The Sweetest Star: Under the Stars Book 2

by Raleigh Ruebins

  “Well,” I said, “it was called Ronson’s, but sadly we had to close down.”

  He swallowed slowly, and suddenly the smile faded from his face. “Wait… Ronson’s?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. It’s after my last name, Ronson. Stupid name, I know.”

  “You’re Eric Ronson?” he said, realization covering his face. “…oh.”

  And suddenly, he was cold as ice. He sat back up straight and focused on his food, as if we hadn’t just totally made a connection.

  Jesus, I must have really lost my mojo. Shit. He probably knew me from the boy band days. After a few beats, I had to break the silence.

  “So, um… what do you do?” I asked. It was boring question—whatever—but I had to say something.

  There was another long pause as he took a sip from his beer, eyeing me sideways. “I’m a writer.”

  “Oh yeah? What sort of stuff do you write?”

  Finally, he shrugged. “This and that.”

  “Ah, the freelance life,” I said, nodding as if I understood deeply, but really I didn’t.

  I left him alone for a couple minutes. I wanted to seem friendly, and perhaps infinitely fuckable, but not relentless. So I gave him a little space. But as I saw him finishing up, I realized that I may never see him again, so I had to at least try to make a connection again. Had I said something wrong?

  “Hey,” I said. “What are you doing for the rest of the night? I know a great place with gelato down the block. If you’re new to town, but I could show you where some cool stuff is.”

  He shook his head. “Sorry,” he said, “Gotta go home.” He didn’t even make eye contact with me. Clearly something had gone very wrong.

  “Oh—well, it was nice to meet you—” I started saying, as he was already standing up and heading for the door. He wiped his hands with a fistful of napkins.

  “Bye, Eric,” he said, giving me one last noncommittal glance before pushing open the door and heading out. He walked along the sidewalk near the sand, becoming smaller and smaller until he disappeared into a crowd on the beach.

  And I really shouldn’t have cared. I was trying to get back to the “player” life—rejection never used to bother me, and there was always another guy or woman to find.

  As I sat wondering where the hell I had gone wrong, Jim, one of the owners, came by with a wet rag and wiped down the counter where Dash had been sitting.

  “Hey there,” he said, greeting me. He wasn’t quite elderly, but was getting there; his face was weathered by age and time but the same smile sat always on his face. “You scare that nice fellow off, there, Eric?”

  I sighed, looking back out the window as if I was expecting him to reappear. “Yeah, I think I did, actually. Seemed like he wanted nothing to do with me.”

  Jim’s eyes glinted as he looked out the window. “Yep,” he said, “I remember him. He came in about a week ago and asked me a bunch of questions about the food. Said he was from New York City.”

  “Oh. New York City. That explains it.”

  “Yeah. He ain’t exactly used to the vibe around here yet,” Jim said. “I’d bet that within a few months that same guy will be all smiles and you’ll see him coming around here in flip-flops after a surf session.”

  I laughed. “I highly doubt that,” I said. “But I sure hope so.”

  “Were you puttin’ the moves on him, buddy?”

  I pursed my lips. “No… maybe… okay, yeah. I tried to.”

  “Scared him off,” Jim said, giving me a mocking smile. “Like I said.”

  “Probably. I’m just lonely. I’ve been single for… um… a whole 45 minutes.”

  “Where’s Abe?”

  I sighed, looking up at Jim. “Abe’s… Abe’s out of the picture. But now I’m free to flirt with the whole world again.” I tried to say the last sentence like I was excited, but really it came out more truthful: I was sad, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  “You’ll find another one,” Jim said, squinting and looking out at the water.

  “Don’t you dare say there’s more fish in the sea.”

  A slight smile appeared on Jim’s face. I smiled back, shaking my head a little, and then looked back out at the ocean.

  I went home, crestfallen and with no one fun to fuck, and attempted to play a mindless video game for a couple hours.

