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It shifted the whole afternoon until we were all sharing about our latest endeavors. Until Derek said it was time to pack up and get to the sailboat. I could tell he was anxious.
“Count me out,” I said with a smile. “The smallest boat I want on is a yacht.”
“Oh, come on,” Marley said. “It’s not that bad.”
“Seasickness,” I said. “I’m out. You have fun.”
“Me too,” Maddox said. “I should probably get home to Walt anyway. I could drive you to your place.”
I beamed. “I’d like that.”
Marley pouted. “But I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Definitely,” I said, giving her a big hug.
We packed everything up and headed across the bridge that led over the dunes and to Maddox’s Jeep. He dropped the beach chairs and towels into the back and his bag in the backseat before we got inside.
“Thanks for driving,” I said.
“It’s not a problem.”
“What were you sketching?”
He dug into the bag in the back and passed me the sketchbook. “Mostly work.”
I flipped through it. No longer was it full of pictures he’d doodled of me from college, and his art skills had been honed to a razor’s edge. He was good. Before, he’d always say that he dabbled. Charcoal was no longer his medium of choice, and the pencil sketches he’d been working on came to life before my eyes.
It was the set of Academy. The forests of Faerie, faerie pools, and the great, towering academy that was the forefront of the show. I flipped to the next page when I found a picture that was clearly of me in the forest with tears in my eyes.
“This is … amazing, Maddox.”
“It helps me visualize what I want on the computer before I have to do the visual effects.”
“I wish I could do something like this.”
Maddox shot me an incredulous look. “Have you seen yourself act? You’re a natural.”
“Yeah, but it’s not … art. It’s easy.”
“And that is easy for me,” he said, gesturing to the notebook. “What you do is art too. I could never act. Frankly, I’d never want to be in front of a camera at all if I could help it.”
“That’s true,” I said with a laugh. “So, what’s next for you after you finish Academy?”
“Ugh. I don’t know,” he said, his grip on the steering wheel tightening. “There’s a new superhero movie that the studio wants me to work on. But it’s out in LA, and LA drains me. I prefer the projects that come to Savannah. Georgia has such good breaks for the film studios. It makes more sense to be out here anyway.”
“Says the introvert,” I joked.
“Yeah. And what about you? What’s next for Josephine Reynolds?”
I shrugged, looking down at my hands. I hadn’t told anyone about this yet. But if I couldn’t be vulnerable with Maddox, then how could I ever get past the wall we were up against? “Well, I have an audition next weekend in Atlanta. It’ll be a quick trip, but my manager set it up before I got the call about Academy.”
“Same kind of thing?”
My heart brushed aside the cobwebs and hoped again. “No, it’s, uh … it’s an experimental indie film with a female director about a woman who takes on her sister’s kids after an overdose and the weight of dealing with the teenage youth’s own opioid addiction.”
Maddox straightened at those words. His gaze swept to me with awe in them. “That sounds … amazing.”
“I thought so too. And it’s a mostly female cast, female director, producers, the works. It’s going to be shot on film and not digitally. I even got word that it might be shot in black and white.”
I went giddy at the thought. I’d been auditioning for a lot of stuff since Academy had finished, but this was the first one that I really wanted. It was the direction I’d wanted to go since I was young. And the part felt important.
“That sounds exactly like what you always wanted to be doing. Except you wanted to be that director.”
“I know. One step at a time.”
“One step at a time.”
Maddox pulled the truck in front of my mom’s house. It was huge and empty. And truly the last place I wanted to go inside.
We’d had a nice day at the beach. It had been like the good old days. Almost like anything was possible. Like I could invite Maddox inside for a drink and it would bloom into more. Like our friendship could turn into what it once had been.
I wanted to give him that invite. I wanted to be bold, brave Josie. But he’d rejected me. He’d told me to my face that it wasn’t going anywhere. It was hard to keep pushing when he seemed to have finally moved on.
I chickened out, ready to say good night.
“Josie,” he said, drawing my attention back to him.
