Page 105 of How To Plot a Payback

“Opa?!” she cries, and there’s an arch in both her brow and her tone as her eyes meet mine, one arm flung into the air and the other gripping the baby script that has existed fewer than twelve hours. It’s rough to say the least.

Riddled with plot holes.

Phrases needing tightening all over the place.

Erik finished it just this morning and sent it over. I was going to take a look before we took an axe to it Tuesday morning in the writers room. It’s three episodes past the show we filmed earlier this week, so baby-fresh it will be unrecognizable from the final product, which is the only reason I’m really letting us stand up here now, running roughshod over our confidentiality clause, acting it out. I may as well have pulled out a fan-fiction chapter from the Internet. It would be closer to the real thing.

“Opa? Really?” Lavender says under her breath as she takes my arm and begins to swing.

“Your downstairs neighbor is at a Greek wedding. We had to get Ashley and Lance together again after the zucchini incident.”

“There’s been a zucchini incident?” Lavender says. The world is spinning, flashes of golden light from string bulbs and faces swirling around us. The sound of the concrete fountain bubbles behind us just beyond the winding pathway, the heady scent of perfume and flowers all around. The sky is a square of black above us, dim stars blinking as though they are watching too. Just like every occupant of Casa Laguna.

And to me, it feels like the whole world.

Lavender is the only thing centered in my sights, cheeks flushed, eyes mirthful, golden curls bobbing and dancing as we spin. She’s sucked me into her spell. And I can’t even care anymore. At this point the intrusive thoughts whisper I should throw a dishrag over tonight and let it be how it will be.

You can try again tomorrow.

For tonight, you can pretend.

“I told you it was rough,” I grunt as she elbows me in the ribs and faces the group. Her eyes drop momentarily to the script, and she tucks in her lower lip, biting it with her teeth to keep from laughing as her eyes scan the line before speaking out loud. Attempting to keep character. “Oh, Lance!” she cries shrilly, clutching her chest. “If you keep dancing with me like this, what will Patricia think?”

“Patricia comes back?” she hisses.

“An alternate reality episode,” I whisper, to which she nods her head understandingly with an “ah.”

“I wondered that!” Mrs. Teaberry called, pointing. “She won’t like it one bit!”

“It’s just dancing.”

Lavender puts a hand on my bicep, the firmness and familiarity of her grip sending a thrill down my spine. She raises a brow. “Is it, though?” She takes a step closer, her voice husky, her eyes mirthful to the point of beginning to brim with tears. “Is it?”

I purse my lips, arching a brow of my own.

Okay.

Yes, this script is bad, but the melodrama isn’t helping. “A little over the top, aren’t we?” I murmur.

“But don’t you wish”—she bites her lip again, tears wetting the corners of her lashes now as she fights back laughter, reading the script—“just sometimes, Lance, that this night would never end? That we could just go back in time, and do this all over again . . . the right way?”

She looks up at me, her smile as bright as the moon, her face nothing but open. All I want is to scoop her up. And yes, have this night never end.

My eyes don’t flicker to the script but stay on hers. “Sometimes, yes,” I say. “Sometimes in moments like this.”

Our makeshift audience is completely hushed, and suddenly something shifts in Lavender’s expression. A little smile tugs at the corner of her lips, and unprompted, she takes a step in. The circle has closed with my arms around her. My fingers, somehow, have found the small of her back, the softness of her eyelet top rubbing against my palm. Stray strands of her hair dance around my face, tickling my chin and cheek. Her tidewater eyes draw me in like a riptide, and suddenly I feel as though there’s nothing I can do but follow the script. To the letter.

Which instructs: PASSIONATE KISS.

It feels as though she’s waiting for me to.

The audience is waiting for me to.

Mrs. Teaberry with her hands clutched together, hunched over as she stands, murmuring what seems to be a chant, is waiting for me to.

Or for Lance to. To be honest, I’m not sure which.

I hesitate.