“So, you meet Jordan?” Jessica spears a lettuce leaf with a fork, keeping her eyes on her plate. Her tone is casual, but I can tell from the way her eyebrows move up that she’s trying to get a read on me.
“Yeah,” I say. “Rainer doesn’t seem pleased that he’s here. I guess they have some history.”
Jessica gawks at me. “Some history? Are you kidding me?”
“Britney…” My voice trails off. I don’t actually know which details are true and which aren’t. Rainer hasn’t told me, and I refuse to fill them in myself.
Jessica lowers her voice. “Britney Drake cheated on Rainer with Jordan.” She clears her throat. “They’re still together.”
“Rainer said he broke up with Britney.”
“Right,” Jessica says. “Because she’s with Jordan. Rainer is just trying to save face with you.” She squints like she’s just eaten a sour lemon and runs her hand over her forehead. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s fine,” I say. I take another bite of my sandwich and chew carefully. So Wyatt isn’t the only one who is watching us—so what?
“Those two are like natural enemies,” Jessica says. “They have to be seated at opposite sides of the Teen Choice Awards.” She spears a cherry tomato with her fork. “I get why he’s here, he’s a great actor, but I’m not sure how this is going to go.”
“Well, hopefully he won’t get the part,” I say, attempting a smile.
Jessica nods. “Totally possible,” she says. “Jordan playing the good guy? I just don’t see it.”
I want to ask her more about what she knows—like was he really in prison? But I have a feeling Google is going to have to inform me again, because I see Wyatt at the entrance to the tent, red-faced and script in hand. “PG,” he bellows. “Now.”
Jessica scoops up her tray, and I follow her over to Wyatt. “Good luck,” she mouths. I can’t help but think I’m going to need it.
CHAPTER 10
Jordan will barely look at me. We’re reading together on the soundstage, and I try, again, to say hello when I get there, but he doesn’t turn around. Wyatt walks in behind me, and Jessica follows. Our producers, David Weiss and Joe Dodge, are there as well. They’re usually around, unlike our executive producer (and Rainer’s dad), Greg Devon, who came once in the beginning. Apparently it’s common practice for producers to be MIA on a movie this big. There are usually three or more producers to distribute the weight, and not all of them will be on set all the time. Some of them might never even come. David and Joe are the only ones who are in Hawaii regularly. The rest stay in L.A. to handle the business side of things. At least that’s what Wyatt told me at the twenty-minute orientation he gave me our first day here.
“Can you guys just pick up at the top of the page?” Wyatt says. He hands us both a four-page script. It’s a flashback scene—Ed and August are on vacation before the crash, and he gives her a love letter as her birthday present. It’s a beautiful scene. One of my favorites, because it really shows what Ed and August have. And how much he loves her. It’s a romantic scene, and I’m having a hard time seeing Jordan playing it. How is he possibly going to play sweet? The guy’s a born brooder.
Jordan looks over the lines. He’s still not talking to me, but I notice he’s moved closer. There are only a few feet between us now, not a football field. His shirtsleeves are down, gone are any remnants of his tattoo, and I see that he shaved during lunch. The skin on his face is smooth now, lighter than I would have expected, too, like he took an eraser to the bottom half.
He looks over at me, catches my gaze, and smirks. I look away. Something about his gaze makes me feel exposed.
“You ready?” he asks. It’s so quiet I think I’ve heard him wrong. Or it could just be that I’m surprised to hear his voice at all. It’s deeper than it was when he was talking to Rainer this morning, softer.
“Yes.” I haven’t even glanced over the pages. I’m too nervous.
“Whenever you’re set,” Wyatt calls from his chair. Wyatt has changed this afternoon. He’s got on a new shirt, but that’s not what I mean. His tone is different with Jordan. He’s not as rough or something. Or maybe it’s just that we’re not shooting. It’s funny to not have any cameras around, and so few people. It’s completely different from when Rainer and I film. It reminds me of all those rounds of auditions in L.A., and suddenly my body is full of anxiety—the kind that paralyzes.
