Well, Josef had wanted tension.
Angelica just hadn’t thought it’d come from Logan’s unexpected arrival. She looked to Hope again, who didn’t seem as surprised by this change of plans. Angelica shifted her legs and pushed Hope’s hand from her thigh. Why was she being kept in the dark again?
She hated this.
“Will you be staying with us the whole week?” Angelica asked, looking to Rex to see if he had any idea that Logan was going to be here. He, thankfully, seemed just as clueless as she was.
“Yes.” Logan pulled out a chair and flipped it around, so he was leaning against the back of it with his arms as he straddled it. “I’ll be around for the rest of filming.”
“But you just had a baby.” Angelica furrowed her brow. “You should be home, not here.”
“I should,” Logan agreed, shifting his gaze from her to look directly at Josef. “But I’ve been made aware of some situations here that require my immediate supervision.”
A shiver raced through Angelica, and once again, she found herself staring at Hope. Angelica’s lips parted, as if she was going to say something, but she stopped herself. Now wasn’t the time or the place to drag Hope through the mud or start an argument, especially one that might land them both into hot water.
“Well, then…” Angelica tried to steady herself, but she wasn’t used to being thrown for a loop this much in one day.
“You were discussing scheduling, I believe.” Logan looked at her again, as if expecting her to carry on as if nothing had changed.
But everything had shifted.
Logan was here, and instead of just trying to hide her relationship with Hope from Josef, she now had to hide it from Logan. And they both knew exactly the kind of person she was. Angelica flicked to another app on her iPad and tried to center herself again.
“I’d like to be at those interviews as well. Perhaps we can divide and conquer,” Hope said, bringing them back around to where they should be.
“We still need more tension between the two of you.” Josef pointed at Hope and Angelica. “I won’t let this show fail because you two refuse to work together.”
So that was how he was going to play this. Good to know. Angelica straightened her shoulders and sent Hope a cold, hard look. “I think we can find something to be angry with each other about.”
She could see the instant that Hope didn’t understand if Angelica was truly angry with her or not. And honestly, Angelicawasn’t sure either. But what she did know was they had to talk after this. Angelica had more questions than answers right now, and she wasn’t willing to go without them for long.
“Y-yes,” Hope answered. “We usually can find something.”
Rex narrowed his gaze, flicking it between them before landing a curious look on Angelica. She gave him a hard look as well. “I think for this episode Hope and I can have separate theories about what’s actually going on here, and each think that we’re right.”
“Fighting tooth and nail to come out on top?” Josef asked.
“Yes.” Angelica’s jaw tightened on the word. “And then in the end, we’ll both be wrong. There’s your resolution.”
Josef grunted, but he didn’t say anything about that part.
Cadence jumped in. “I think that will work really well. We can collect more information during the interviews to build those theories.”
“Perfect.” Angelica found herself looking at Hope again. She’d made that decision without Hope’s input, but surely Hope wouldn’t be upset about that portion. The rest of it, perhaps. But again, they clearly needed to talk more than they had so far. Pushing her hair over her shoulder, Angelica stared down at her iPad again. “Then tomorrow we’ll film observation day.”
“For the first half,” Rex responded, his nose buried in his own iPad. “I think we need to move quickly into resolutions and trainings. I suspect that we won’t figure out what’s truly wrong until we do that. This place… Riverside Plaza… well, from what I’ve seen they know how to give the right answers to the questions asked.”
“Like they’ve been coached?” Angelica furrowed her brow in confusion.
“Shouldn’t they be, though?” Hope chimed in. “They should know what they’re supposed to say when asked.”
“Not to us,” Angelica pointed out, flicking her stylus between her fingers. “They need to be honest with us.”
“I meant the staff,” Hope muttered.
“Hmm.” Angelica didn’t answer more than that, though. She was curious what Rex had to say. He’d been here a full day longer than they had, and she wanted to know more about what he’d observed in that short period of time.
“What I meant, Hope, was that they all seem to be pretending as though they’re digging deeper into the problem when they’re really not. They’re open and honest to a degree and that’s in.” Rex folded his arms and sent Hope a look that Angelica didn’t understand.
