Page 210 of Ashley & the A-Listers

He needed to deal with this…trashfirst.

Axel snarled at Roderick.

“Well? You have anything to say for yourself? Your plan was shit,” Axel barked.

Roderick flinched, a pathetic villain who would meet a satisfying end.

Would it be at Axel’s hand? Or was his heart too pure to kill someone in cold blood? Should he wait for the cavalry?

“I—I–” Roderick stammered. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Axel cocked his head. What?

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” Roderick said. “My actions were… foolish. Irresponsible. Immature. Insecure. If you have a dictionary, I can continue.”

Cameron felt the entire set shift as confusion spread.

“I was scared, and I let that fear take me over. I just wanted to make you mine in any way I could, because I was too afraid to ask you outright. I was afraid of what your answer would’ve been. That you were just using me until something better came around. I thought that something washer,and I thought… ‘this was it, the hail mary.’ The last chance to get you andeveryoneto see… me.”

Roderick got to his feet, and Cameron’s hand shook around the prop gun he held.

He searched the set over Roderick’s shoulder, finding River standing on the sideline, stressed and sweating and staring intently at the actor, lips moving along with the words.

“These past few weeks have been… awful. I miss you. It sucks without you.”

Roderick… glanced at his hand?

Cameron felt faint, the lights too bright, too hot. These were River’s words, and he was saying themloudly,in front of everyone.

Cameron was hyperaware of the people watching and listening on the sidelines, beyond the glare of the lights.

River was risking hiscareerby messing with the lines, taking up time on set.

It was… brave.

Braver than Cameron had ever been, when it came to River.

He gulped. Now was his chance to change that.

After weeks of introspection and revelations, River had beat Cameron to the punch.

“I’msorry,” Cameron said, staring past Roderick to River. The words spilled out of him, every conclusion he’d come to in the past few weeks. “I valued the wrong things, like fame, and fucking strangers’ opinions, and the safetyIfound in consistency. I didn’t see how unfair it was to you, keeping us in a stasis that only benefited me.”

River stared, and through the lights Cam could swear there was a sheen to his eyes. It made Cam’s throat tight and his stomach ache, all the hurt he’d put River through.

“I wassoselfish, thinking only of myself and my wants instead of considering you.” Bonding Ashley without even talking to him, when the only reason they had Ashley was River himself!

God, Cameron was such anidiot.An incredibly selfish idiot.

“I completely understand why you did what you did. I do see you. I’m sorry it took me so fucking long, that my actions drove such a wedge between us, and I was blind to it the entire time.”

As the words left him he studied River’s gaze, reading the understanding there, the acceptance and hope.

Roderick cleared his throat, frantically glancing down to his hand.

“Well… uh, okay, none of this makes sense now, except—” Roderick stepped forward, kicking the debris around their feet. “I won’t disappoint you again.”

Cameron’s heart pounded.

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