looks at me with a slight frown. “I feel like, it’s weird, or something. And I don’t have anyone else here I can just…just be with, cause Jill’s hell-bent on going after Diana and Reagan wishes I don’t exist, Brooke is, well Brooke and Simon’s…”
“Simon’s what?” he presses me.
He’s completely fake.
“He’s, you know, my boyfriend, not really my friend,” I explain. A snowflake falls onto my nose and I wipe it away.
“You aren’t friends with your boyfriend?” Declan’s eyes lock onto mine and I feel weighted by them so I look away.
“No, we are. Obviously,” I swallow down a lump in my throat. “You know what I mean. Anyway if I weirded you out, I’m sorry.” He’s quiet, and I noticed he’s slowed down too. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
I wait for him to reach me and we begin to walk together.
Declan clears his throat suddenly. “Does Simon know, about you and me?”
“No,” I shake my head. “No, he doesn’t know about that night. Nobody does.”
He nods his head, as if he understands and smiles, keeping his eyes ahead on the path. “That was a long time ago.”
“Four years,” I reply.
“If I did anything that night that made you uncomfortable or whatever, I’m sorry.”
“Oh, no, you didn’t,” I exclaim. Waves of nerves come over me and suddenly I can’t stop talking. “No, you don’t have to worry about that. I mean, I don’t even remember much anyway except us drinking and then, you know the kiss. Which—which I don’t even remember that well to be honest, so don’t think that you have to like apologize for it—or anything for that matter.”
Jesus, stop rambling, Julie.
I look over at him when I notice he’s stopped walking next to me again, and he’s giving me a weird stare as he rubs the back of his neck with one hand. He obviously caught onto my nervousness.
“What is it?” I ask, against my better judgement of course.
He opens his mouth but then shuts it quickly. “Never mind, it’s nothing. Nothing important.” He moves again but before he passes me, I reach out and grab his arm. He stops and looks down at me.
“Just tell me,” I demand.
I can’t walk anymore feet with this weird, awkward tension between us.
He looks away from a second, and suddenly his hands come up to my face. I feel them rest against my cheeks and I freeze. Declan’s eyes run over my face softly and he steps closer so his lips can touch mine. I feel myself fall into the kiss, his stubble grazes against my skin but it only has my heart racing. I grasp onto his sides, but as our kiss deepens something shakes me.
I pull away and cover my face with my hands. “Sorry.”
“No, nope,” I hear him say. “You don’t have to be sorry. I shouldn’t have—that was my fault.”
“It’s fine, it was my fault too.”
But I can’t remove my hands from my face.
What am I doing? What’s wrong with me?
“Julie? Take your hands off your face.”
“I don’t want to.”
I hear him chuckle. “There isn’t anything to be embarrassed, or angry, about.”
“I know,” I realize, “but I can’t. I shouldn’t have let you—I’m not angry at you. I mean, four years ago I was angry at you because of what you did but I know it wasn’t your entire fault. But not now.”
I feel him grab a hold of my forearms and pull my hands from my face. He frowns at me, “What are you talking about? What’s not all my fault?”
Oh, right. He doesn’t know I know what he did.
“The whole Adam and Diana thing.”
I watch his eyes narrow as he lets my arms go. “What about Adam and Diana?”
“Setting them up, I forgive you for it. Well, I think I do,” I say truthfully as I wrap my arms around my torso. “I’m confused, but I know you didn’t put a gun to Adam’s head. I hate that you put the idea into it though, when you knew we were having problems. I think that was a nasty thing to do when you were supposed to be our friend—”
Declan’s hand shoots up, “Hold on a second. Where did you hear—”
“Hey! You two!”
We both jump in place and look down the path to see the man in the yellow vest from the wooden shack, come charging towards us. He points at us angrily, “What the hell are you doing? Where are the segway’s?”
Chapter Seventeen
“I can’t get mine in. There’s something wrong with my tree!”
I sway to the side, around my tree to have a look at what Diana is doing. She’s in front of a large sugar maple tree a few feet away from me. She’s in her pink and white, tight snowsuit, standing with her hands on her hips, surveying her tree and making disgusted faces at the bark.
“I’ll be there in one second!”
I look over my shoulder at Joe, the guy from the shop who I’ve dubbed Lumberjack Joe in my head. He’s dress in jeans and a plaid shirt, a puffy dark winter vest over his chest. His hair is pulled back into a low bun but the sun beats off the golden hues delicately.
“I wish there was something wrong with our tree…” Brooke utters. I have to roll my eyes at the lust coming
over her face. She lets out a laugh when she sees me looking and sets down our drill. “What?”
“You’re married,” I remind her.
“I can look,” she protests with a grin as she adjusts her black toque over her curly brown hair. She reaches up for what I have in my gloved hand, the spile. It’s a black, plastic tap that we are supposed to hammer into the tree after we’ve finished drilling. After Brooke takes it, she points to the hole she’s drilled, about four feet from the ground. “Look! Sap.”
“Cool.”
She uses the end of the drill to hammer the spile into the hole and reaches over for the plastic bucket near our feet. She hangs it over the spile and stands back up, brushing the snow off her snow pants. “Done.”
I bend over to look at the spile, and the clear sap begins to slowly drip into the bucket. “That’s it?”
“Guess so.”
We both hear Diana giggle loudly and peer around the tree. Lumberjack Joe has her drill in his hands and is slowly drilling four feet from the ground. Diana stands behind him, the cameras surround them and she whispers something to Lumberjack Joe. He smirks and stops drilling a moment later.
Declan’s crew zips around the two of them, but he’s more focused on his cellphone. Occasionally he taps a finger against his headset to speak to Oscar, who’s filming Jill this morning. He hasn’t paid me any attention.
I hear Diana let out a hyper laugh and see Lumberjack Jose assist her with tapping in her spile. Behind us, at one of the larger maple trees, is Reagan. She’s hammering her third spile into the tree and hanging her third bucket. I watch as she positions it to her liking and then double checks the first two she had drilled.
“We were wrong,” I say to Brooke as I look away from Reagan. “Declan isn’t her boyfriend.”
“Really?” Brooke gives Reagan a glance, “but they fight so much.”
I shrug, my mind snapping back to last night.
After the segway supervisor caught us, he held us hostage for almost an hour in the shack, demanding we repay for the stolen units. It took Declan several attempted bribes until the supervisor gave in. He’d write off the segway’s as “damage through use” if he was in one of the featured shots on the show’s opening credits. Afterwards, the crew appeared and we parted ways.
Reuniting Reality Page 22