5.Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Bonnie

“How does it feel to be replaced so soon, Derek?” Liam says.

“If you need a shoulder to cry on, I’m here,” Cole says.

“I really thought Cole had a shot.”

“Nah, Bonnie clearly has a type.”

Liam laughs. “I’m sorry, but since when has her type been nerdy chic hipster? And in what universe are you and Derek not the same type?”

“In the universe where I’m way bigger than him.”

“No, I saw his abs in The River Crossing . Man’s a beast. Derek, show Cole your abs.”

“I’m not doing that,” Derek says without hesitation.

“Gentlemen, please!” Freya claps her hands in front of her camera, breaking up the boys’ back and forth. “We must stay on task.”

Honestly, I’d stopped listening as soon as Liam and Cole started joking about my new “relationship.” This weekly video chat we do is usually full of joking around—Liam can’t survive without a good joke every few minutes—but never has it all been so centered around me. My friends’ humor is one of the things I love about them, but I’m not loving it so much today.

I can’t stop thinking about how Hollywood Hot Scoop has decided that my friends are going to cut me out now that Derek and I aren’t a couple. Thinking they would turn their backs on me is irrational, and I know it, but that doesn’t mean the fear isn’t there.

Freya looks straight at the camera so I feel like she’s looking at me. “Bon, it has been a couple of days, and the story is not dying down. What are you going to do?” Her accent, which rests somewhere between British and general Scandinavian, is oddly soothing today and keeps my focus on the current topic: Hank.

I shift on my bed, glad to have the privacy of my trailer right now. I’ve been filming all day, and I’m exhausted in the way I always am at the start of a shoot. I’ll get used to the long days eventually; I always do.

“I’m not sure what I’m going to do,” I say, which is true. “Fran has been trying to get Hank to come in so we can have a meeting about it.”

“Where would he be flying in from?” Derek asks.

“Vermont,” Liam says with unfounded confidence. “All great writers live in Vermont.”

“That explains it,” Cole says. “I wondered why you never became a great writer.”

Liam pulls his phone absurdly close to his face to glare at Cole. “Hey, I am an excellent writer. And what are you trying to say about Kasey? She’s not from Vermont. And lyrics are different from novels, anyway!”

Freya clears her throat and gestures to the camera. I’m assuming it’s meant for me.

I give her a grateful smile, though I’m tempted to latch on to the subject of Kasey and the screenplay she just sold so I can get the attention off of me. I would so much rather celebrate her success. “He actually lives here in Laketown, where we’re filming,” I say slowly. I may have slightly freaked out when Beckett told me that. Henry McAllister is only a few minutes away from where I’ll be for the next month.

I have been so tempted to ask Derek to use the random connections he seems to have everywhere to figure out exactly where Hank lives so I can talk to him again, but I know better than to be invasive like that.

“Why has it been so hard to get him in a meeting?” Derek asks.

I wish I knew, though I suspect it might be because I fangirled too hard when I met him. “He’s probably just really busy,” I say, shrugging.

“Sure he is.” Liam pulls off his shirt as he speaks. At some point in the last couple of minutes, he moved from his kitchen to his pool, and he props up his phone before slipping into the glowing water.

Freya groans. “I do not understand why you always insist on taking off your shirt when we are discussing serious matters! You already have Kasey’s affection; you have no one to impress.”

Liam rests his arm on the edge of the pool and drops his chin onto it. “Because it’s a million degrees in Malibu.”

“It’s sixty-seven,” Derek argues. “Where is Kasey, anyway?”

“Bachelorette party.” He looks miserable about the idea, even though Kasey has a right to celebrate her best friend’s upcoming wedding. I never would have expected the likes of Liam Connolly to settle down so easily, but he and Kasey instantly clicked last fall. It makes me wonder if there’s someone I’ll click with like that, but it’s unlikely.

No one ever sticks around.

“Bonnie,” Freya says, “let us go through some hypotheticals.”

I grin, adjusting my laptop on my stomach. “I love hypotheticals.” It’s my whole job description, trying to decide what I, as my character, would do in any given situation. And in this case, the character is me.

“Let us assume your cute writer friend never comes to set to discuss the possibilities.”

“You think he’ s cute?” Liam asks.

“Adorable,” Freya and I say together. I’m sure Kasey would agree with us.

I purse my lips. “I would be pretty bummed, honestly. I barely got to talk to him about his books, and I would love to hear where he gets his inspiration from.”

“But that has nothing to do with a relationship,” Derek points out. He’s been on this side of Freya’s hypotheticals enough times to have a good grasp of where she takes things. “Does that mean you’re not interested?”

I shrug. “I didn’t really think about it. Haven’t thought about it since.”

“Lies,” all four of them say at once. It’s our group’s way of acknowledging that someone is clearly hiding behind untruths, which is valuable when our lives are so readily available to the public. In our own ways, we’ve all gotten too good at wearing masks, and we collectively decided that our friendship could only thrive if we were honest with each other.

Still, I roll my eyes. They seem to think there’s more to this than there is. “I’ve only thought about it because of the Hot Scoop thing. And because I’m trending in a good way, which hasn’t happened in a while.”

