Page 97 of Love At First Fright
“That’s nice,” he’d said, looking quietly out of the window. Later that night she’d looked out of her bedroom window and seen him sitting on the ground by the grave, tidying the earth around her.
—
The following day, Rosemary settleddown onto the sofa to watch theTheo Drake Show.It was live on television at 9p.m.in the UK, so it was only midafternoon here.
They’d texted a little before filming, but once he’d arrived at the studio she knew he’d be so busy she wouldn’t hear from him until after the show.
Her dad slumped down onto the sofa beside her, kittens swarming onto their laps and climbing up their legs.
“Fudge?” Rosemary waved a tin that she’d bought from aspecialty shop in Foxleigh village. She decided not to tell her dad about the shop’s name, which—thanks to a vandalized “r”—was called The Fudge Pant y.
“Did I ever tell you you’re my favourite daughter?” He chuckled as he pilfered a handful. Rosemary grinned, and flicked to the satellite TV channel that would allow them to watch British shows in real time.
The opening credits of theTheo Drake Showflashed onto screen, accompanied by the theme music, and Rosemary felt her heart jump to her throat. This was really happening. What would Ellis say? Would he really announce to the world that they were together? Once again, she had a feeling that she was on the precipice of one of those Big Life Moments™and soon there would be no going back. Good, she wanted Ellis. She wanted to share a life with him.
On TV, Theo Drake welcomed Ellis to the sofa. He was dressed in a sharp suit, but Rosemary could tell immediately something was wrong. His skin was pallid in the spotlight’s harsh glare, his walk to the sofa stiff and disjointed. Had he been sick since she left, perhaps? He certainly looked it. When he sat down on the sofa he took a long gulp of whiskey, and then he seemed to compose himself, pasting a winning smile on his face. But Ellis wasn’t fooling Rosemary. Something had happened. A pit opened in her stomach.
“Well, he looks very nice,” her dad said beside her, smiling at the way Rosemary had edged to the front of the sofa.
“Um, yeah, he does,” she replied in a hollow voice. There was no denying that Ellis was magnetic on screen, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes.
Theo Drake asked Ellis a series of questions about his most recentSoldier of Justicefilm that would soon be arriving on streaming, as well as filming forWhen the Devil Takes Hold.Sofar, nothing out of the ordinary. Ellis had told Rosemary that he liked going on theTheo Drake Showbecause the questions were never out of order. So why was Ellis taking a deep gulp from his whiskey glass like he needed the Dutch courage?
And then came the moment, the question that would mean no turning back for either of them.
Theo affected a conspiratorial air. “Now, Ellis, we couldn’t have you on the show without discussing what went down at a little London bookshop called The Reader’s Rest recently, could we? Please put our audience and viewers at home out of our misery and tell us…what is the nature of your relationship with the scream queen of horror fiction and the screenwriter of your most recent movie, Rosemary Shaw?”
Ellis’s skin looked pallid and sweaty under the studio lighting. He didn’t speak, but stared down the barrel of the camera as if he were looking directly at Rosemary.
“Say something,” she whispered at the screen.
A photo appeared behind him and Ellis shifted to look at it: it was of the two of them in the bookshop, holding hands as they escaped the horde of fans.
“Rosemary is a good friend. A colleague. She did an amazing job on the screenplay adaptation ofWhen the Devil Takes Hold,and I attended her book signing because I enjoy…reading her books.”
Rosemary swallowed but her mouth tasted like ash. Her vision tunnelled, blackening at the edges. Tinny laughter from the TV echoed in her skull and nausea clawed up her throat. It wasn’t possible. She must have misheard him.
“Are we meant to believe that you hold all your colleagues’ hands as you walk around on set then?” Theo asked Ellis.
“You’d be surprised, I’m very tactile with my friends,” Ellis said, and smiled at his interviewer, but it was all teeth.
“Why are you lying?” Rosemary said to the screen, but her voice came out as a broken sob.
Ellis shifted in his seat but didn’t look any more comfortable. “As you know, I’m still dating Jenna Dunn.”
She watched his mouth form the words, but they didn’t sink in. This wasn’t the same man who had built her an office, who had said he’d move across the world to be with her! It had only been a day and a bit since she’d left England, was she so forgettable? A rational part of her brain knew that this had Ellis’s agent’s stink all over it, why else would he have said he was still with Jenna? But she thought he was braver than this, he’d come out to her, and she thought that perhaps he was finally bold enough to stand up for himself against Brody.
Rosemary stood abruptly.
“Sweetpea?” Her dad reached for her hand.
“Give me a minute, Dad.” Tears blinded her as she stumbled out into the backyard. The sunset shouldn’t have been as beautiful as it was, with lily-pink clouds and the trills of hooded warblers and Northern mockingbirds coming from the trees.
She sucked in breath after breath, and almost had to stifle a bitter laugh when she saw Ellis’s face appear on her ringing phone.
She didn’t want to face him, but she had to know. Rosemary picked up.
“Rosemary, please let me explain. It wasn’t what it looked like.”
