I was an idiot. I wassuch an idiot.
It had been one look. And suddenly, what, he was in love with me?
But the lie! What about the lie? If he hadn’t said that he was afraid of getting his heart broken, he’d be on this date with Parisa, one of his actual girlfriends, and—Oh.
It was another Marija incident.I can see myself with Parisa, and that scares me, he’d say if I asked him.But you’re not frightening.
I hoped the foundation the make-up team had caked on me was at least an inch thick. My face must be so deeply, incredibly, incandescently scarlet with embarrassment.
Saurav stuck his head out from behind his camera and raised his eyebrows at me meaningfully.Go on, answer him!
‘I don’t mind,’ I managed. ‘Not unless you ate it all.’
I sat down beside him on the picnic blanket. We were surrounded on three sides by hedges studded with twinkling fairy lights. A bottle of champagne sat in a shiny silver ice bucket. It was all extremely classicMarry Me, Julietdate fare.
‘I can’t tell you how excited I am to be able to eat the cheese,’ Dylan said, shoving another piece into his mouth.
He wasn’t allowed to eat the cheese on his dates. Eating on TV was deeply unsexy.
But this wasn’t a date. Because, like he’d been telling me every day, in every way, we were just friends.
‘I—um—give me the champagne,’ I said. The cameras felt like they were closing in on me. ‘I need a last drink before all your girlfriends murder me for stealing their time.’
He passed me the bottle. ‘You didn’t steal their time,’ he said, spreading quince paste on another cracker and cutting himself off another wedge of cheese. ‘You earned it, fair and square.’
I didn’t, though,I wanted to say.You lied.
But I couldn’t do that to him. Not when I knew what his actual third greatest fear was. If I called him a liar, he’d look terrible.
The cork popped out of the champagne and missed Saurav’s camera lens by barely an inch as it sailed away into the night. ‘I’m really not sure they see it that way,’ I said, trying to sound wry. ‘Didn’t you see how they were looking at me?’
‘I wasn’t looking at them,’ he said. ‘I was looking at you.’
My heart flipped over in my chest.
‘Although I can’t see shit when I don’t have my contacts in,’ he went on, shoving the cracker into his mouth. ‘My eyes just wouldn’t take them this morning, but production still wouldn’t let me wear my glasses.’
My heart flipped over again, for the exact opposite reason.
‘Dylan, you’re going to have to do that line again,’ Suzette the producer said. ‘No swearing. And no referencing production.’
‘Shit, sorry,’ he said, a few crumbs spraying out of his mouth. ‘I slipped into Cece-and-chill mode automatically.’
Something about that triggered my fight-flight-freeze response. In that instant, I both wanted to fight him (Can’t you see what you’re doing to me, Dylan?!) and flee screaming into the night.
But all I could do was stay frozen, caught perfectly in the equilibrium. ‘Go again,’ Suzette said.
‘Hang on, I just need to make myself another cracker – for continuity or whatever,’ he said, slicing off another piece of cheese. ‘Okay. I’m good. Go.’
‘In three, two…’
‘Honestly, I can’t see anything without my contacts in,’ he said, eating the cracker. ‘And I, uh, must have misplaced my glasses. I couldn’t really see anyone.’
There were only three cameras on us, but it felt like three hundred, and that all three hundred were coming closer and closer, closing in, and my throat was closing up, and—
‘Cece, you need to get in on this cheese, or I’m going to eat it all,’ Dylan said, nudging me with his elbow.
‘I… uh… okay,’ I managed, my hands shaking as I picked up the cheese knife. ‘So, um, why couldn’t you wear your contacts?’
