Page 37 of Take 2
Chapter Thirty-Four
C ece hugs me in her doorway, and my nervous system dials down for the first time in too long. Then she yells at me, of course. “I wanted to pick you up from the airport, you idiot.”
“I needed to keep my phone off as much as possible.”
“Yes, but probably not the one you looked at.” I drop onto the leather couch.
“What are we drinking?” Cece asks from the kitchen.
“Irish coffee first?”
Stephen sits next to me, tapping an iPad. “Don’t you have to leave like three hours before a flight for LAX? Have you been awake for a million hours?”
“Yes, but I stayed right next to the airport last night … in Nice.”
He cocks his head at me as the call goes through to Morgan. Looks like James isn’t answering. “What were you doing in France?”
“You were in France?” Morgan’s face appears on the screen, and Stephen props it up on the coffee table.
Cece hands me a mug. “You’re as lost as we are. Hi, love!” She sits on my other side.
“You’re drinking coffee? I thought you meant drinking drinking.” Morgan holds up a glass of wine.
“It’s boozy.” I take a sip and sigh. “I need the caffeine too.”
“Okay, so back to you being in France,” Cece says.
“Yeah. About that.” I rub my temple and press my eyes closed. “I was there with Ryan. We were sleeping together.” I’m glad I can’t see their reactions, but it also makes me think this could have been a phone call.
“Um …” Cece’s knees bounce next to me. “Please tell me you mean Ryan Reynolds.”
I laugh and open my eyes. “No. Not Reynolds.”
“Good,” Morgan says. “Because if that was the case, after asking you a lot of detailed questions, I would have to disown you for doing that to Blake Lively.”
Stephen reaches across me to shove Cece. “Yeah, how dare you!”
Cece gapes. “This is almost as bad.”
“Unless it’s not?” Morgan asks. “I mean, the sex itself wouldn’t be. Is Ryan still …”
I take a big gulp of booze-infused coffee. “Even better now.” Which should be a good thing, but it turns out that’s only a good thing while it’s happening.
“Wow,” Cece says.
Ryan—or Preston as it were—gave me those WTF eyes just for telling James we would probably have sex. If he had any idea of how much these friends always knew about our sex life, would he still be able to face them?
“Obviously, sex was never the problem.” I trace the rim of the coffee mug with my fingertip. “Was I an idiot for divorcing him? I really don’t remember why we broke up anymore.” All I’ve remembered for a long time was the good. Except all things Preston, of course.
“No, sweetie.” Cece wraps an arm around me. “He wasn’t supporting you the way you needed him to. You weren’t happy.”
“Not being happy seems like a dumb reason.”
“Not dumb,” Morgan says.
“I guess.”
The iPad rings with James trying to rejoin our chat. “You meant 2 p.m. central time,” he says. “That makes sense.”
“Hi.”
His eyes widen. “What happened to you? You were supposed to leave Monaco all sexed out and chill.”
“See, the problem is … I was there getting sexed out … with my ex-husband.”
James’ chin juts out as he presses his lips together. “Come again?”
Cece becomes the point person on catching James up on the backstory. Thanks to his appreciation for drama, he’s not angry at me for keeping the Ryan/Preston secret.
Then, I launch into the story of our trip. It’s practically one of our Oscars parties as snacks and more drinks come out. Talking it out tangles up my feelings rather than helping me sort through them. But my friends understand as well as anyone can, so that’s nice.
Finally, I can give James the whole story about Lisa’s party when I met ‘Preston,’ and the rollercoaster of the first time I was nominated for an Academy Award.