Page 40 of The Reunion

Halfway through the movie, we’re curled up under a thick blanket, my back pressed up against the hard muscle of his abdomen. His arm migrated from the back of the couch at some point and is now wrapped around me; I lean my head back on his shoulder, and he rests his head on mine. It feels perfect; it feels right. I’m so at home beside him, so comfortable and warm, that I drift off before the end of the movie—which I will absolutely not tell Ford—and wake up to total darkness.

“Ransom,” I whisper, nudging him awake, trying to find my traitorous phone, which I now see is buried under a pile of blankets on the floor, battery completely dead. “It’s one in the morning—Bryan will kill us if we’re late tomorrow.”

He mumbles a curse, still half asleep. “Why must this industry insist on six a.m. call times?”

“Any chance you packed your script in that backpack? You can just stay here, if so.” An unexpected thrill courses through me at the idea of him spending the night—and at the semiconscious realization that I just spent half a night curled up beside him on my couch.

“No script,” he says. I don’t even have to look to know his eyes are still shut tight, resisting the inevitable.

Even though it wouldn’t be hard to obtain an extra copy, I know him well enough to know he’s got notes penciled in every margin—and on top of that, word would get back to Bryan, and that would be a disastrous start to the shoot. We’re at the top of the call sheet and want to stay there. Tardiness, unpreparedness? Neither is an option.

His arms tighten around me. “I should go,” he mumbles, still half asleep.

“You should,” I agree. “Otherwise, you are definitely going to get stuck here, which would be terrible.”

“Awful,” he says into my hair, breath hot on my skin. He lingers there, long enough that I’m well and truly tempted to blow straightthrough our call time—we both are, clearly—but then the clock hits 1:15, and reality sinks in.

“Tomorrow is going to be brutal,” he says, finally extricating himself from our little nest on the couch.

“Brutal, yeah.”

And yet, right now, it feels anything but.

A “Garden” Party to Remember: Ransom Joel Superfan Ejected from Gemma Gardner Bookstore Event

By Lila Lavender // Staff Writer,You Heard It Here First!

Well, hello, my sweets: we meet again! And can I just take a minute to say THANK YOU for the outpouring of messages that hit my inbox after That One Article I Posted, in which I spilled the beans about the split heard ’round the world? (Except you, Dave. You can stop it with the daily emails shaming me for my true and timely reporting on actual facts that everyone but you is clearly interested in. Readers, I’m not *saying* you should do a scavenger hunt through the thousands of comments on that last post just for the sake of finding Dave’s inaugural problematic comment and telling him how very much you appreciate what we do here atYHIHF!, but… I’m not *not* saying that, either. Dave, you reap what you sow!)

Ahem. ANYWAY.

You may recall, from said previous post, my speculation that sweet-as-cherry-pie Gemma Gardner has a certain amount of tartness to her, too—afterher supposed “friend” sold her outand the incident I’m about to share with you, it’s not hard to see why a stronger, more forthright side of her is starting to come out.

Case in point: the restraining order she just took out against one of Ransom’s more… enthusiastic… fans. Did it ever occur to you, dear readers, that the best way to express your displeasure at someone for breaking theheart of the stranger you love *might* just be to show up tothe independent bookstore she runs(Snapaday: @thegardenbygems), dressed in custom-designed fabric printed with said heartbreaker’s face all over it AND HER EYES X-ED OUT, and proceed to make a gigantic idiot of yourself while trying to make a point? No? Well, good for you, because that means you won’t be sharing a restraining order with this, er, special someone (pictured below in numerous Snapaday posts from eyewitnesses).

Around here, we’re alllllllll for a friendly roast—as you know—but please think twice before actually entering someone’s space in a way that threatens both their business and their existence. (Keep that in mind while roasting Dave, please.) Let me just say, in case it isn’t clear: I have nothing but respect for this no-nonsense Gemma and fully support the actions she’s taken to protect herself.

If you’re losing sleep at night over how anyone could toss Ransom Joel’s heart aside, hey! Look at the silver lining—he has yet to be seen around town with anyone else, right? You could be next!

A word of caution, though, if you do turn out to be his next special someone—just keep those superfans in mind! You could be next in that sense, too, if you follow in Gemma Gardner’s heartbreaker footsteps. A good rule of thumb: if you see someone who’s gone to great lengths to craft an outfit covered in your face, eyes x-ed out or not, that’s always a bad sign.

Until next time (hit me up at [email protected] with all your juiciest tidbits so there can *be* a next time)!

xo, Lila

13

Despite my best efforts, I sleep through yet another alarm in the morning—I could have sworn I turned the volume up while plugging in my phone last night, but apparently not.

I have eight missed calls from Bre before I finally pick up. “How bad is it?”

I stuff my script in my bag, along with a slim cylinder of ibuprofen and a banana that’s already developing brown spots. The digital clock on my microwave reads 6:32—I was supposed to be on set half an hour ago.

Bryan’s going to kill me.

“Bad enough that I had to stop in the middle of my Peloton ride,” she says, a touch breathless. Translation: quite bad. “Bryan called me four times in a row. Everything okay?”

I think back to the beach, the cold water lapping at my ankles. Ransom’s eyes sparking gold under the setting sun, laughing until we cried out in the ocean. Waking up together on the couch, him finally heading home just over five hours ago.

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