‘Good choice,’ I said. ‘I met her last night. She seems really cool.’
‘Oh, you absolutely influenced my decision-making process,’ Dylan said, nudging me with his knee. ‘You really sold me on her with all that Taylor-squared stuff.’
I buried my face in my hands again.
‘Hey, hey, hey,’ he said, laughing. ‘It was a joke.’
‘I’m the worst reality TV contestant in the history of time,’ I moaned.
‘Just give her a minute without the cameras,’ Dylan said to Murray. ‘We’ve barely met. Let us build up a rapport. Maybe that’ll make things a bit easier.’
‘I can’t move the cameras out of here, not in a hurry,’ Murray said. ‘But you can take her out on the verandah for a few minutes. Cece? Look at me.’
I obeyed.
‘You take this time to run some lines with Romeo here, okay?’ he said. ‘I want you word-perfect. We get this scene down, and you’re going to get some great screen time.’
Screen time.
Screen time equals dollars.
Screen time equals dollars equals not being thrown out on the street by my landlord in the middle of a pandemic.
Screen time equals dollars equals not being thrown out on the street by my landlord in the middle of a pandemic equalsnot letting Flick and Ayo down by not being able to afford the rent equals not losing my best friends in the world.
Breathe out anxiety. Breathe in calm.
I nodded.
‘Come on, then,’ Dylan said, taking my hand and pulling me up from the couch. His fingers wrapped around my wrist, and suddenly, I was in a flashback where those same fingers gently wrapped around the back of my neck as he coaxed me into drinking apple juice.
It’s okay,he’d said, as I sobbed into his shoulder.It’s okay. They’re gone. I’ve got you.
It was a pity I was such a disaster on camera. It wouldn’t have been terrible, being one of Dylan’s dates.
I blinked as he led me outside, my eyes watering as they adjusted to the sudden flood of late-afternoon sunlight, a sharp difference from the dark studio space they’d set up in the living room. ‘Oh wow,’ I said.
‘It’s pretty, isn’t it?’ Dylan said, shutting the French doors behind us. ‘I’d love to know what they’re paying to rent this place. Must cost a bloody fortune.’
He wasn’t wrong. It was gorgeous. A long lawn stretched out before us, bracketed on either side by rows of tall, dark hedges, straight and green like a fairway on a golf course. Downhill from us, it rolled to the edge of a sparkling lake. Uphill, it climbed gently to the Juliet Villa, which was shining faintly cream in the sunlight.
I squinted up towards it. ‘You must have had to carry me a long way last night.’
Dylan didn’t say anything, which sent me into a wholenew panic spiral. What if it hadn’t been him? What if I’d been having mild fantasies about, like, Murray’s fingers on the back of my neck? ‘It was you that carried me, right?’
‘Yeah,’ Dylan said. ‘That was me.’
I was relieved for one heartbeat. Two. Three.
Then a wave of embarrassment crashed over me so hard it was amazing the ground didn’t open and swallow me whole.
‘Look, I need to apologise to you,’ I said, words coming out so fast they were spilling over each other, my voice a full octave higher than normal. ‘For real, not just the TV apology Murray wants to film. I am so, so sorry for that scene I caused last night.’
‘You don’t need to be sorry,’ Dylan said.
He smiled. Was his smile brighter than the sun? It might be brighter than the sun.
‘Do you know how awesome you’re going to make me look?’ he said. ‘?“Romeo rescues damsel in distress” is going to be fantastic TV.’
