Very much hopefully. While I’d gotten my first sprinkle ofDuke the Hallsmoney, it had all gone to—ironically enough—my own health insurance premium. So if Maddie and Mom were going to have enough for food and gas for the next week, I needed the new medication to be much, much less than a grand.
“Okay,” Maddie said quietly.
“Love you, Mads,” I told her. “I have to go now, but I’ll—”
“—fix it. I know, I know. Bye, Nolan.”
The sound of her hanging up felt like a mallet to the skull. A hammer bludgeoning one very simple fact into my brain: I should be home.
I should be home right now.
“If you’re done,” Gretchen said, her voice loud enough to be heard across the field, but still unreadable in a way that wasveryreadable to me, “we can try the shot again.”
“I’m sorry,” I called over. There was only so much I could shout from horseback, and then I glanced over at Bee, who was risking everything to do this movie, and then back to Gretchen, who’d escaped every single trap and foible of early celebrity, and I abruptly felt very stupid.
Who cared if I had shit going on at home? Everyone had shit going on at home. That was just how it was, and I could hardly ask for special treatment because they used to print T-shirts with my face on them.
I gave an apologetic wave to the crew—which no one returned—and then trotted back to my mark to begin again.
Chapter Twelve
Bee
The fact that I would eventually have to ride a horse during the filming ofDuke the Hallswas something my brain had selectively chosen to forget. Maybe it was because the thought of making it this far into the filming schedule without being found out and fired by the Hope Channel with a blazing redPforporn starstitched to my chest felt unlikely at best.
But here we were. In exactly two days’ time, I would be galloping across a snowy valley alongside the duke, and I would have to find it in me to not only get over my fear of horses, but also appear to be a carefree time-traveling kindergarten teacher who was falling hard for a man who was confused by zippers and had a sudden passion for chili cheese fries.
Some people had absolutely no real reason to be scared ofthings like snakes or spiders, but I had an actual, valid reason to be scared of horses.
My scarring horse incidentstartedwith one of my moms’ out-of-touch but well-meaning fancy art-curator friends renting a pony so her old gang of lesbian gal pals turned lesbian soccer moms would make the trek to her chic modern home in north Dallas for a brunch of mimosas and a vegan breakfast taco bar. The incidentendedwith a six-year-old Bee, a broken nose, and a white sundress drenched in blood. I barely remember the incident itself, but I’ll never forget the sound of Mom speaking soothing words to me about how I would be okay after a quick trip to the hospital as I took in the horror of my blood-covered hands and Mama Pam sat with her head between her legs, on the verge of passing out.
I had learned the hard way that horses didn’t actually like to be tickled. And while I would never try that again as an adult, the fear of my head being crushed by a horse and how close I had been to that actually happening had only crystallized with time.
“You’re like some kind of horse whisperer,” I told Nolan as we walked a few feet behind Luca and Angel back to the inn after a long day of shooting town square scenes.
“Whitneigh Houston warmed right up to you.” He shrugged, the crisp Vermont air rushing through his open jacket, like it didn’t even faze him. At the stables, he’d been so in his element, and that made coming face to muzzle with Whitneigh Houston, my white horse with a brown belly, a little less terrifying.
“You call trying to eat my fingers warming right up to me?”I asked. After I’d changed out of costume for the day, Pearl and I were supposed to meet up with Nolan and the animal trainer at the stables to see my horse, but Pearl bailed at the last minute, claiming she was having a creative crisis. So it was only Nolan escorting me, and while I knew being alone with him wasn’t a good idea, going solo to the stables wasn’t going to work either.
“He wasn’t going to eat your fingers!” Nolan insisted. “You had a handful of carrots that we both agreed you would feed to him when we approached his stall. But then you just stood there! It was like standing next to a wax figure version of you.”
“I froze, okay? I saw his blood-hungry death stare and chomping human teeth, and I froze. And speaking of wax figures, I definitely have a picture of myself with INK at the Madame Tussauds in Orlando.”
A slow smile curled along his lips. “Do you really?”
I buried my face into my hands. It had been four whole, very long days since our... encounter in the toy shop. And while his hands on me were the first thing I thought of every morning and the last thing I thought of every night, the fact that he’d seen me in such a moment of vulnerable want made it somehow easier to reveal all the embarrassing truths about my INK obsession. “It was the lock screen on my phone for two years,” I admitted.
“Sadly... my favorite picture of you isn’t lock-screen appropriate,” he said, so quietly his words were almost swallowed up by the wind.
Warmth crept up my neck despite the constant, teeth-chattering chill.
Like a godsend, Luca whirled around as we stepped under the awning. “Bee, you’re coming with us tonight.”
A groan rumbled in my chest. I was tired and wanted to try out the panda face mask I had bought from a beauty vending machine at LAX. Not to mention I was actually getting back early enough to call my moms and Sunny.
“You can’t come all the way here to this winter wonderland and not experience the magic of the North Pole,” Angel said in a much less demanding tone.
And then, as if by actual Christmas Notch magic, the door to the trolley wheezed open. “Where can I take you fine folk on this fine night?” asked the sweet old man with rosy cheeks from where he sat behind the wheel. His name tag indicated his name was Ronald.
