Page 17 of Take 2
Chapter Fifteen
Eight Years Ago
M y phone pings, and I shuffle the papers on the bed around to find it.
I tell Siri to set a timer for eight minutes and continue scribbling red-ink notes.
Occasionally, I switch which hand holds up my chin, though I tend to need my right hand.
So many notes. When my left hand gets its breaks, light reflects off the emeralds and diamonds circling my finger just past the fingerless writing gloves Ryan got me.
The wedding band is a little braid of precious metal and stones.
I twirl the set absentmindedly as I read.
The timer goes off, and I tap it. I’ll just finish this page.
I jump at the sound of the door. Crap. Frantic reading pace engaged. He comes into the room but doesn’t say anything. “Hi, honey. Just a second.” I finish the page, but ugh, it’s in the middle of—
Ryan’s phone appears in front of me before I can turn the page.
“You are so Hollywood.” The picture of my current state—screenplay splayed out on the bed, me lying on my stomach, red pen in hand, in a black cocktail dress and stilettos—is a great caricature of what people think this looks like.
“It’s going to be the picture for ‘Bella My Wife’ now. ”
I roll onto my back to look up at him. Everything aches with the motion. It was a stupid position to work in. “Well, if I didn’t get dressed before I sat down to work, there’s no way I would have been ready before it starts.”
His eyes rake up my body. “I would have made you miss the opening to get you looking like this.”
“But Ellen is hosting!”
“Good thing you got dressed early then.” He glances at my papers. “Are you still tinkering with that argument?”
He pulls me up to a seated position, and I press my hands into my lower back to stretch it. “Yeah. I want to get certain lines in, but I don’t know if it makes sense for his brother to be angry enough to say them.”
“He feels abandoned. They’ve both had to deal with all this trauma, but the one family member left to him disappears to sulk with the girl instead of him. I think seeing them together is enough to trigger him to say some terrible things.”
I nod absently. “Thanks. You’ve really been paying attention to all my blabbering about movies, haven’t you?” He’s been the first person to read everything I write—every version of every draft and asks the best questions to help me realize what holes need to be filled.
“Your excitement is contagious.” He boops my nose.
“You’re home early.”
“Actually, I’m a little late.”
Oh. I hadn’t noticed, but late makes more sense.
“Have you eaten anything?” he asks.
“Umm …” I search my memory, failing to pull up a snack break. Stories are very consuming.
Ryan groans. “There’s a chai latte and a cookie on the counter for you.”
I pop up to my feet with a smile stretching my face. “You’re the best.” A peck softens his stern look.
“Don’t need you fainting on me when you get hot and bothered.”
My eye roll makes him grin. “One time! And I still say it was the elevation.” Also, the type of hot and bothered I had become on that hike was very different from the hot and bothered we both know I’ll be tonight.
“Would have been better if you didn’t also have low blood sugar.”
“I know. I’ve conceded on that point. We have appetizers and cheese and plenty of time before post-awards activities.” His smile lands on mine, and my fingers weave into his hair. He nibbles my lip, and I whimper. “Though, it would appear you’re trying to engage in pre-awards activities.”
He presses a hand down my side and mutters, “Oscars dresses,” like a curse.
“I know we’re an old married couple now, but you used to insist I needed to be on the arm of a man in a bow tie.”
“And you do.” After a light kiss taps my lips, he turns away. “I’m gonna take a quick shower.”
“Okay.” I peek up from reassembling the screenplay to watch him take off the blue UCLA pullover he wears to work in their athletics department. “You did not wear a Wisconsin shirt under that.”
“Always Badgers at heart.” He takes off the red T-shirt and throws it at my face. “Don’t tell anyone at work.”
I dip my chin and try to look at his half-naked form through my eyelashes, which sounds good in writing but probably looks idiotic when I attempt it. I work my voice to a low, hopefully sexy, tone. “Now accepting bribes for my silence.”
“What do you want?”
“You know what I want.”
“ American Hustle to win original screenplay?”
“Obviously.”
The heat smolders in his voice even as we’re being idiots. “Anything I can actually provide you?”
“Orgasms to quell my disappointment when Nebraska wins.”
“If you ever meet Bob Nelson, don’t tell him I was rooting against him.
” He winks and goes into the bathroom. Knowing who wrote the screenplays up for nomination is an impressive level of interest in my obsession.
The shower door opens, and water starts running.
I collect my papers, then Ryan’s voice bellows from the other room. “Where is my shampoo?”
