AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Thehardestway,” Dean said through gritted teeth. “I challenge either of you to spend that much time with Brooke without going insane.”
“No thanks,” both Wyatt and I said at the same time, and then we all fell quiet, giving me too much space to reflect on how sweaty my palms were.
What did this dinner mean? What did Iwantit to mean?
Our driver pulled up outside a house that looked like all the others in the street and we made our way up the driveway to the house. Dean knocked, and it opened almost immediately, with Kyla standing behind it wearing the same red dress she’d worn to the theater.
“Welcome to our home. Isaac, you remember my dad?”
Her dad had dressed up for the occasion too, wearing black slacks and a dress shirt that fitted snugly. He looked as nervous as we were, but smiled when we followed Kyla into the house.
“I’m Paul,” he said. “Lovely to meet you all. You’re actors, aren’t you? I think I’ve seen your movies.”
“We have.” Kyla chuckled and then leaned closer to us. “We had a movie marathon before I started working onPushing Daisy.”
“You didn’t watchBlood and Bone, did you?” Wyatt asked in mock horror.
“We did.” Kyla flashed him a grin. “It was just as bad as the reviewers said.”
Wyatt groaned and looked at her dad with pleading eyes.
“Please don’t judge me for that. It was a long time ago, and I needed the money…”
“Is this hardcore porn or something?” Dean asked out of the corner of his mouth, and I laughed.
“If it was, I would have shown you already.Blood and Bonewas a low-budget B-grade —” I caught Wyatt’s eye and grinned. “Sorry,Z-gradehorror movie, and surfer boy here starred in it.”
“They scrolled through my IMDB profile and incorporated my real-life hobbies into the script so they wouldn’t have to train me or hire a stunt double,” Wyatt lamented. “So on my first day of shooting, I’m being dragged off my surfboard by a sharkpuppet.”
Dean cackled.
“Now Ihaveto see it.”
“We’ve got it on there.” Paul’s dad nodded to the television and then looked uncertainly at Kyla. “Don’t we?”
“We do,” she said with a grin. “But let me show you around first.” She led us into the kitchen, where the aroma of a roast dinner surrounded us. There was another woman in the kitchen, who I recognized from the last time I was here.
“April, right?” I asked, and the girl swung her long, dark ponytail over her shoulder.
“That’s right,” she beamed. When Dean and Wyatt looked confused, she added: “I’m an extra onPushing Daisy.”
“My promise of a home-cooked meal might have been a bit premature,” Kyla said, gesturing at the oven. “Unless you consider April’s dad’s cafe to be my second home?”
“It smells delicious either way.”
It wasn’t a lie — my mouth was actually watering, and I was almost glad when Kyla led us down the hallway to show us the bedrooms, the bathroom, and the small backyard, which was mostly a stretch of mowed grass with a few shrubs spotted around near the back fence.
“You reallydolove to read,” Wyatt marveled, as we passed the fourth bookcase, which was packed so full of books that there were more stacked on top of it, near the ceiling.
“Yeah.” Kyla blushed. “It’s something I’ve always done. Most of these books are my mom’s… she was a big reader, too.”
Was. I noticed her use of past tense and wondered if that meant her mother had died. Kyla had never spoken about her, so I didn’t want to push her for information. Instead, I focused on the books.
“Pride and Prejudice,” I read aloud, “Great Expectations,Gone with the Wind… she must have liked the classics.”
“She did.” Kyla pointed at the less weathered books on the shelf. “But she also read a lot of newer stuff, and so do I. I’veread almost every book at the local library.” She looked proud for a moment, but then her face fell. “There’s not much else to do when you can’t walk for six months.”
She was right, but I’d seen her sitting on the set with her nose in a book enough times to know that this wasn’t just something Kyla did when she was bedridden — it was something she enjoyed. And these books’ covers were so worn that I’d be willing to bet that she’d read each of them multiple times.
