Page 8 of Dream On, Ramona Riley

She barely made it to the end of the scene, as the casting director and director himself—Cale Richter, a popular creator of Hollywood rom-coms—pretty much laughed her out of the room. Oh, they let her read, but did so with amused expressions, lifted eyebrows, and chuckles when she got to an especially emotional part in the script.

Needless to say, she didn’t get the role, and by the time she dragged herself home, Vance was already blowing up her phone with messages about howunprofessionalandimmatureandembarrassingshe was.

After that…well…Dylan had a tiny little quarter-life crisis. She fired Vance, fired her assistant, and spent the next six months locked up in her house eating delivery food and reading multiple novels a week, consuming anyone and everyone’s story except her own, and feeling ridiculously sorry for herself.

“Come on,” Laurel said now, bringing the cake box over to the couch and sitting down next to Dylan. “Eat it.”

“What, this bribe disguised as a goddess-tier chocolate delicacy?”

“Yes, exactly,” Laurel said, setting the box in her lap and Dylan’s phone in her own pocket.

Dylan sighed, but opened the box, sugary heaven drifting into the air. She could never say no to Laurel—well, except for the times shedid, but it was never about anything really important—because unlike Vance, she trusted Laurel with her life, with her career, with pretty much everything. She was infinitely grateful for Laurel and that her aunt, Hallie—her father’s very normal sister who taught gender studies at the University of Georgia where Laurel had gone to undergrad, and who helped take care of Dylan through the years when Jack and Carrie fell off the planet—had sent her favorite former student Dylan’s way four years ago.

Without Hallie and Laurel—along with Dylan’s agent, Adriana, who was a badass in and of herself and worked closely with Laurel to keep Dylan’s career on track—Dylan would most likely still be buried under a pile of paperback books and Cherry Garcia.

“Okay, so,” Laurel said, propping one ankle on her knee and brushing a dark curl from her face. “You want the good news first, or the bad news?”

“Bad,” Dylan said through a mouthful of chocolate. “Always bad.”

Laurel nodded. She knew Dylan was a “rip off the Band-Aid” kind of person, which Laurel always did with a tough-love yank that often left Dylan gasping for breath. She braced herself.

“Aubrey is out,” Laurel said.

Despite her preparedness, Dylan nearly inhaled a chunk of tart into her lungs. “Out?” She coughed, banged on her chest. “Out of what?”

“Out of the movie.”

“Mymovie?”

Laurel nodded. “Skiing accident. Broke her leg. Surgery, rehab, the whole nine yards.”

“Fuck,” Dylan said. “Is she okay?”

“Will be,” Laurel said, nodding. “After those whole nine yards I mentioned.”

“Right.” Dylan blinked, her mind whirring. She liked Aubrey Daniels. They’d never acted together, but had met at several events over the last few years, and they’d done well together during the film’s read-through last month. Moreover, she was queer and kind and treated Dylan like she belonged exactly where she was. Never even mentioned Evenflow or Halcyon or what it was like to see pictures of herself as a two-year-old asleep on top of a half-eaten pepperoni pizza in a trashed hotel room.

She’d been looking forward to playing opposite Aubrey inAs If You Didn’t Know, her first rom-com—aqueerrom-com at that, and with a plethora of studio money behind it. Dylan still couldn’t believe Adriana had secured her the co-lead.

Finally.

The kind of role she wanted, dreamed about, with a costar she admired and respected and who seemed to respect her too.

“What the hell is the good news?” she asked Laurel.

“We’re not quite done with the bad.”

“Shit.” Dread coiled into Dylan’s belly. “Who’s taking Aubrey’s place?”

“Blair Emmanuel.”

The name flitted through the space between them, a ghost.

Or, rather, a witch.

“Blair,” Dylan deadpanned.

“Blair,” Laurel deadpanned back.