  When I turned it off, the house was eerily silent. I hadn’t officially lived with anyone in years, but I always seemed to have someone over—either someone who came over a lot, like Abe had, or just friends passing through. But it was empty now, and I couldn’t stand it. There was nothing to distract me from myself—my failure to be friendly with the guy at the restaurant, failure to keep Abe around, and the imminent failure of my TV show.

  The next day, it was time to face the firing squad. I went in to the Eat Network headquarters in downtown San Diego, a half-hour drive from my house. With each passing minute as I got closer and closer to the studio, dread grew in my stomach, like I was driving to my own execution. I knew they were probably gonna tell me the show was off, cancelled, pointless without Abe.

  But when I broke the news, they weren’t happy, but also weren’t exactly surprised. They said they’d feared that Abe was ready to walk out at any minute, and already had some backup plans in place for if he dropped out. I was shocked—and completely relieved. I’d been expecting them to tell me that I was fired, and the dream was over.

  But instead?

  “Alright, Eric,” my producer Andrea said to me, pulling out a folder from her desk, “We’re just gonna need to find you a new co-host.”

  Two

  Dash

  I was starting to think I’d made a mistake moving to San Diego.

  Is it normal to feel even lonelier in a place where every stranger is nice to you? Not nice like they’re your friend, but nice on a surface level, which is almost worse. Like I was making dozens of connections a day, but none of them were anything real.

  Fuck. I knew that living by the beach wouldn’t be like New York, but I was starting to think I had a sign on my back that read, “I’m new here! Talk to me! Yes, keep talking to me even when it’s painfully obvious that I have no idea what to say back!”

  Of course, like some cruel joke, the worst of it had been meeting Eric Ronson in the fish and chip shop. I knew he lived in San Diego—I’d read about him on food blogs, restaurant blogs, and even gossip blogs—but I was still shocked I’d seen him right there in a divey local restaurant.

  I don’t know why the hell he kept talking to me. The guy was infamous for being a player, some sort of bisexual man-about-town who had been trying to make it in the food world ever since his boy band broke up. I didn’t really give a shit about boy bands, but I did read a lot of food blogs, and it got to the point where I couldn’t help but recognize his name.

  He probably was trying to pick me up as one of his conquests. It was oddly fitting and achingly painful that someone like Eric fucking Ronson would be the one person to try and hit on me. It was like a sign from above that I’d never find true love again.

  Not after Caleb.

  I’d been in a 10-year relationship with Caleb all of my adult life, and now it was over, really really over. We’d ended it six months ago and only recently was I even able to admit that this time, it was permanent.

  Caleb had been it for me. He’d been my everything. I thought—no, I knew—that I was going to marry him, that I’d have kids with him, that we’d grow old together.

  But he hadn’t wanted it. Hadn’t wanted me. The last five years of our relationship had been a slow process of disengagement from the codependent mess I was when I was with him—there were only so many times you could handle texting someone “I miss you” or “I love you” and never get anything in return—and eventually it was like a harshly blinding lightbulb had switched on in my brain: he and I weren’t going to be together forever.

  So finally, it had ended. And now I was standing in the middle of my empt
y living room in California, staring at the palm trees outside my window. I didn’t even have a couch, though I did have boxes and boxes full of books. I’d tried to sit on one of them while eating dinner one night, but I think a bed of spikes may have been more comfortable.

  I heard the sound of an email pinging on my laptop, breaking me from my trance. Since starting my food blog eight years ago, it had come to be more successful than I ever would have thought—I had hundreds of thousands of readers, and made a modest living off of posting photos, recipes, and food reviews. I also now got business emails and offers multiple times a day. It was usually offers from food brands that I wanted nothing to do with, like new versions of Hot Pockets that they somehow wanted me to make recipes for. What did they expect? Hot Pocket spaghetti? Salad? Hot pocket sushi, maybe. That one sure would go over well on the blog.

