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26
Bronte held Mason in her arms, his tiny lips pursing in sleep. He was almost three months old now, yet still so tiny and fragile. She leaned down to kiss the top of his head. “I’m going to make you love me.”
“I think he already does,” Shelley said, strolling out from the kitchen carrying a mug of tea for Bronte and a glass of water for herself. “I think the only time he doesn’t cry is when you’re holding him.”
“He knows who his godmother is. Don’t you, Masey?”
Even though Zoe was upstairs with Tommy getting ready for bed, Bronte still idly watched cartoons. Shelley grabbed the remote and turned it off.
“Hey!” she whisper-shouted. “Mickey just called Toodles.”
Shelley stretched out her legs on the sofa and wrapped a blanket around herself. “Spoiler alert, they solve the mystery. We already missed most of the red carpet.”
The Oscars were on tonight, and although Bronte never paid much attention to the award show, she was excited to watch this time. Chris was presenting, and he’d called her earlier in the day to get her opinion on his tie, but she knew he wasn’t really calling about his clothes.
He needed a distraction. He wanted her reassurance, and she was glad to give it to him. She only wished she could be there to do it in person.
Bronte kissed Mason again, then repositioned him to her shoulder so she could reach for her tea. Although before she could grab it, her phone rang, and she diverted to pick it up instead. It was Chris.
“Hey, wha—”
“Bunny, you’ll never believe who I just met,” he said without any preliminaries. “Robert Redford. Robert motherfucking Redford.”
“Is that his full name?”
“Who is that?” Shelley asked, popping a pretzel into her mouth.
Bronte mouthed “Chris” as his outburst continued.
“I totally fangirled. I told him, for an entire year of my life, all I did was study his films.” He chuckled to himself like he couldn’t believe it. “I don’t think he knows who I am, but why would he, right? I mean, he’s too busy being Robert Redford to watch my movies. And then, oh my god…”
“What?”
“I quoted one of his lines back to him.” He moaned out a laugh. “I said, ‘Don’t you get sick of being right all the time?’”
“What’s that—”
“From Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”
“I’ve never—”
“When I get home, we’re going to have another lesson. All on Robert Redford.”
If her brain hadn’t stumbled over the word home, maybe she would have laughed too.
Then he added fleetingly, “I gotta go do the media lineup. Talk to you later.”
“Good luck. Have—” The line went dead before she could finish the sentence, and she was left staring at her phone.
Shelley pulled Bronte’s attention away from the screen. “What did he say?”
“Uh…he met Robert Redford.”
“What’s that face for?”
She shrugged. “No face. Just miss him, that’s all.”
After almost two months apart, their relationship was more or less her pretending she was comfortable with their situation. It was acting as if conversations in twenty-minute spurts were perfectly normal. It was controlling her tone of voice so he wouldn’t hear the doubt in it.
