Page 34 of Between the Lines

She wasnota fan of his.

They’d been clashing the whole way through so far, but I had to say—I’d never seen a bad project from either of them. So the way I saw it, between the two of them?

We should end up with something special.

“Hey,” Ellie spoke again. “You are really fucking that sandwich up.” She laughed. “Why does it feel like you’re settling in here instead of getting ready to take off? You know they pushed our ‘morning after’ two days out, right?”

“Yeah, I know—but…Iamsettling in here,” I said, grabbing a booklet from the tabletop in front of me and holding it up. “I’ve got a heavy load tomorrow, some monologues and shit, so I’m going to run through all my lines for that before I head home. What are you about to get into?”

“Family dinner, and then my bed,” she said. “I’m actually already a little late, but they know I’m coming.”

“Nice. Tell the fam I said hello.”

“I will,” she agreed. “But uh, you should know, you were actually invited. I was coming to tell you, but I know how serious you are when it comes to getting those lines in. I’ll let them know you’ll catch the next one?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “For sure.”

Was I a little confused by the invite?

Yes.

But I wasn’t about to argue.

The Perrys had warmly welcomed me into their fold when Ellie and I started dating, and they’d been great about helping us keep it all on the low. I didn’t know what Ellie told them about the breakup, but whatever it was, I’d never gotten any kind of negative energy from her aunt, brother, or sister-in-law, all of whom I had interacted with at some level since the split.

As far as I knew, she’d relayed to them that we were on good terms.

But being invited to a family dinner?

That felt like something more.

“I’m going to let you get to it, okay?” she said. “See you tomorrow—I don’t think we have anything together, but I’ve got some reshoots in the afternoon.”

“Yeah, I’m sure I’ll see you around here somewhere.”

I…didn’t want her to leave.

Iwantedto ask her to hang around, to run lines with me or something—and if she hadn’t relayed the plans with her family, I would have. Even though it had been awkward with us since the award show, being cast together on this project had given us a nice twist in a different direction.

And after the shit with the “fan,” we were even closer.

Getting back to how it was before.

“Shit,” I muttered to myself, shaking my head.

If I let my brain go down that path, I’d be stuck there for the rest of the night instead of getting through these lines like I wanted. So I forced myself to switch mental gears, getting back to going through the scenes I had on my schedule for tomorrow.

I hadn’t been at it long enough to make much progress before there was another knock at my door. “Come in,” I called, half expecting it to be Alec now, since he had a similar practice about going through lines on set.

We definitely did readthroughs and other studying at home as well, but there was a certain productivity that came with doing it while still in work. I already knew that once I got home I was crashing, after the mental strain of not embarrassing myself with a hard dick in front of a room full of people all day.

It wasn’t Alec though.

It was…

“Stella, hey,” I greeted, confused by her presence at the door.

“Hey yourself,” she said as she stepped in, closing the door behind her. “Figured I’d find you here when you weren’t at home.”

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