The I’d beg, borrow, and lie again right now to get the chance to see her again. Just like the damn script reads.
So yeah, it was a fucked table read. In my own head anyway.
To everyone else participating in the read, I nailed it. The emotion. The feeling. Everything about it . . . because I wasn’t acting.
Landing the part meant nothing though because I didn’t have her to call and share the good news with.
And of course from there my day went to shit. Like catching the latest picture of Saylor on the scattered newspapers on the table in Starbucks while I waited in line. The one with her eyes wide and purse dangling from her hand as she got out of a taxi in front of Sweet Cheeks. To say the look of utter shock and fear on her face felt like a knife in the heart is an understatement.
But my texts remain unanswered. My messages unreturned. My frustration at an all-time high with my goddamn heart in a vise that squeezes tighter with each fricking hour I don’t hear from her.
Next came the call from Tessa. Her tongue-lashing as to why I didn’t take her somewhere and stage pictures to be taken so she could receive the attention Saylor was. Because no press is bad press, right, Hayes? And she could really use some more press and pictures taken with me to help her keep her visibility up. Talk about a fucked-up moral compass. She’s dying for the attention—heartless, conceited bitch—and Say doesn’t want any of it.
But I gotta admire her. Hollywood takes all kinds.
Then after that, yet another call from Benji and one from my publicist, Kathy. The promises that the interviews were being set up. That a location to hold them was being discussed. Followed by a gentle reminder of what was riding on this.
Yeah. Saylor’s riding on this. The reason. The why. The fucking end game. Nothing else matters.
And of course Jenna’s nowhere to be found. MIA. That little gem of information kills me. The irony that she can cause this tornado of bullshit by dropping malicious hints about Saylor and yet when I want to contact her, her phone goes unanswered. Her whereabouts unknown.
I’ll find her and convince her to tell the press as much of the truth about us as she can. That we ended our relationship by mutual agreement, not because I cheated. And that Saylor wasn’t even in the damn picture when it happened.
Or else I’ll tell them. And with a dramatic flair, I’ll throw in all the little extras that make stories like this juicy to the public. Like drug use and suicide attempts.
Simple.
If only.
What would be even better is if Saylor would pick up the goddamn phone when I call. But she hasn’t and now I need to find another way to reach her. Break through to her.
Convince her that this world of mine isn’t so bad when we face it together.
I just fucking miss her.
Need to be with her.
Hold her when she hurts.
And it’s killing me that I’m not.
I’m lost in batter.
Sounds ridiculous but I am. It’s in my hair, on my apron, and smeared on my cheek. My kitchen counter is a clutter of tins and ingredients and utensils. My apartment smells like the bakery should. The timer is beeping. My cell keeps vibrating on the table behind me with alerts I ignore.
And in this chaos, I can finally think. I can figure out which of the two ovens in the brochures on my couch I need and how I can make the monthly payments. I can avoid the looks by my brother downstairs who keeps shaking his head, asking me how I let this happen even though he knows I had no part in it. I can fight the humiliation over the newest round of insults printed. The ones about how I supposedly squirrelled away Mitch’s money—without him knowing—and opened the bakery of my dreams before dumping him at the altar.
Twisted lies. Mistruths believed by the masses.
I look to the vase of black roses on my table. My lovely gift from a Hayes admirer who threatened me for stealing him away from Jenna. They reflect the bazillion comments on social media this morning when I pulled on my big girl panties and decided to log on and brave the storm to see how bad it was. Cruel is an understatement. So I kept the flowers—despite Ryder begging me to throw them away—as a subtle reminder of the crazy I’m stepping into with Hayes. If I step into it.
So I woke this morning wearing the T-shirt he snuck in my suitcase—his welcome scent still lingering on it—before changing so I could bake to avoid my new unwanted reality. More importantly, to have the time to wallow in the empty ache in my heart that’s been burning a hole there over the past twenty-four hours.
I marvel at how the trip to Turks and Caicos was a mere four days and yet they felt like a lifetime with Hayes. How the heart can remember what the mind chooses to erase. How Hayes and I reconnected and slid into being an us without either of us discussing it. Void of overthinking. And how it just felt right.