Page 98 of Take 2
I weave my fingers together. “I just watched it. The movie about us.”
“What did you think?”
Our eyes meet like magnets snapping together. “She wouldn’t have moved on like that. Nothing would feel like enough without him.”
Tears make the green of his irises sparkle. “I wanted you to be happy. I meant to write it so that we both ended up happy. The light at the end of the tunnel. A possible future in which every day wouldn’t hurt.” I squeeze his hand, and he continues. “It wouldn’t come, though. Any new relationship I wrote myself was shallow. Success was meaningless. Everything came back to you.”
I pull a deep breath into my tight chest. “And you’d choose my dreams over your own if you had to?”
“Every time. I’d quit writing now if that’s what you need. I didn’t mean for it to get this far anyway, but—”
“I don’t want you to quit. I like your movies. And I need to beat you for an Oscar at some point.”
His shoulders relax, and his lips curl up. “We’re not the same people we were twelve years ago, and as much as it killed me for us to be apart, I think our experiences can make us stronger together if we try again.”
Again, I’m crying on my parents’ couch with Ryan, just like when Kathryn Bigelow won her history-making Oscar less than twenty-four hours after we met. Here we are again in the same room where I cried when he proposed. This time, there’s no dress or makeup, but I’ve never felt like he’s loved me more.
He takes the plastic cup from my hands and puts it with the rest. Then he slides closer and wraps his arms around me. I melt into the familiar warmth of his solid chest. How is it possible that being in his arms can illicit such a range of feelings? Sometimes, it’s impossibly sexy. Sometimes, it’s the comfort of a security blanket. This is more. He’s my support without implying I don’t have my own strength. He’s just … here. To be whatever I need. It makes me wonder what I was trying to prove by insisting I didn’t need him. Even if needing him is a little scary.
“Could you explain to me …” I pull back, and my gaze flicks to his lips.Not yet.The conversation is super done if that starts. “What were the film clips of us?”
He glances down and runs his hand up and down my back. “I love storytelling. I understand how you get lost in it now, and seeing it come together is incredible. But no story I’ve written, read, or watched has ever compared to ours. I guess it’s become a habit to capture stories that way, and I’d be lying if I said I don’t like replaying the way you looked at me on the boat and all those fleeting moments they caught. I don’t know exactly what I was going to do with it, but it would have been romantic as fuck.”
The reprieve to laugh at the end of that is like a lifesaver thrown to me in the water. As per usual, he was the one who pushed me in. “Or, I would have lost it and thought you were a freak.” A grand romantic gesture turned screaming match plays in my head. That’s so us.
“You already know that.”
I laugh again and rub my eye. “You’ve upped your game.”
“It’s not that crazy. There were cameras everywhere.”
“They weren’t supposed to be pointed at me.”
“There’s always behind-the-scenes shit.” He’s talking with his hands like this is really a defensible act of lunacy. “Having our best moments recorded is so romantic!”
“Nope. Filming sex without my knowledge or consent is illegal.”
His chin drops as he shakes his head at me. “Those aren’t our only good moments.”
I shrug and take another sip of semi-frozen sugar before setting it back into the carrier. “Ryan Preston Greene.” I lean my side against the back of the couch. “Why are you so good at everything? First football, then screenwriting …”
“I failed at the most important thing.” His eyes pierce mine, and memories of them assault me from the first time I saw them at a bar on my birthday to the way they glistened when we got married and yachting on the Mediterranean. I really am stubborn to have claimed I didn’t like the color green. That green of the dress I wore for my twenty-first birthday Oscars, the green of the emerald he put on my finger that night, the green of the scrunchie holding up my bun right now, is definitely my favorite.
“You never failed at loving me. We failed at figuring out life.” I slide onto his lap. “My priorities frequently suck, but I swear I do love you more than writing.”
His lips curl up. “That’s not even a compliment. Writing is awful.”
“Well, yeah.” I sniffle and smile. “But even the best parts.”
“Oh, well, that’s something.”
I clasp the sides of his face and kiss him like it’s still been years and not days since we did this. In a way, that’s true. Or maybe this is our first kiss. We’re no longer Wisconsin Ryan and Bella or Hollywood Preston and Mira. We’re culminations of our past selves.
He pulls back and scrunches his nose. “You taste like pure sugar.”
“Because I’m so fucking sweet.” I lean over to swipe a finger through the whipped cream and plop it onto his nose.
He wipes it on my neck as I squeal, and we fall into a heap on the cushions. Laughter rips through me as he sucks the rest of the whipped cream off my finger and then licks it off my neck.
