“That’s what I thought.” Kennedy winked at her. “We could maybe go back.”
“To Rome?”
“I was thinking Florence. Just renting a place and being there for a while. We can read scripts or something.”
Cameron thought about that idea. Part of her would love a trip to Florence with no end date planned. She could picture them making love all over some romantic villa overlooking a vineyard, drinking amazing wine, and reading books, not scripts. The other part of her knew that that wouldn’t end up being reality. What would actually happen is that they’d arrive, Kennedy would complain about the Wi-Fi,shewould complain about the lack of AC, and they would drink wine, yes, but it wouldn’t lead to or be part of the lovemaking. In fact, she could see Kennedy reading scripts and complaining about not getting parts while Cameron tried to watch Italian television in an attempt to drown out the complaints with a foreign language. She could see them fighting over both of them being bored, not having the kinds of food that they liked, and probably taking walks alone around that vineyard because they wouldn’t want to be in the same room with each other.
“Maybe. Let’s just get through this weekend first,” she suggested, trying to push those negative thoughts out of her mind.
“Well, ready to pretend we’re a perfect couple who only fought that one time, repenting by helping a charity for kids?” Kennedy asked.
That caught Cameron off guard, and she turned a little toward her girlfriend, wondering where that had come from.
“Damn, Kennedy.”
“What?”
“Pretend we’re a perfect couple?”
“It was a joke.”
“We used to be a perfect couple,” Cameron said.
“There’s no such thing as a perfect couple, Cam. Come on.”
“We’re about to walk into a house where there will be a bunch of cameras on us, and you had to say that? Make me feel like this is all a show?”
“Isn’t it?”
“Are we no longer in a relationship, and you just didn’t tell me?”
“What?” Kennedy turned to her as much as her seat belt would allow. “That’s not what I said.”
“You said pretending.”
“To be a perfect couple that’s only fought that one time very publicly, which got us here, Cameron, where we’re trying to rebuild our reputation as a couple so that we might actually get parts again. I mean, people think you threw a glass at me and that I almost hit you. Studios won’t touch us with ten-foot poles right now. We’re here to fix that.”
“Are we also here to fixus?” she asked.
“What?”
“Kennedy, we haven’t been good for a while. You know it, and I know it, but we don’t ever talk about it. We dance around it. We fight about anything but it, but we don’t talk about it. Is this not for real? I know there will be cameras and some other couple, but I stupidly thought that you would be in this with me.”
“In thisshow?” Kennedy tossed back. “I thought you understood that that’s what this whole thing is – it’s a show. It’s for work, Cam.”
“But can’t it also be real?”
“Itisreal. It’s happening.”
“Not if you’re only smiling for the cameras and the moment we’re behind closed doors, you’re ignoring me and falling asleep like I’m not next to you.”
“Hey, you do that, too. Hell, you did that last night.”
“I know. I’m not saying that I’m blameless here. I’m saying there’s a real problem, and we need to talk about it.”
“Andnowis that time? When we’re about to be on camera? Hell, we’re supposed to be a couple in love, Cameron.”
Cameron swallowed and asked, “Are we not?” She then looked out the window behind Kennedy’s head. “Kennedy, are we not a couple in love anymore?”