Derek grimaces. Our relationship was supposed to help me trend, and it did. For a while. But we kept it going too long, too comfortable in our friendship without any real romance, and the end of the ruse did the opposite of what we wanted. Derek, of course, is perfectly fine. I was the one who looked like a jerk for leaving him, even though Fran arranged for Derek to do the dumping. He’s too well-liked for the internet to accept that he could be in the wrong, so I got labeled as a heartbreaker once again.

For some reason, the internet loves the idea of me being with Henry McAllister, and I’m clinging to that with everything I’ve got. It’s so much better than them deciding I’m going to be alone forever while my friends leave me behind .

“Let’s say, hypothetically, that I think starting a fake relationship with Hank is a good idea,” I say. “I really don’t think he would agree with me.”

“How well do you know the man?” Freya asks.

“I don’t know him. That’s why I think he wouldn’t go for it. He’s an incredibly private person.”

“Not anymore,” Liam throws in. “The guy has been memed. He’ll never be private again.”

I feel so bad about that. I ambushed him on set the other day, and now people are using his adorable smile as a reaction image for anything good in their lives, putting text of those good things on my back. Things like “my cat when he stretches” and “sleeping in on the weekends.” It could have been a whole lot worse, all things considered, but I have a feeling Hank isn’t thrilled about being a headliner.

Otherwise he would have at least responded to Fran.

“If I knew exactly where he lives, I would go talk to him in private instead of making it a whole thing,” I say. But then I let out a short laugh. As if anyone would let me leave set on my own. Katie was instructed to tackle me if I ever try sneaking out of the makeup tent again, and my security detail has doubled in the last two days. For once, I thought maybe things could be chill for this movie, but I forgot what movie this is.

Frosted Peaks is going to change my career for the better. I can feel it.

I would feel it more if I didn’t have to worry about the internet’s obsession with Hank and me together.

“Hypothetical,” Freya says. “Let us assume McAllister agrees to a mock relationship.”

“If only,” I mutter.

“Assuming he does, and you start to feel something more for him… What will you do?”

I want to laugh and tell her that I am not a serious relationship kind of gal. Even with Derek, who’s my best friend, I rarely felt more attached to him than I do to any of the others on the screen in front of me. I’ve never been serious with any of my boyfriends because I have never been willing to put my heart on the line. That’s asking for heartbreak.

But my laughter sticks in my throat, and I grimace. “I don’t do love,” I say, and the words sound as true as they’ve always been. But they don’t feel true.

“Lies,” Freya and Derek both say. Cole and Liam are frowning, as if they suspect the same.

“Bonnie, you are like a sister to me,” Freya says. “And I know you will not always be content with shallow relationships. Deep in your heart, I know you want real connection, just as we all do.”

Derek picks up his phone, typing something while I let Freya’s words sink in. Of course I want real connection. Who doesn’t? And I’ve had enough deep and vulnerable conversations with Derek to come to the realization that I want it more than most. A childhood of financial struggle spent home alone with always working parents can do a number on a girl.

But no matter how much I want connection, it also terrifies me. The harder I cling to something, the more it hurts when I lose it.

That’s probably why the latest Hot Scoop article about the breakup spooked me as much as it did. I wouldn’t have survived without my friends, and there’s no way I would make it very far without them and their support. My connection with them is dangerous enough, and I don’t need to be throwing romance into the mix.

My phone buzzes, and I lift it up to look at the text Derek sent me.

Derek:

Don’t let past failures dictate your future. Things couldn’t work between us, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t worthy of being loved.

Tears fill my eyes, and I shift my computer for a second so no one sees. I think, if Derek and I hadn’t started in a fake relationship, we might have been something, but we spent too long telling ourselves it wasn’t real. He wants a family—roots—and I never would have been brave enough to give that to him, so keeping things casual worked for us. Sometimes I wondered if he wished things were real between us, like I did when I was feeling especially lonely, but even though Derek was the best boyfriend a girl could have asked for, I never felt like I gave him as much as he gave me.

He deserves the world. Someone who loves him without hesitation. He’s so good at taking care of everyone else that he needs someone who is strong enough to take care of him.

“We are talking hypothetically,” Freya reminds me. “What would happen if you started to fall for your writer?”

I don’t hesitate with my response. “I would end up brokenhearted.” Nothing good ever lasts, and I’m not the person anyone truly loves. Never have been, never will be. “Once the internet got bored, Fran would stage a breakup and find me a new fling to keep up interest, and that would be that. It’s better if I don’t put Hank in that position, especially because it won’t start by his choice either.”

Better for him, yes. But is it better for me? I think Freya might be right. Even if I never think I’ll get it, I do want the kind of love that makes me feel safe and wanted. I’m loved by fans across the world, but none of those people know me. Is it really crazy for me to dream of someone choosing me over everything else?

That someone won’t be Hank McAllister, but maybe my person is out there somewhere. The guy who will make my life complete.

“What if you don’t have a choice?” Cole asks.

That’s the real question, and I already know the answer. I don’t, and I rarely do.