  But I was hopelessly addicted to the emails I received, like a Pavlovian response. I crossed over to the bedroom and grabbed my laptop.

  From: a.r.bern@eatnetwork.com

  To: dash@dashthompson.com

  Subject: Potential Opportunity with Eat Network

  Hi Mr. Thompson,

  This is Andrea Bern from Eat Network. We are currently developing new shows for the Network and would be interested to share with you some of the ideas.

  We saw your recent post explaining that you’d moved to southern California. If you would like to come for a casual chat at our downtown San Diego headquarters, please let me know. We think you may be interested in one project in particular that we have in the works. It would be a great opportunity for you and further your career in the food world.

  We can talk more details when you visit. Please call the phone number listed below to set up a meeting.

  Thank you and hope to hear from you soon,

  Andrea Bern

  I stared at the phone number at the bottom of the email.

  My first thought was that this could be some kind of trolling or hoax—but it looked legitimate, and when I googled the phone number, it came up on Eat Network’s official website as being the contact number for one of their producers.

  I’d gotten a lot of offers from the blog before, but never one like this. Eat Network wanted to meet with me? I mean, holy shit, I watched their cooking shows online all the time—it was mindless television usually, but still. It was a big deal.

  So what was the worst that could happen?

  I called the number and set up the meeting. I’d go down there in three days.

  Here goes nothing.

  From the minute I walked into the Eat Network studios I was sure that whatever this “opportunity” was, it wasn’t going to work out.

  First of all, the place was absolutely frenetic—there were people running around in some sort of test kitchen that I could see behind the reception desk. And the front desk was deserted until a young girl came rushing out of a nearby doorway and breathlessly greeted me.

  “Good morning! So sorry about the wait. What’s your name, sir?”

  “Dash Thompson.”

  “Yes! Hmmmm… oh, there you are,” she said, clicking through her computer. “You’re meeting with Andrea and Eric. Just give me one second, I’ll go let them know you’re here.”

  She disappeared back through a different doorway and I took a few steps over toward the test kitchens. It was actually intriguing, on second look—initially it had seemed like a crazed restaurant kitchen, but I realized now that people were laughing and loudly chatting with each other as they, presumably, developed recipes. It was refreshing. I was so used to sitting at home working on my blog that I’d forgotten how much energy real live coworkers can bring.

  Still terrifying, but… maybe a little cool.

  A couple minutes later a middle-aged woman with a flower headband in her hair came out and greeted me.

  “Hi, are you Dash? I’m Andrea. It’s so nice to meet you—come on back.”

  She led me down a hallway to a relatively normal conference room. It was warmly decorated, and the entire building had very nice wood running along all of the ceilings, giving it a certain sense of coziness and less of a corporate feel.

  She sat at one of the chairs and I sat across the table, completely unsure what would happen next.

  “So,” she said, “We’re still waiting on Eric, but we can get started talking now. I’ll cut to the chase, because I’m just that kind of person: we are looking to hire a co-host for a new cooking show. We had Abe Marcos lined up, but… it didn’t work out with him, so we’re searching for someone new.”

  “Abe Marcos?” I said, genuinely shocked. “But he’s like… mega famous,” I said. I knew that if this really was some sort of interview, I was probably blowing it already. I should have been acting over-the-top confident and TV-ready, and instead I was… being myself.

  She nodded, smiling. “Abe was a big personality. But with that, comes a lot of hassle, too. The reason we specifically contacted you is because your personality definitely shines through on the blog, but you don’t bring any of the baggage that a huge celebrity would bring. You do, however, have hundreds of thousands of followers that surely would watch the show. We’re focusing much more heavily on Internet streaming now—it’s how at least fifty percent of our viewers watch nowadays—so that is an asset that can’t be ignored.”

  My eyes widened and I puffed out a breath. “Wow,” I said, “This is… really overwhelming. I mean, it’s very nice of you to think of me, but I had no idea you were looking for an actual co-host. And the other guy—Eric? Does he have his own show on the network?”

