Page 19 of Dream On, Ramona Riley

Which was sort of hot.

That is, if Dylan weren’t on the precipice of a complete meltdown turned PR disaster.

Another one.

Jesus.

She took a deep breath, scrubbed a hand down her face.

“Sorry, Ramona,” Violet said. “I guess I lost my mind a little there.” She tucked the phone into her pleated jeans. “It’s just so exciting! All this movie hubbub!” She turned toward Dylan again. “I’m a huge fan.”

Dylan opened her mouth to tell Violet exactly where she could put her fandom, but Ramona hooked her arm through Violet’s and led her quickly back toward the dining room.

“Thanks, Violet, go enjoy your pie now,” Ramona said, then gave her customer a little shove. Violet went, thank god.

Ramona stood there for a split second, making sure Violet sat down, before she turned to face Dylan.

And that was it.

That was all she could take.

Dylan burst into tears—and not attractive movie tears either. Big gulping sobs that took them both by surprise. Ramona’s eyes went wide, but she didn’t waste a lot of time staring. She simply grabbed her bag out of the break room, then walked toward Dylan and putan arm around her heaving shoulders before leading her out the back door.

They ended upin the woods.

Dylan barely noticed where they were going when they left the restaurant at first. She simply followed Ramona, not toward the main street and the sidewalks, but through what seemed to be the backyards of a residential street behind the café, until they ended up inside a fortress of trees so thick, all Dylan could see was green.

She stopped for a second, once the forest closed around them, and lifted her face to the cool canopy above her.

Breathed.

There were so many shades of green Dylan had never really noticed before—lime and chartreuse, hunter and kelly and sage, a kaleidoscope of green. And it was so quiet, nothing but a breeze through the leaves, birds chirping, squirrels chittering. Even when at a park or on a trail in LA, the city was never so far away that she couldn’t hear its hum underneath everything, like a buzzing in her blood.

But here, her blood just felt like blood. Flowing through her veins like everyone else. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so instantly at peace, so calm and relieved. She felt young again—butgoodyoung.Safeyoung, like that week she’d come here with Aunt Hallie all those summers ago, just a regular kid on a vacation. All the details of that week were blurry—the cabin they’d stayed in, the fireworks on the Fourth, the girl she’d met who was also visiting Clover Lake, cherry-print T-shirt and tears on her cheeks that she’d never explained were the only things Dylan really remembered—but thefeelingwas still there, and she’d been chasing that feeling since she arrived, the two of them playing hide-and-seek.

And it seemed like she might’ve finally found it.

She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with clean forest air, then glanced at Ramona.

“Thanks,” she said. “For getting me out of there for a sec. I’m sorry that was such a shit show.”

Ramona waved a hand. “It’s fine. It was never going to be normal.”

Something in Dylan’s chest sank into her stomach, her shoulders literally drooping.

Ramona clocked the motion, her brows lifting. “You wanted it to be normal.”

It wasn’t a question.

Dylan opened her mouth. Closed it. Ramona nodded toward the trail, and they started walking, a slow amble through the woods.

“I wanted it to be not likemynormal life,” Dylan finally said. “You know, people only interested in me because of what I do, or don’t do, or do in a dramatic way. Or they just want something from me.”

“Does that happen a lot?” Ramona asked, her forehead crinkling. “People wanting things from you?”

“God, yeah. Usually just pictures or videos, but I’ve had perfect strangers come up to me on the street and thrust screenplays into my arms. Like a hit-and-run.”

“Really?”