And then Jordan starts, and the minute he does, I feel like the world has stopped, rewound itself. There is no more fear, no more anxiety. It’s strangely calm and serene and peaceful, like we’re two travelers walking through a silent, still forest. The only ones for miles.
“I’m always going to be here to tell you.”
I set into August, and suddenly the space that has separated us, those rough edges that just didn’t line up, fade seamlessly. I actually am her. The one torn between her old life and a new one. I’m stuck on a desert island with a man I’m falling in love with, and someone out there is the one who I used to love. I can’t see clearly anymore. I don’t know which choice is the right one.
As we continue through the scene, I remember something from a script I once read. It was an old version of a classic, and it had a director’s note scrawled in the margin. His note to an actor. It said: Frank—make me believe no one else could do it.
Standing here rehearsing with Jordan, I know, without a doubt, no one else could do this part. Because something remarkable is happening. He’s not becoming Ed, Ed is becoming him, and at the same time, August is becoming me. For the first time since I got here, I understand her perfectly. All these weeks of struggle melt away. I melt away. I’m losing myself in her. So much so that when Jordan stops reading, I blink to remember where we are. Like resetting my eyes might reset time, too. Bring us back here.
Everyone in the room is silent. Even Wyatt doesn’t make any noise.
Then David starts to clap, and then Camden, then Joe, and then Jessica, and it’s just four of them, so I can’t say the sound is deafening or anything, but it’s the best noise I think I’ve ever heard. Better even than the sound of Greg Devon’s voice telling me I got the part. Because for the first time since I’ve been here I think I might actually be good at my job.
I look at Jordan, and for a moment our eyes lock. I see something in them. Something that wasn’t there this morning. A flicker of light in the blackness.
“Thank you, Jordan,” Wyatt says. He slides down from his chair, walks over to us, and puts a hand on my shoulder. The move makes me jump. He’s never done anything this friendly. Not remotely. And then he says, “That was pretty stellar.”
“Awesome!” Jessica pipes up. She winces and looks at David and Joe, but they’re smiling, too.
“Come here,” Wyatt says to me. “Jordan, give us a minute.”
Jordan nods his head, breaking our gaze. I feel like I’ve just run a race and I’m beaming, the effects of exhaustion and pure adrenaline pouring outward, like my efforts are somehow outside of me, visible. Like a painting or poetry. I feel like if I tried, I could touch them.
But when I turn to look at Jordan again, he’s already walking out the door.
“What do you think?” Wyatt asks me. He’s tapping a pen against his clipboard, the way he does when he’s trying to hurry our schedule along.
I think about Rainer, and how upset he was. I think about how he’s taken care of me here—how much I already owe him. I think about how I really care about him, even if I’m not yet sure what that means. And I know what I should do for him. Even though he told me not to, I should try to get Jordan as far away from this movie as possible.
I take a deep breath and gear up to tell Wyatt I’m just not sure, I think we could do better, when I catch his eye. Wyatt’s looking at me the way he does sometimes between takes. It’s a hard look, and I know he uses it to inspire fear, but it’s also a challenge. It’s a look that says what have you got? And because of that, I can’t
lie. Not even for Rainer. The words tumble out before I can stop them. “He’s perfect,” I say.
Wyatt nods sharply. Triumphant. “The two of you together.” He stops tapping his pen and peers closer at me. “I saw something today I hadn’t seen before,” he says. “I saw you stop trying so goddamn hard.”
I’m not sure what to say, so I don’t say anything at all.
Wyatt looks over at Joe and David and Jessica and Camden, who all have looks on their faces like the one Cassandra had when I told her I got the part. Like they just can’t wait to scream YES.
So I say it first. And then they echo me, and soon even Wyatt is losing his cool, pacing the length of the soundstage, his mouth moving, his arms swinging. He goes over to David and Joe, and they huddle up, like my brothers and their friends used to do when they’d play football in our backyard on Saturdays. There is some nodding, some muffled words, and then they call Jordan back in. And I stand there as Wyatt tells him he has the part. Camden, Joe, and David come over and congratulate him.
