Happily Ever His by Delancey Stewart

Author:Delancey Stewart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Delancey Stewart

Chapter Thirteen

Ryan

Water lapped around the pilings of the pier and the sun beat down on the wooden planks at our feet as I sat with Tess in a corner of a patio that felt more and more like a different world. Or maybe it was just that this was Tess’s world—and it was so far from what I’d grown accustomed to that it felt like I was on a different planet.

Though I was not Juliet famous anywhere, in Hollywood I was interesting enough to have to pay attention. Here, I was just a guy. And I was starting to really like it.

There were no photographers lurking around, no one waiting outside the front doors of the restaurant when we finally walked out and strolled down the boardwalk late that afternoon. There was no one staking out the car where I leaned Tess back and devoured her mouth and neck again before we actually got in. There were no flashes, no shouts, no jarring realization that I was visible to everyone in the world and somehow still even more invisible now that I was famous. They saw me—kind of, but it was like the real me faded away a little bit more with every single camera click, every flash. I had none of that to worry about here. There was just this beautiful day. This beautiful girl. And me. And for the first time in such a long time—I felt like someone really saw me.

“You’re quiet,” Tess said, as she navigated the car back toward Gran’s old plantation house.

I was stunned by the beauty of a place I’d never even thought about, a place I hadn’t known existed. And by the peace I felt here with Tess. “I’m just enjoying everything,” I told her, letting my hand rest on her knee as she guided us confidently home.

“Must be nice to get a break from the pressure of Hollywood,” she said. Her voice told me she knew what those pressures were—and why wouldn’t she? Her sister was one of the most celebrated actresses of our generation. “Or are you eager to get back? Now that your career is poised to take off?”

“It’s tempting to think about running away again,” I said honestly. “I had kind of forgotten places like this exist.” I didn’t want to go back to Hollywood—knowing this weekend would come to a close and my life would return to normal, or my version of normal at least, wasn’t a welcome thought.

“Backwoods towns where nothing ever happens, you mean?”

“Gorgeous untouched places full of amazing people,” I corrected, looking at her.

A smile flitted over her lips, but then they pressed into a straight firm line before she spoke again. “But your life is on the other coast, and you’ll go back in a day or so.”

Hearing her voice the reality made me wish desperately I could change it. “Right,” I said slowly.

Tess sighed and I watched her drive for a moment, a little vein in her neck pulsing and her forehead wrinkling and then smoothing as thoughts appeared to pass beneath it.

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