Page 56 of The Fate Of Us

My eyes flung open, and I clung to his, filled with the same feeling that had shackledme.

I watched his lips part, a sigh falling out before his words did. “If we’re ever going tomake it through this shoot in one piece, Adaline, kissing you, as much as I want to, will only hurt us. All of us.”

“But he—”

“Still, very clearly, feels things for you, Adaline. It’s worrying how obvious it is, andhow you don’t see it.”

I stagger a breath. “Really?”

“I know what it looks like to be in love with you, Adaline. And every time I watchedyou turn your back to him today, that feeling was all over his face.”

I drop my head, my eyes skimming over the emerald fabric clinging to my body,regret and relief blending and blurring within me. “It’s Addy.” His eyes ping to me, a soft, helpless, moonstruck smile, gracing his face. “My friends call me Addy.”

A laugh ripples out of him. “Friend-zoned by Adaline Moore,” he sighs, raising his emptyglass to cheers me. “Maybe in another life, we would’ve worked.”

I clink my glass with his, mirroring his smile. “It’s a shame you lost that Polaroidfrom our movie.” I let my head fall back. “At least then you’d have proof that we kissed.”

Asher let a chuckle slip from his lips, “I’m sure after another martini, I can get you to confess that you stole it from me.”

Chapter eighteen

Nate

“Oh,Nate,Ifeellike I haven’t seen you in forever!” Alice, my therapist, calls out as shepulls me in for a hug. “How’ve you been, hon?”

Her arms slide down the sleeves of my dusky blue sweater, her wide smile beaming,before retracting her steps and collapsing down onto the brown leather armchair by the window.

“I know, I’m sorry I had to skip last week, but I’m… okay.” I manage, before stridingto the identical armchair opposite hers, the April sunlight casting through the room, dust particles erupting from the chair and sprinkling around us as I sit down.

“Nate,” she chuckles. “When have you ever told me you’re okay and I believed you?”Her eyes warn me as she plucks a pen from her mousy brown top knot.

“Never, but will today be the day you do?” I ask, tilting my head with a hopeful smile.

“Nice try.” She laughed without looking up at me, scribbling away on her notepad.“Spill it.”

This was the part when I regretted taking weeks off from coming here. There wasdouble the baggage to unload, twice more than usual. Thrice more, probably, thanks to a certain blonde-haired actor who had it out for me.

“Did you see who joined the cast for the movie I’m working on?” I asked, letting theleather of the chair engulf me as I leaned back.

Dipping her head slightly, she said, “As it goes, I did. And I’m assuming, from whatyou’ve told me about everything that happened between you, him, and Adaline, that things aren’t going great?”

My head shook. “It’s a shit show, Alice, if I’m being honest.”

She leant forward, her white blouse shining as she leans into the sunlight. “That’s all Iwant you to be while you’re in here, Nate, you know that.”

A breath pushes through my nose, a tight, quick smile tugging at the corners of mymouth as I shrug. “He’s here, around us, around her… and there’s nothing I can do about it except watch them. They talk and laugh like what they did was never that serious. Like… they’ve forgotten all about it.”

Alice gives me a knowing nod.

“Him, Asher, I don’t mind as much as I do Addy, and I think… I think that’s why I’mhaving a hard time even walking onto that set now. Every time I do, it’s only so long before I find her being blissfully ignorant of what she did, tucked away in the corner, laughing with him.”

I watched as she drew an invisible pattern on the arm of her chair with her pen. “Sometimes our thoughts have a funny way of magnifying that darkness, Nate. Our imagination can do all sorts of things when—”

“When we don’t have the answers to see past it, I know.” I nodded with my words.

The corner of her mouth peaked, her eyes full of intelligence. “When we refuse to seethings that we think are bad as anything other than that.”

The laugh that I barked lacked any humour, as I dropped my head. It was incredible,no matter how many times I sat here, how Alice could get wiser with every moment that passed.

---