Page 66 of Happy Trails & Honey Pots

More tears fell down my face, and I heard a sound behind me. I turned around and saw Miles standing in the clearing.

“What are you doing?!” I yelled as I stood up.

“I’m so sorry.” He held up his hands. “I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

“Then why are you here? What are you doing here!?”

“I just…I came here because…”

“Because why?!” I demanded. This wasn’t his place to come. I felt betrayed. Or no. I felt like I’d betrayed Austin by bringing Miles here in the first place.

“This week…” Miles dropped his arms to his sides. “I’ve just been…it’s been hard and confusing, and I just wanted to be somewhere that…I don’t know…I shouldn't have come.”

“It’s beenhard? What’s been hard?!”

Miles’s shoulders sank. I noticed, for the first time, that he looked exhausted, worn down, defeated. Also, he looked like he’d lost weight. “Just…everything. Being Austin. Everything that is going on with us. Ornotgoing on with us. I don’t know. It’s nothing. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…for everything.”

He turned around and left. I thought about going after him—stopping him. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I just sat back down as more tears fell down my face. I wrapped the hoodie around me tighter, and when I did, I realized it was Miles’ hoodie. I’d grabbed his hoodie to come up here. For some reason, that just made me cry harder.

32

MILES

“Five minutes!”Sylvia, the first AD, stuck her head in the trailer.

I forced myself to smile as she closed the trailer door. It wasn’t Sylvia’s fault that I was in a shitty mood. Going up to the lookout spot was a really bad idea. I don’t know what I was thinking. Or why, when I got there and saw Zoe’s car, I didn’t turn around and leave. Obviously, she wanted to be alone. It was the middle of the fucking night.

But that was part of the reason I hadn’t left. It was the middle of the fucking night. Thinking of her up there where no one could hear her if something went wrong or if someone else found her up there terrified me. Which is why when I left her up there, I parked down the street, out of sight, and waited for half an hour to make sure she got back to her car. Then, I followed her home to make sure she got there safely.

My phone buzzed on the counter. I grabbed it, hoping it was Zoe responding to the message I’d left her, telling her that I hoped she was okay and I was there if she wanted to talk. I didn’t ask her to respond because she’d made it clear there could never be anything between us. I just hoped she would.

She hadn’t.

It was Tyler, my agent, letting me know he was sending me the fourth and final offer for a new superhero franchise. If I accepted it, I’d be spending the majority of the next five years overseas shooting in Bulgaria, Croatia, Iceland, and New Zealand. They were all amazing countries, but I was getting tired of traveling. I wanted to put down roots somewhere.

My phone rang, and without looking at who it was, I knew it was Tyler calling.

I picked it up, and before I said hello, Tyler was already speaking. “They want an answer by tomorrow. If you’re playing hard to get, I might be able to get three more points on the backend, but that’s it.”

“I’m not playing hard to get. I don’t know if I want to do it.”

“What are you talking about? This is every actor’s dream. This is job security.”

“I want to take time off after this wraps.”

“You can take time off when you're dead. Opportunities like this don’t fall into your lap every day. Do you know how many actors would sell an organ for a chance at this? I know you’ve had a lot of things handed to you on a silver platter, but that’s not always the case. Not to mention, if you say no to this, you're saying no to people who won’t forget. You need to think about whether or not you want a career.”

I was getting tired of thinly veiled threats. I’d been hearing them my entire life. Maybe the fact I was seriously considering turning down the role did make me ungrateful. I don’t know. But what I did know was I wouldn’t be happy spending the next five years on sets in countries where the only people I knew were the crew, who all went home to families because they were mainly local, and I went back to a hotel room alone.

There was a knock on my trailer door a second before it opened. When it did, Braxton was standing at the bottom of the stairs. “They’re ready for you.”

“Tyler, I have to go.”

“This is serious, Miles. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you need to get your head straight.”

The call disconnected, and I set my phone back on the counter. I grabbed my sides and headed toward the set, which was a house that we’d rented. Today, we were shooting the scene where Zoe finds out she’s pregnant.

Then, this afternoon, we were going to the courthouse to shoot the wedding scene, and, tonight, our location was a cabin for the honeymoon night. This was the final day of filming with Rachel, and as amazing as she was as a costar and great to work with, I was so glad she was getting wrapped.

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