Not right now anyway.
“Why aren’t you dressed?” Angelica asked, squinting as she stared down Hope’s body. “Not that I mind you half-undressed, but…why?”
Hope hummed, sliding her hands down Angelica’s arms before moving to reach to her back and pull at the microphone pack. She turned it off and put it on the bench. Angelica frowned at the device. She hadn’t even realized…she shouldn’t be talking right now.
“We should be filming,” Angelica said again, her voice raw and gravelly. She needed to pull herself together again, push away the fact that she’d just cried the hardest she had in literal decades and go back to work. Everyone would expect her to?—
“We should be,” Hope answered, brushing the backs of her fingers along Angelica’s damp cheek. “But we can do that later.”
Angelica was about to step back and walk inside, but Hope tugged her closer instead.
“Not yet,” Hope whispered. She wrapped their fingers together tightly, leaning down so their foreheads were pressed together.
Angelica tensed, but then she stilled. She stayed there, the feel of Hope’s breath against her cheeks, the firmness of her hands holding her in place, the touch of Hope’s forehead tocenter her. She could take a few more minutes. What harm would that do?
Hope moved slightly, pressing their lips together. Angelica tilted her head up to deepen the embrace. Her eyes fluttered shut and she leaned into that kiss, using it as her lifeline to the real world that she knew she needed to get back to. But she couldn’t quite get to the point of forgetting.
“My mother died,” Angelica murmured, breaking the kiss.
Hope cupped her cheek, pulling her back in for another quick kiss. “Why didn’t you tell me when it happened?”
“I didn’t think…” Angelica stopped at that. Why hadn’t she said anything? It’d been all day at this point, and literally no one knew about it. She’d kept it to herself. And it hadn’t been because she didn’t want the attention or to explain why she didn’t need to leave and deal with family matters or why her family texting and calling was driving her up a wall. That hadn’t been it at all.
It had been because she was scared of this.
The breaking.
The vulnerability.
The pain and loss that she hadn’t allowed herself to feel for years.
Because now there wasn’t any hope of reconciling, not that she’d wanted to, but it was completely out of the realm of possibility now. She’d thought she’d be numb to it, but she wasn’t. Instead, she was thrown right back into those moments when she’d made the decision to cut her mother off all those years ago.
But Hope hadn’t asked why she hadn’t told anyone. Hope had asked why Angelica hadn’t told her.
“I didn’t want to feel.” Angelica swallowed those words down, and they cut her deeply. But it was the honest, raw truth, and with Hope, she wouldn’t deny it. “I don’t understand it, I don’tknow why I’m so upset when I gave up any kind of relationship with her years ago, and I don’t want to figure it out. Not right now, anyway.”
Hope nodded and pressed a kiss to Angelica’s cheek. “So don’t. Not yet.”
Angelica moved in again, pressing their bodies together as they stood. She wasn’t ready to let go. No one would be able to give her this quiet acceptance. This was one thing she’d loved about Hope from the beginning—she always just accepted. Whatever was given to her, she accepted it. Whatever it was, and she never pushed for more.
“God, I’m a mess.” Angelica stepped back and brushed her hands against her cheeks to clear them. “How bad is my makeup?”
“Ansel will throw an absolute fit.” Hope snorted lightly and rolled his eyes. “But he’ll fix you up right away, I’m sure.”
Angelica wasn’t quite ready for that, though. She didn’t want to go back inside and start back where they were. She wasn’t sure she could do it, actually.
“How mad is Florence?”
“Pissed.” Hope sighed heavily, still keeping her fingers wrapped in Angelica’s. “And I think telling her to fuck off really didn’t add to her mood either.”
“What?” Angelica jerked her head up instantly. “I didn’t tell her to fuck off, did I?”
“No. I did.” Hope gave her a sheepish smile. “When she told me filming was more important than you.”
“You did what?” Angelica’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“I didn’t use exactly those words.” Hope shuffled her foot against the gravel. “I think my exact words were closer to people mattered more than filming and she should shove it because we all know what happened to Josef and she shouldn’t repeat his mistakes.”