Jordan is still hard to read. He’s smiling, lightly, but the only thing I have to compare to this scene is when I got the part, and I was, well, less composed. Hysteria comes to mind. And Jordan barely even seems to register the news. He simply says thank you politely, like Wyatt cleared his dinner plate.
Then he looks at me. Our eyes lock, for just a moment, but it’s enough to make me feel the impact. Physically. Like he’s thrown a baseball straight at my chest. It makes me waver and take a step back. There is something about him. Something that makes me feel like he could change me. That he will.
“Call Andrew,” Wyatt is saying. “Talk it over. But we’re saying, it’s yours.”
I learn later that Andrew is his agent and that Jordan came out to the audition overnight. That the producers had someone else in mind for the role up until the last minute, when Wyatt demanded they see Jordan read. In person. That he was his choice all along.
“Congratulations,” I say.
He doesn’t answer. Not with words, anyway. But I know he’s heard me. I see his eyes flinch, one quick blink, like a firefly in the darkness.
And that’s how it happened—how Jordan Wilder got cast.
People always say that there are a million ways to solve a problem, that no question has a black-and-white answer. It’s not true. There are, at any moment, only two courses of action. The one that leads you toward something—stardom, love, disaster—or the one that leads you away from it. And at any moment, in any instant, you have to do your best to know which is which.
So Jordan gets the part.
And then we aren’t just moving toward something. We’re sprinting at lightning speed.
CHAPTER 11
Jordan disappears back to L.A. just in time for Cassandra and Jake to arrive. In the craziness of this week I almost forget that, come Saturday morning, I’m due at the airport to pick them up.
I talk Rainer into lending me the neon-blue car. “I thought you didn’t want to be noticed?” he teases when I ask.
He’s handling the Jordan casting news remarkably well. Not that I’m really that surprised. If Rainer had a life motto, it would probably be Keep Calm and Look Superhot Doing It.
“I need to pick Cassandra and Jake up.”
“If you want me to come with you, all you have to do is ask.”
We’re in the doorway of Rainer’s condo. He’s not wearing a shirt, just low-slung pajama bottoms, and I am trying really hard not to focus on the outline of his abs or the indents of his hip bones. His hair is still messy from sleep. It’s barely six AM.
Unfortunately, we both have to work today. Rainer has to be on set, but I’m not scheduled to shoot until the afternoon, and Cassandra and Jake’s flight lands in an hour.
“You can’t,” I say. “You have to work.”
He leans against the doorframe and looks at me through his lashes. His face is still warm and open from sleep. “Keeping tabs on me, huh?”
“You’re second on the call sheet,” I fire back. “It’s kind of hard to miss.”
He yawns, and I try not to pay attention to the way the muscles in his jaw work. I think about this week. All our little moments. Maybe I have too many stories about costars falling in love running around in my head. Put there by Cassandra, of course.
I shake my hair out. “So can I borrow it or what?”
Rainer smirks. “Yes,” he says. “If you let me take your friends to dinner tonight.”
He looks at me, dead on, and I feel the blush rising in my cheeks. “If that’s what it takes,” I say, my heart flying fast up to my throat.
“See you on set,” he says, before unfolding his hand to reveal the keys.
It has been a while since I was behind the wheel, and as soon as I’m in that ridiculous neon car I realize how much I’ve missed driving. My dad usually stays close to home on weekends, and he’d always lend me his car—oftentimes even if Joanna needed it. I’d pick up Cassandra and Jake, and we’d blast music. Sometimes we’d just drive, if I didn’t have to be at work or Cassandra didn’t have to babysit. Jake would occasionally protest about gas, but not always. He loved it, too, I think. I sometimes wondered why he wanted to spend all that time with the two of us. He had other friends. Guy friends. Cassandra used to say it was because he wanted to be with me, but I don’t think that was totally true.
