“Mr. McAdamson, sorry to interrupt, but your mom is calling for you.”
“Of course.” He pulled away, stopped and turned back to me.
“Do you want to meet Lucy?” he asked, smiling now, despite the heaviness and awkwardness of the discussion.
I wiped the tears off my face and nodded, giving him a small smile. “Yes.”
I followed him outside, and when we rounded the corner, I gasped out loud. “Oh my God, it’s a llama! An actual, living llama.” I looked at Max and laughed. “You own an actual living bloody llama. I have to take a picture of this to show my friends.” I took a photo of the llama and then posted it to the group with the words, “Don’t ask the questions now. I’ll tell you all later.” I briefly noted that I had over a hundred unread messages. That was a lot of reasonsnotto love Max. Andnotto be in a relationship with him.
I stood back and watched Max interact with his mother, helping her stand and feed the llama. I smiled. In moments like this, I was taken right back, and reminded why I’d loved him so much, and why I’d wanted to spend my whole life with him. Mind you, over the last few weeks, there had been so many moments like this when I think I might have felt that exact same thing.
My phone started ringing and I initially thought it was one of my friends ignoring the “no question” thing. But when I pulled it out and saw Sebastian’s name, a bad feeling crept in.
“Fuck. Shit, and fuck!” Sebastian said as soon as I answered the phone.
“What’s wrong?”
“Lame asshole so-called creative directors who don’t have a creative bone in their little pale bodies!”
“What, Sebastian?”
“Oh, so apparently tents are too Bedouin now—they are giving ‘middle-east vibes.’ Apparently, tents are not African. They don’t give enough African chic.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked.
“They don’t want to shoot at the tented camp.”
“They agreed to shoot there.”
“Now they don’t like it. The producer is all ‘find somewhere else and make it work’.”
“WHAT? The shoot is literally next week. They agreed to the tents, they liked the tents, they saw the pictures of the fu—” I cut myself off. “Tents.”
“Well, now they don’t like the tents. Little noncreative ratbags.”
“Oh my God.” I crouched down on the floor because I thought I might fall over. “So what now? We’re talking new location, new shot list, new gear list, possible new crew for new gear list, new everything? Have you tried to talk sense into them?”
“When last did you try to talk sense into someone with a twirly moustache, who posts get-ready-with-my-mongoose videos on Tik-Tok every day?”
“He has a mongoose?”
“Exactly.”
I looked over at the llama and felt like laughing with a mixture of hysteria and terror.
“So no tents but still a safari lodge?”
“They hate the tents. I feel like I could strangle them with one, though!”
“We would literally need to find another location now, and be at it tomorrow if we can make this . . .” I turned round and looked at Max, who was staring at me with great concern. “Sebastian, I’ll call you back. I think there’s a possibility I can figure something out. But don’t pin your hopes on it—it’s a long shot.”
CHAPTER 60
Max
I’d planned on not being at the house when she was there, and had asked my house manager to show her to the bar area and help her with anything she needed. But as soon as I’d gotten the notification on my phone that someone had arrived at my house, and as soon as I’d logged into the live feed of my security camera and saw her ringing the intercom, I grabbed my car keys and ran out the office.
I’d wanted to be the big, mature man and respect her wishes and stay out of her life. I really wanted to do that, but the second I saw her at my house, I knew that no matter how much I wanted that, practicing it in reality was going to be impossible. And now she was here in my house, with Lucy and my mom, clearly having an emergency.
