“Kent.” She shook her head. “No. He was fine. Good. Hehad to leave early for a work thing.” She rolled her head to look at him, the back of it never leaving the bed, like it was too heavy for her to lift. “Where’s Bailey?”
“She went to try to find some coke around…” He checked his watch. “Ninety minutes ago? Haven’t seen her since.”
Lilah snorted through her tears. “Very cool.”
“Yeah. I don’t want to jinx it, but I think she might be the one.” He glanced over at her. “Areyou okay?”
She held the bottle on her lap, studying it. “I didn’t get it. That part I really wanted,” she said dully.
“Oh shit. I’m sorry.”
She shrugged, taking a long swig from the bottle. “I feel so stupid. I’ve never cried like this over a role before. It’s such a rookie move, getting invested before I knew for sure I had it. I shouldn’t be this upset.”
“It’s okay to be upset.” He glanced at her. “Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cry before. Besides for a scene, I mean.”
She cast her eyes over at him sardonically. “Any notes?”
“Not enough snot. You still look too pretty.”
She laughed, which sounded more like a sob. “I’ll try to work on it for next time.” She passed him the bottle. He took a drink, then set it to his other side, out of her reach. She didn’t object, just leaned her head back against the bed again and closed her eyes.
“I think I just let myself get carried away. You know when you have a really great first date, and you start planning out your whole future together in your head? And then maybe they never text you back, or you get to know them better and you realize they’re not actually who you thought they were. You fell for their potential. That’s what this feels like. It’ll always be the perfect experience, because it never happened.”
Shane nodded slowly. “You never know, though. Maybe itwould’ve been another…” He trailed off, not wanting to rub salt in the wound. Luckily, she smirked self-deprecatingly.
“Maybe. I’m sure if I’d lost out on that one, I would’ve felt the same way.” Her smile disappeared and she groaned. “Fuck. Do you thinkthat’swhy I didn’t get it? Is that fucking movie going to haunt me for the rest of my career?”
“Nah. I’m sure everyone’s already forgotten about it.”
“I hope so.” She sighed. “It just…it’s scary, you know? The future. You get spoiled, having a consistent gig like this. Makes you forget what it’s actually like out there.”
“Yeah. I don’t know how you do it, honestly.”
“Do what?”
“Just…keep having faith like that. Putting yourself back out there, over and over, when it’s all so out of our control.”
She shrugged resignedly. “I don’t know. I guess I love it enough that it feels worth it.”
Shane took another swig from the champagne bottle, then rested it on his lap, his thumb toying with the foil. “Would you still have done it?Without a Net,I mean. If you’d known back then how it would turn out.”
She was silent for a long time. “Yeah. I would’ve. I learned a lot from that experience. And…I don’t know. It feels right, that I ended up back here.”
It was the way she looked at him as she said it that emboldened him to say the next part:
“What about us?”
Her gaze turned sharp. “What?”
“You know.” He looked down at his lap. “If you’d—ifwe’d—known. How things would go. Do you think we still would’ve…?” He looked up at her as he trailed off, unsure.
He was relieved when she chuckled, then sighed wearily,closing her eyes. “I don’t think there’s much that could’ve kept us away from each other back then.”
She looked back at him, and something unspoken passed betweeen them. Something he couldn’t quite name.
“I’m so sorry, Lilah,” he said softly.
“For what?”
