Page 97 of Take 2
Imadeittothe couch. I am so accomplished.
Did I only do that because I needed to go downstairs to get tea anyway and didn’t want to drag myself back up the stairs? Sure. Do I look like hell after all that crying? Probably. There’s no reason to care, though.
I don’t want to talk to Ryan on the phone, but I’m too wrung out to book a flight just yet. Soon.
The doorbell rings, and Mom’s footsteps thump to the door. The deadbolt clicks when it unlocks, and Mom gasps. In LA, I might be worried her life was in danger, but here, my biggest worry is that it’s an actual visitor—not just an Amazon delivery—and I’ll have to hide.
“Oh my god, look at you!” That’s more excitement than a delivery warrants. Whoever is there is, unsurprisingly, way quieter than my mom, so I still don’t know what is happening.
Please be a puppy.Can a puppy ring a doorbell?
“Yes, she’s in the living room.”
Crap! Who is she letting see me? I throw the blanket off myself and scramble to smooth out my flyaways. I’m not wearing a bra. What is this woman thinking? I’m about to bolt for the stairs when Ryan comes into view.
I suck in a breath, but oxygen doesn’t seem to make it to any of my limbs. My legs are jelly, and I sink back into the couch. Mom indiscreetly scurries to the stairs, and he walks over to me with damp hair and a Starbucks carrier full of drinks. He’s in a red Badgers T-shirt and jeans, just like the Wisconsin version of him I used to know.
He sets the drinks on the ottoman and sits next to me.
“Unexpected phone calls weren’t enough?” I ask. “Had to go further back in time for surprise visits?”
“Had to make a trip just for you.” Despite this being the exact opposite of what I told him to do, I soften a little. “Actually, I probably would have listened to you about not coming, but…”
“Anna?”
He nods. “She’s … had some feelings about us getting back together.”
“I’ll bet.”
“I ruined her first plan by winning the Oscar this year, and it’s pretty much been a downward spiral since then. I’m surprised she didn’t give me a black eye when we found your Oscars speech in the elevator.”
“You what?”
He pulls a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. I take it from him and look at my incoherent notes and list of people to thank. It was in my bra, and I’d taken my bra off in the elevator.
“When she saw she was still on there,” he says, “she had some choice names to call me.”
I bite my lip and sniffle. “I had promised her.” I glance at the coffee collection. “Expecting more people?”
“Mhmm.” He lifts the carrier and points to each drink as he explains. “Caramel Frappuccino for college Bella. White chocolate mocha for grad school Bella. Chai latte with vanilla and cinnamon for Bella who misses autumn. And the brown sugar lattewith real milkfor Oscar-nominated Mirabelle Sheridan.”
Don’t cry over your freaking coffee orders, you dumbass.
My eyes prickle against my wishes.Traitors.
“Mirabelle, Bella, Mira—”
“You sound like Billy Connolly inMuppets Treasure Island.”
“The best Muppets movie.” He puts the drink caddy back down.
“Of course.” I swipe a tear from my eye.
“Mirabelle Elizabeth Sheridan, we’ve known each other for a long ass time. You’ve known exactly what you wanted to be since you were fourteen, and I love that about you. I was wrong about what I wanted to do. Thanks to you, I fell into something I really love. I’ve gone through a wider range of versions of myself because I figured it out as I went along. But you’ve changed too. Can you even imagine drinking a caramel Frappuccino now?”
I grab the whipped cream-covered drink and take a sip. “It has promise as a dessert, I guess.”
“I didn’t write a movie to steal your dreams from you. It was just how I got through losing you. It was only a halfway decent screenplay because of you. Everything I learned about doing this was from you. And I wasn’t trying to impress you, though I won’t lie; I like that I can understand you better now. It wasn’t to get you back, but I always wanted to do that.”
