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We lie together on Ivy’s bed, boneless, legs intertwined. Ivy’s head is on my shoulder, her arm thrown across my chest, her hair, well, everywhere.
“That was the best sex I’ve ever had,” I say. “But you know what? It gets better every time. Every time with you is the best sex I’ve ever had.”
“Me, too,” she whispers.
I’m looking forward to later—and tomorrow morning and the day after and the day after that and…
Well, all the days after that.
Which brings me to some important points.
“In the fake story,” I remind her, “we said that we couldn’t make this work because you were committed to being here in Rush Creek and I was committed to being in Hollywood. And there will be times when I can’t be here because I have to be on location or in LA. But there will be lots of times when I can be here. If…” I hesitate. “If you want me to be.”
She props herself up on an elbow. “Like—your home would be Rush Creek?”
“Like my home would be Rush Creek,” I affirm. “I’d be gone sometimes…but from now on, I only want to take parts I’m really excited about, so it wouldn’t be all the time or even most of the time.”
“I can travel, you know,” she says. “Nia and I run the theater together, and she and Akemi travel. I could take my turn.”
I smile at that. “You could.”
“I could visit you on location. Stay with you sometimes.”
“You definitely could. And I could volunteer with the theater when we’re here. I’d like to work with high schoolers. I could teach them acting skills and talk about how stage is different from screen and get them pointed in the right direction if they’re serious about acting long term.”
“That would be amazing.”
“And if you wanted to look at TV again?—”
She stiffens a bit, then sighs heavily. And she says something I wasn’t expecting at all. “I might,” she admits. “I might.” The corners of her mouth turn up. “But no matter how good the opportunity is it wouldn’t be half as fun as playing opposite you.”
We smile at each other. No, we grin at each other, batshit, stupid, in-love grins.
Which is when my phone jumps and jangles on the night table.
I groan.
“You’d better get it,” she says. “For all you know, Tobuary’s wedding just broke up again.”
I wish that didn’t sound like a plausible notion. I reach for the phone. It is Hanna—but it’s not about Tobuary.
“My sister and Easton are making dinner for everyone. She wants me there in twenty minutes and says I need to bring you. It doesn’t sound like it’s negotiable?”
Ivy snickers.
“She says, For fuck’s sake don’t change your clothes.”
Ivy glances down at our naked bodies. “Pretty sure she doesn’t mean that,” she says, giggling.
“Pretty sure she doesn’t,” I agree.
“Twenty minutes,” she says, her hand sliding down from its spot on my chest to a position about a foot lower. “That gives us just enough time to…”
The only really bad thing about showing up at Hanna and Easton’s cute little cottage fresh out of bed is the knowing glances everyone gives us. But I’m pretty sure neither of us minds because we just had the best sex ever.
Again.
Easton’s made a ginormous batch of really incredible meat sauce and several pots of spaghetti and a garden salad with loads of veggies. We heap our plates high and plop down in their living room. There aren’t enough chairs for everyone, so Ivy and I take one for the team and cram ourselves into a big armchair together. Other people sit on the floor and lean against the couch or drag dining room chairs in and circle them up. Sonya’s dog, Gus, and Reggie’s dog, Wags, circle the room, competing for goofiest canine status, nudging their heads against our legs and shoulders, begging for scraps, until Gus settles down and curls himself around Eloise’s bouncy chair, his head tuft bobbing like the feathered cap on a Buckingham Palace guard.