I put the stack of disastrous writing on my nightstand and slip into the bathroom. “It’s right there on the shelf.”
“That’s not the stuff I use.”
“The stuff you used was crap. I got you better stuff.”
“Bella, you are really turning us Hollywood. I’m a guy from Wisconsin. I can’t use fancy hair products.”
I lean back against the vanity and admire the view of water cascading down his body. “As the person whose hands are regularly in your hair, I think I should get some say in the matter.”
“Are you saying my hair has not been soft enough for you for the past four years?”
“I’m saying, when everything else is rough, I deserve something silky to hold on to.”
His gaze pierces me through the shower door. “Sounds like my wife is willing to wreck that dress by getting in the shower immediately.”
“Sounds like my husband is going to be good and wound up by the time the Oscars are over.”
“I’d love to know how you think that’s different from any other day.”
I scrape my teeth over my bottom lip. There was never really a rule about when Oscars-dress sex was supposed to happen, right? But my phone rings and the sensible part of me is grateful for the distraction. “Damn the luck.”
“I hate whoever that is.”
Back in the bedroom, I call back, “You can’t. It’s your sister.” I answer the call and walk out to the kitchen. “Hi, Anna.”
“Happy Academy Awards day!”
“Thank you! I wish I was watching it with you.” My chai latte tastes like autumn—a season I missed more than I expected here in the golden state.
“I wish I was watching you at the Oscars.”
“Give me a minute, okay? We can’t all spring into our scenes and take over like you.”
Anna laughs, and I can picture her supermodel smile. “Hardly taking over, but I’m working on it.”
“I wish we could be there for your premiere.”
“That’s actually what I’m calling about. Why are you allowing your husband to be so stubborn?”
“First of all, you’ve known him longer, so you have to be more responsible for his character flaws than I am.
” I take the champagne flutes out of the cabinet and find the cheeses in the fridge.
“Secondly, it’s not just stubbornness. I promise we’d be there if we could. California is expensive. We’re poor.”
“But why won’t he take Mom and Dad up on the offer to fly you guys out here?”
He what? My hand freezes over the handle of a drawer. He didn’t tell me his parents offered that. I’m not shocked he’d turn them down, but he could have told me.
“Oh, you know.” I hope my voice doesn’t betray my surprise. “He doesn’t like to take anything from them.”
I glance up at our wedding picture on the wall.
We wanted something simple and quick before we moved, but he wouldn’t have accepted money for a wedding from either set of our parents anyway.
We got ourselves through college on our own (with my brains and his talent) so we can do this on our own, too.
In truth, his parents financially supported him in college so he could focus on football, which was supposed to be his career.
That was their investment in him, and in his mind, he squandered it.
No matter for the wedding, though. It wasn’t any bigger than the Oscars party he proposed at, and that suited me just fine. Moving across the country being our honeymoon trip, however, was kind of ill-advised. Moving is hell.
“He would if you asked him to,” Anna says.
Would he? Sure, he came to LA for me, but it was his idea. I’d never have asked that of him, so I guess I’ll never know how he’d respond to such a thing.
“I don’t know, Anna. I don’t think so.”
Her pouting sounds, which would normally make me feel guilty, don’t really sink in as I’m distracted by thoughts of Ryan. The shower stops running on the other side of the wall.
“I’m sorry, love.”
“You’re still my favorite sister-in-law.”
“And you’re mine.”
“Make sure you get a picture of this year’s dress before my brother wrinkles it up.”
Her quip boosts my mood. “I already got one, but I’ll get a better shot. Stay tuned.”
“Okay. Which movie do we want for best picture?”
“ 12 Years a Slave . For sure.”
“But Tom Hanks!”
“Was great, as was Captain Phillips . But this year, I’m right.”
“You’re never right.”
“I’m almost an insider now.” I laugh at my own overstatement of my place in Hollywood. ‘Writing student residing in LA’ doesn’t exactly qualify. “I’m better at this now.”
“Okay. Have fun. Love you!”
“Love you too.” I put my phone down and sigh. A bite of the cookie fuels my continued Oscar-viewing preparations while I mull over Ryan’s frustrations.
He comes out in his Oscars best, and before I forget, I tell him to snap a picture of me.
I pose with the bottle of champagne hanging from my fingers and my high-heeled foot popped up behind me.
“One with you.” I snag the phone and kiss him.
The resulting picture is a disaster because why did the person with the short arms try to do this?