Page 9 of A Certain Step
“Would I ever betray you like that, little raccoon?” Ethan answered.
“I’m not into this nickname. It’s not doing any favors to my self-esteem.”
“How about a cute little raccoon?” he specified, and her heart did an alien gallop.
“My raccoon state will end soon. What then? I have to live with this pesky reminder?”
He shrugged. “We’ll think of something else.”
“What we should think of is what we’re drinking.”
Ethan looked toward her. “Now you’re talking. Is Sahar going to be home?”
“No, she’s gone to the Hamptons with the prick’s prissy friends. She’ll be back tomorrow.”
“You really don’t like that guy.”
Willa rolled her eyes. “I don’t like blue cheese. I loathe that guy. He’s the bloody worst. I have no idea what she sees in him or why she puts up with all his bullshit when she could have literally any man falling at her feet.”
“He’s a kiss ass. The only thing he has going for him is a decent voice and a face to match. He shows everyone what they want to see.”
Huffing, Willa replied. “Yeah, except the woman he supposedly loves—the one who’s too good for him. Anyway, enough about him. Are you feeling a bit relieved now that interviews are done?”
“Excluding the red carpet for the premiere, you have no idea. Though, I think it went okay this time. The group interviews and behind-the-scenes content went especially well. I wish you’d been a part of them,” Ethan answered.
Willa smiled at him. “Sahar told me! It makes me so happy to hear that. I’m sorry they make you so nervous, though.”
“Yeah, well, some journalists haven’t made it easy in the past.”
She arched her eyebrows. “Journalists, fans, even some fellow actors; it’s the curse of not having any boundaries in our industry.”
“I hate that this is also why social media freaks you out so much,” he added.
She didn’t want to think about that right now. She didn’t want to think about the fact that their lives would always be brimming with chaotic highs and lows without the added privilege of privacy.
“Yup,” she replied.
“I can’t say I blame you. At all.”
She shrugged. “Oh, any updates on your guest room? Forgot to ask about that.”
He let out a sarcastic laugh. “Fucking hell, Wills, I thought I told you. A damn pipe burst in the guest bathroom, flooded into the damn room. I swear it’s just gonna be storage space until I actually get some actual time off to deal with it.”
“Christ. That’s some shit luck, mate.”
“Tell me about it,” he said.
They stayed quiet for a beat, letting the music stretch out and fill the comfortable silence between them. Willa glanced over at him. Why did everything feel so…different suddenly?
The two of them had been nearly joined at the hip from the moment Willa quotedThe Muppet Christmas Carol—specifically the line about jellybeans—and Ethan was the only one who got the reference. Come to find out, they were both obsessed with the film and watched it multiple times every year during the holidays.
From then on, it’d been movie nights almost every other day and regularly starting TV shows together. The nights turned into breakfast the next morning and easy conversations about anything and everything.
She had been the first person he told when he found out his grandfather passed, smack dab in the middle of their Boston run. He got the phone call right as he’d gotten to his hotel room. She ran up to his floor. He threw himself into her arms. She stayed with him until he fell asleep. He was only able to get away for one day, and then he’d called her after the funeral, too. Willa met him at the airport upon his return, wanting to be beside him in case he needed anything.
She held him when he cried silently on the couch. She watched him pour his heart out into an emotionally taxing performancethe next day, then sat with him as he crumbled in her arms in his dressing room.
They’d become each other’s safe space.