I can’t wait to see them. I need to tell Cassandra all about Rainer, about what’s happening, and the Jordan of it all. There is way too much to share, and I definitely need her advice, since I still don’t really know what’s going on with Rainer. Before they even get here, I start to feel sad they’re coming for only two days.
I asked one of the women at the front desk to secure some leis for me, and I loop them around my arm after I park at the airport. They’re plumeria, and instantly I’m transported back to that night at dinner with Rainer. I push the thought away, though. This weekend is about Cassandra and Jake.
I wait for them downstairs, near the baggage claim. The Maui airport is small, and everyone files down the same flight of stairs.
I see Cassandra first. Red patent-leather ballet flats, then denim cutoffs, a flower-print long-sleeved camisole, and finally her blond, cherubic head. “Paige!” she calls. She waves wildly and knocks into Jake, next to her; he turns and smiles.
Cassandra plows down the stairs and straight into my arms. I catch her and hold her tight. “You look too skinny,” she says into my hair.
“Everyone eats sushi here,” I say.
I pull back, and Jake has just reached us, and for a moment we’re not sure what to do, but Cassandra rolls her eyes and pulls him in until it’s the three of us—faces pressed together, arms around one another. Just like always.
“You’re kidding me,” Cassandra says, kicking off her shoes in the condo hallway. “This is all yours?”
Jake struggles behind us with the suitcases. Cassandra confessed in the car that it took some persuading to get Jake on the plane, but she reminded him that it was going to be flying whether he was on it or not, and he relented.
“This is incredible,” Jake says. He sets the suitcases down and follows Cassandra into the living room. She yanks the sliding glass door back and waltzes out onto the lanai.
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s cool.”
“One piña colada, please,” Cassandra calls. I see her pitch the front of her body over the railing, taking in the ocean breeze.
I laugh, and Jake turns to me. “It’s good to see you,” he says.
I look at him. He’s so familiar in his navy T-shirt and jeans. I’m looking at him now, but it’s like I’m seeing him as a little kid—our entire history together. I go over to him and wrap my arms around his neck. His arms close around me. He’s so much shorter than Rainer, and my head fits right on his shoulder. “I missed you, too,” he says.
I pull back and see something cross his face. Hesitation, maybe.
“Everything okay?”
Jake nods. �
�Yeah, listen, I wanted to talk to you about something.” He glances out to where Cassandra is still standing in the sunlight, her head thrown back.
“What’s up?” I ask. I hop up onto a stool at the counter and gesture for him to do the same, but he stays standing, his hands in his pockets.
“Since you left…” He looks at me, and I see his right eye twitch. It always does when he’s nervous.
“Hey, it’s me,” I say. “Jake, you can tell me anything.” I have a feeling he might be about to tell me what I’ve thought—that since I’ve gone he hasn’t seen Cassandra much. That things aren’t the way they used to be, and I feel the guilt begin to bloom in my stomach.
He nods. “I know,” he says. “I just—”
The condo buzzer goes off. I blow some air out through my lips. “Sorry,” I tell him. “One sec.”
I go to the door and find Jessica there. She looks frantic. She’s talking even before I open it all the way. “You’re late,” she says.
I look at the clock: 11 AM. “I’m not supposed to be on set until two,” I say.
She shoves a paper into my face. “Schedule changed. You must have missed it. You gotta move. Now.”
I’ve never been late. Ever. And my stomach lurches as I think about Wyatt’s reaction.
I look back. “My friends are here,” I say. “Can you—”
“Yes,” Jessica says, pushing past me. “Just get down to Lillianna.”
She jams a script in my hand and hip-butts me out the door. “Tell them to come,” I say, but she is already shutting me outside.
Lillianna rushes, cursing a lot, and I’m on set in forty-five minutes. We’re filming on our soundstage, and I sneak in to see Wyatt, predictably, fuming.
“Are we interrupting your vacation?” he bellows, rounding on me. “You’re an hour late. Do you have any idea how much an hour costs?”
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