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“I don’t know, are there? Maybe they didn’t notice.” Lacey tossed her phone face-down on the bed.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. We’ll get it annulled.” I got to my feet and started to pace. “We’ll need to dig up that license, wherever it went, and I’ll call my lawyers. We’ll be single by dinner. And as for the press, the news cycle’s short. We’ll be news for a day, then we’ll be meme bait, then someone’ll do something dumber than us. By this time next week—”
“Wait, wait… hold on.” Lacey had gone pale again, her eyes wide with panic. “Berg almost fired us for being too loud. What’ll he do if we make his movie a punchline?”
“He won’t fire us,” I said, but my stomach rolled over. He’d warned us twice now, once at the table read. How many strikes before we were out?
“We got drunk,” said Lacey. “We got ourselvesmarried. If that hits the tabloids, how will it look? Right now, they’re calling us a whirlwind romance. Sparks flying in paradise, hate turning to passion. But if it gets out it was all a mistake — that we got blackout drunk and did something so stupid…”
“Shut up, shut up…” I slapped my palms on the dresser. “We can’t just stay married. What about your mom?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’d tell her the truth. She’d keep our secret, and it won’t be forever. We’ll just stick it out till filming wraps up, and then we’ll go in for a quickie divorce. We’ll say, I don’t know, we’re better as friends.”
I looked up at my reflection in the big dressing mirror, my skin dry from drink, my hair bedraggled, my pressed shirt still buttoned all the way to the top. I’d come as far as I had by cultivating a clean image — no scandals, no drama outside of Lacey. A booze-fueled wedding wouldn’t look good. Better to be seen as a closet romantic, caught off guard by Lacey’s sparkling green eyes.
She came up behind me. “Eric? Please. I need this.” She set her hand on my shoulder, and I covered it with my own.
“All right,” I said. “But only through filming. The second we wrap, we’ll be what you said. Friends.”
“Friends,” Lacey sighed, soft with relief.
I tried to picture that, friendship with Lacey, the two of us hanging like me and Sam. The image refused to resolve in my head. Still, maybe that could be one silver lining, the two of us parting as… not bitter rivals.
An end to our feud. I could live with that.
CHAPTER 5
LACEY
Iknew it’d be awkward the next day on set, but what I walked into went well beyond that.
I showed up bright and early to check out the location, get the lay of the land before we got started. It might’ve been fine, but I wasn’t early enough, and I got stuck behind a busload of extras. By the time we arrived, we had a whole convoy, the extras, then me, then Berg’s assistant, and behind him, the whole crew from hair and makeup. The extras had been coached not to pester the cast, but the hair and makeup gang, not so much. They swarmed around me.
“Lacey, congratulations!”
“Where’s your ring?”
“Can I just say I called it? No one bickers like you two unless they’re in love.”
“Whereisthe groom?” The lead stylist peered past me — Shana, I thought, or maybe Sheena. “Didn’t the two of you ride out together?”
“No, uh, he—”
“But, seriously, your ring?”
“Didn’t he get you one?”
“No way he’sthatcheap.”
By this time, the extras were crowding around, standing on tiptoe, craning for a peek. I jammed my hands in my pockets and shook my head.
“There is a ring, yes, but I, uh… I took it off.” Inspiration struck, and I nodded at the jungle. “I didn’t want to lose it crawling through that.”
“But how many carats?” Shana frowned at my hand. “Slim fingers like yours, you need something dainty. Not one big stone, but a cluster of sparkles.”
“It’s that,” I said. “The, uh, the cluster.”
“I knew he’d have great taste. Oh, there he is now.” She pointed, and sure enough, there was Eric. He stepped out of his limo and spotted the crowd, and slapped on his shades like they’d somehow disguise him. One of the extras murmuredso hot, and I had to admit he was looking fine. He’d dressed down in track pants and a worn gym tee, pulled tight as cling film over his pecs. I’d never looked close enough to see it before, but Eric had abody, all tight-corded sinew. Like a fighter, a boxer, all lean and mean. I realized I was staring and turned away.
