“Thank you. And I was just thinking that my therapist is going to be buying feathers for her proverbial cap. She was the one who told me to get over myself and just tell you how I felt.”
“Your therapist is a genius.”
“Yep.”
He grabbed her hand, lacing her fingers with his as they lay on their backs next to each other, naked beneath the covers. “This is so not how I expected my day to turn out.”
She stared at their linked hands, loving the way his was so much bigger than hers, two of his knuckles dotted with burns from the coffee contraptions at WorkAround. “You and me both. Why did you ask me on the picnic anyway? Just to tell me to go be with Cal? That’s like a super unromantic picnic.”
He let out a breath. “Actually, that was not what I planned to talk to you about at all. I was bringing you out there to convince you to do me a huge favor.”
“Oh?” She turned her body to face him. “What kind of favor?”
He shook his head against the pillow. “It’s not important. I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to figure something else out.”
She frowned, not liking that closed off look on his face. “No, don’t do that. Tell me. We are rocking the honesty today. Let’s not end our streak. What’s going on?”
He looked at her, his brows knit. “I’ve got three big investors interested in my theater.”
Hollyn gasped. “Jasper, that’s great!”
He smiled a little. “It is. It’s unbelievable, honestly. But the catch is that they need to see a live show, and I need to make it seem like a spectacle. A packed house, a lot of buzz. I need to seal the deal with social proof.”
Hollyn propped her head on her hand. “Oh. Do you need me to write up my review? I had already started one after seeing your show with Cal. I could finish it up and get it to run in the next day or two.”
He gave the hand she still had linked with his a squeeze. “Thank you, but I need more than that. Fitz thinks that if we promote the event with Miz Poppy as our special guest star, we’ll get all the people we need. He wants the event to also be your identity reveal.”
She blinked and her nose scrunched. “Guest star? You mean like me, live onstage? To a packed house?” The horror of that rushed through her like a roller-coaster plunge. “Jasper…”
“Yeah, I know. It’s too much. Which is why I’m going to come up with something else. I’m not asking you to do that for me.” He brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. “I’m going to brainstorm some options tomorrow. There’s got to be something that will get a lot of people there.”
She watched him, her heart beating hard in her chest. She knew how much these investors meant to Jasper. This could be the difference between another year pouring coffee or his dream coming true, but he wasn’t going to push her to do it. God. This guy.
She had a potential key to the kingdom for him, but he was going to let her keep it in her pocket—without a guilt trip, without manipulation, without shaming her for her anxiety. If she promoted on her NOLA Vibe page that she was going to be a guest star at the show and reveal her identity, she had no doubt people would show up. Her numbers didn’t lie. But the thought of being up there onstage, no avatar, no opportunity to edit out mistakes, everything improvised, her tics showing up under all those bright lights…it made her feel faint.
“I would screw it up,” she said, talking to herself more than him.
He glanced over at her. “You wouldn’t. First, there is no screwing it up. It’s improv. But you don’t see yourself. You’re really quick on your feet. When you don’t overthink it, you’re really funny and smart on camera. I don’t think you realize it, but your Miz Poppy comes out. I can hear the voice from your articles coming through—the real you.” He rolled on his side to face her. “I’m not saying this to try to convince you, but I hope that other people besides me get to see that part of you one day. Whatever that timeline looks like for you.”
Hollyn swallowed past the knot in her throat. “I don’t think I can do it without panicking. My tics would be out of control.”
He kissed her twitching nose. “You don’t have to do it. I’m not asking you to.”
She flipped onto her back with a frustrated sound and stared at the ceiling. “If I revealed my identity that way, the NOLA Vibe couldn’t take it.”
Jasper shifted. “Hmm?”
She watched the ceiling fan turn slowly, her thoughts going in circles along with it. “I’ve been thinking about the practice videos we’ve been doing. I watched a few over the last few days. I can see that I’ve improved, but I’m still…me. I have this fear that when I submit them to my boss, he’s going to see my tics and my awkwardness or whatever and just decide to let me go. He can take the Miz Poppy name and hire someone else to use it.”
“Which is bullshit,” Jasper said, tone edged with disgust.
“Right.” She turned to look at him. “But what if I steal that opportunity away?”
“Meaning?”
“If I do a live reveal at your show, I am Miz Poppy. I claim the name publicly. People will see my face—in all its ticcing glory probably. But then if the site replaces me, people will know it’s a replacement. It will make the staff look like jerks. Because people will know I’ve been let go because of the Tourette’s.”
Jasper’s mouth curved into a wicked smile. “And at worst, you’d be able to keep the moniker you made popular.”
“Yep. At best, I keep my job.”
“Diabolical.” He leaned over and kissed her. “But you realize this means you’d actually have to be live onstage—which you just said there was no way you were doing.”
A ripple of nervous energy went through her and she sat up, pulling the covers with her and leaning against the headboard. Jasper followed her. She looked over at him. “Would you be with me onstage?”
Jasper searched her face. “If you needed me to be. I could also give you roles in the improv games that were easy parts. There are some games where one person can read off of note cards and the rest of the actors improv around you. There’s one where the guest just makes sound effects for the actors. There’s another where you tell facts about yourself and someone makes up a song or a skit based on them. You would just be a catalyst.”
Her mouth was dry and her hands clammy. She was probably insane for considering this. “What if I panic and ruin your show for the investors?”
“If I couldn’t deal with someone freezing up onstage, I’d never have made it in improv. If you freeze, I’ll make up a story about why. If you run offstage, I’ll make a joke about why you bolted from me. I’d have your back. The whole group would.”