  She shook her head, and checked her cell phone briefly. “He should be here any minute, I really do apologize. But no, he doesn’t have his own show yet. He’s started a couple restaurants, but now is trying to get into the TV world.”

  I paused for a second. “…Oh,” I said finally. “So… he isn’t an actual chef?” I started to wonder how legitimate this guy could be.

  “Trust me, Eric isn’t a chef, but that’s not what great TV shows need, anyway. Eric has personality for days, and is well-versed in food, even if he’s not a professional. Kind of like you.”

  Yeah, I thought, kind of like me. Someone who failed to even finish culinary school, and because of it, lived like a recluse writing a food blog instead of ever getting a real job.

  “For TV, you really need a holy trinity of three things: a good look, a good voice, and resilience,” Andrea said, fixing her eyes on me. “I can already tell that you’ve got the first two, but the last one is something you never know until you’re in the game.”

  Just then I heard the door opening behind me, and a tall man in a navy blue suit came in. He was out of breath and spoke as he hustled in, holding a cup of coffee in his hand. I stood up and met his eyes.

  And promptly did a double take.

  “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, before I could stop myself.

  “So sorry I’m late, guys, I—oh—it’s you!” Eric said, his face immediately plastered with a huge smile. “I saw you at Fries the other day! You’re the guy—he’s the guy, Andrea?”

  “You’re the Eric? Eric Ronson?”

  He was striking, standing at full height, in a crisp suit. In the shop, he’d been sitting down, and in casual clothes, and I had no idea how impressive he could be. God, he looked like a younger version of Don Draper from Mad Men in that suit.

  But still—he was a former boy band member. Not a chef, not an expert, just a personality. Someone more known for all the people he’d dated and fucked than for anything of substance. Of course it was him.

  “Slow down, slow down, Eric,” Andrea said, giving him a playful slap on the wrist as he sat down next to her. “And why are you late, Eric? You’re never late.”

  “I went to get coffee and the line was out the door, and I was going to turn away and come here, but then I ran into one of the people who lives in my neighborhood… anyway, it’s a long, pointless story, but I’m here now.”

&
nbsp; “Must be some pretty good coffee,” I said dryly.

  He met my eyes, a small smirk on his face. God, he really was handsome, and it was intimidating at short range. “Well, the coffee here at the network is just too posh and fancy for me,” he said, “and I like mine with 2 sugars and lots of cream. Everybody here at Eat Network is all about almond milk and agave syrup and blah, blah, blah.” He looked at Andrea with the same grin on his face.

  I nodded slowly, then turned back to Andrea. “So, what were we talking about?”

  “This is what I was talking about, Dash. Surely you can already tell that Eric has more than enough personality.” Andrea asked.

  “Oh, so you two were talking about me?” Eric asked. “Did you give him the usual spiel?”

  “What’s the usual spiel?” I asked as I sank into my seat again.

  “Eric’s great, but he’s a lot to deal with, he was in 5*Star, blah blah blah,” Eric said, making air quotes. “All you really need to know about me is that I love food, I love people, and I never fucking shut up. If you can handle that, you’re golden.”

  Well. He sure seemed to enjoy talking about himself.

  I started to feel a growing dread in my stomach. How could I possibly join a TV show with Eric Ronson? I’d always thought of him as just an amateur, a guy who only wanted to be in the food world for the fame. As I sat listening to Eric and Andrea, I had no idea what the hell I was even doing there. But it was like watching a trainwreck, or a bad reality TV show. I wanted to stay just to see what they were planning.

  And, yeah, it didn’t hurt that Eric was easy on the eyes. No matter how annoying he was.

  They told me all about the show—it would be a live cooking show, meaning that everything I did would instantly be broadcast to thousands and thousands of people. At least with recorded shows, they could fix something in post-production if you set something on fire or accidentally added olives to a cake, but that would never be possible with this.