Page 41 of Wildest Dreams

“I’m aware of that, but?—”

Then I hear Belladonna’s voice booming from her megaphone. “Principals. Here. Now.”

She’s looking directly at me.

I sigh, look back to where Patsy has taken a seat on the bleachers near the edge of the park, and turn to walk away. Marina walks beside me, but as soon as I see my on-screen son I break from her and trot to say hi to him and his parents. He’s dressed in a little baseball outfit with a glove that’s larger than his head.

We go through scene blocking with Belladonna and shoot until lunch. Craft service hustles to get everyone fed and I stop to take a few photos with locals while we wait for food, my eyes constantly scanning the crowd for Patsy.

Finally, I see her. She has the foul-mouthed boy from earlier on her hip, though he’s far too big to be carried. She seems to be taking it in stride, laughing and talking with some of the other moms.

I leave my place in line and walk to her. Her face lights up in recognition.

“Pierre! Hi!” She introduces me to her friends, and after I take photos with them, they leave me alone with Patsy, for which I’m grateful.

“Patsy, I hate to ask you this, but?—”

“Kendall still isn’t talking to you?”

I chuckle. Of course she knows. “No, she’s not.”

“Yeah, you’ve really thrown her for a loop.”

“In a bad way?”

“Are you kidding me? You’re the best thing to happen since her divorce. You’re exactly what she needed. She’s a little freaked out. That’s all.”

“What should I do? I really like her. I want to spend as much time as I can with her before I leave, but she keeps pushing me away. Do you think I should back off or keep trying?”

“She’s not going to answer her phone.” She puts her hands on her hips and bites her bottom lip while she thinks. “You need a sweet gesture. Do something to get her attention. Just not, you know, in public where she could end up on TMZ.”

“Yeah, that was awful. I feel terrible.”

“I doubt it was your fault.”

“No. Quite the opposite.” I pause, thinking. “Should I send her flowers? Diamonds? What do you think?”

“She’s definitely not ready for diamonds, and they’re really not her style anyway. Flowers are good. She’ll like that.”

“I’ll do that. Thank you, Patsy.”

“Anytime. And Pierre?”

“Yeah?”

“Be sweet to my girl. She deserves the best.”

“I will. I promise.”

She smiles, showing off the gap between her front teeth. “I gotta go wrangle these young’uns before they kick us out of the movie.”

I laugh, then wave goodbye as she leaves. I check my phone. I have thirty minutes before filming picks back up. The line at craft services has shortened, so I grab a turkey sandwich, find a bench in the shade, and look up florists in Magnolia Row. There’s only one. I call and tell them to send every rose they can find to Abbey Accounting as soon as possible, offering to pay if they need to buy some from a neighboring town. I have no idea how many I ordered, but it was stupid expensive.

She’s worth every penny.

KENDALL

I’m in my office, working on payroll paperwork for one of my clients, when I hear the front door open. Since Patsy isn’t here to manage the front desk, I get up and walk into the lobby.

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