The video started with him sitting on a couch, dressed in something too polished, hair too clean, like someone had tried to polish the sharp edges out of him. But his eyes were still the same. Quiet. Wary. A little wild.
The reporter grinned. “So… people have seen the photos. The bookstore owner, the coffee runs, that night at the pool. You know who I’m talking about.”
Ansel smirked faintly, shaking his head. “Yeah. I know.”
“Juniper, right?”
At just the sound of her —my— name, his expression softened, unguarded, almost reverent. “Yeah. Juniper.”
“So, how did you meet her? It’s not exactly Hollywood-adjacent to be in a small town bookstore.”
“She knew who I was,” he admitted, eyes crinkling. “Apparently, I was her ‘celebrity hall pass.’” He laughed under his breath. “She thought she was being subtle. She wasn’t.”
Instantly, I wanted to argue with him. To tease the man on the screen and remind him thathehad sat next to me in an empty bar. Regret festered in my stomach.
“She had a crush on you?”
His grin widened just a little. “Oh yeah. She tried to play it off, but I could tell. It was… adorable.”
The reporter leaned forward, clearly loving every second. “So sheknewyou — all of your ‘Battle for the Cosmos’fame — and still treated you like a normal guy?”
“She’s the only person who’s ever really done that,” he said, voice dipping softer. “She never wanted anything from me. She just… saw me.” My throat closed up, tears pricking my eyes.
“Ansel, there’s beenmorespeculation about the girl from the convention in Seattle almost six months ago… Care to elaborate?”
He just smiled, shaking a polished curl from his hair. “What’s there to tell?”
“Was it Juniper with you that day?”
“I guess that’s between me and the mysterious woman, isn’t it?” But his grin wasdevastating. He was so charming, sohimself, that it about tore through me.
“Juniper’s divorced, right? Did that worry you at all?”
Ansel shook his head instantly. “No. She went through hell with her ex. And she survived it — still kind, still open. If anything, it just made me admire her more.” He ran his hand through his beard. “Are you going to ask her about my divorce? Or do you consider divorced men less threatening than divorced women?”
The reporter blanched before continuing. “She works in that small bookstore downtown — does she like the attention that comes with dating you?”
He chuckled. “Shehatesit. She’ll roll her eyes and tell me I’m ruining her quiet life. But she’s amazing at what she does. She makes that store feel like home for people. She’s one of those people who gives more than they have, you know?”
“And what do you give her?”
His smile faded — something raw replacing it. “God, I hope it’senough. She deserves more than I can give. But I’d spend the rest of my life trying if she’d let me.”
If I thought I was hurting before that line… the way his eyes sparkled, the way his own throat bobbed as he said it.
Fuck.
The reporter blinked, clearly thrown by the weight in his voice. “Wow. You’re really in love with her.”
He exhaled shakily, eyes dropping to his lap for a moment. “Yeah. I am.”
“Do you think she knows that?”
He laughed, quiet and self-deprecatingly. “I haven’t told her. I don’t know if she’d believed me.”
“Why wouldn’t she?”
Ansel hesitated, jaw tightening. “Because people like me don’t usually stay. And people like her… get left.Someonemade her feel like she’s too much. I hate that she believes that. I’d burn the whole damn world down to prove her wrong.”
