“Yeah?” Monique asked, her excitement clear in her voice. “My pep talk worked?”
Hollyn gave her an exaggerated thumbs-up. “You are excellent at pep talking.”
“Damn straight.” Monique winked. “And now I better pee before we get a comedy show no one signed up for.”
Monique hurried off to a stall, and Hollyn got herself cleaned up so she could go back out to the group. To find Jasper. And to figure out why the hell Kenzie was back in town. But when she went in search of him, Barry let her know that he’d already left and had said to tell her he’d stop by her place later.
Jasper’s gorgeous ex had shown up. And he’d disappeared without even telling Hollyn goodbye.
Fantastic.
This night was getting better and better.
* * *
The clock had moved past eleven when Jasper finally showed up on Hollyn’s doorstep. He was in his same clothes from earlier, but his hair was a mess, and his face had that grim look of a cop stopping by to tell a family that there’s been an accident.
Hollyn’s stomach dropped to her toes. “You slept with her.”
Jasper looked startled. “What?”
A sick feeling welled in her, the suspicions she’d been circling around for hours bubbling out of her like poison. “Look at you. I’m not a mathematician, but my new boyfriend’s stunning ex-girlfriend shows up, he disappears for hours, and then shows up with bedhead and a bad-news look on his face. I can figure out the answer to that equation.”
“Shit, Hollyn. No,” he said, frowning and stepping inside. “Of course I didn’t sleep with Kenzie. What the hell?”
She looked down at the floor as he shut the door, anger and heartbreak mixing into a brew inside her. “Don’t say it like it’s a ludicrous suggestion. You left, Jasper. You didn’t even bother to tell me goodbye. After blatantly not telling your ex that you’re dating me. What am I supposed to think?”
Jasper let out a rough sigh, looking ten shades of beleaguered. “I’m sorry. You’re right. That was a dick move.” He reached out and took her hand. “But I promise, that’s not what this is about. I was just so shocked to have Kenzie there at all that I messed up not introducing you. That wasn’t intentional. I swear.”
She didn’t respond, and he tugged her hand, leading her into the living room. She let him guide her to sit next to him on the couch.
“And I didn’t go anywhere with her,” he said, dipping his head to try to catch her gaze. “She’s not here for us to get back together. Even if she were, I’m not interested.”
“She’s gorgeous, Jasper,” Hollyn said quietly. “Like whoa pretty.”
Jasper squeezed her hand. “And you’re beautiful. Like whoa hot. I have excellent taste.”
Hollyn looked up, finding him with a little smile.
“Look, I get it,” he said. “I spent the whole night we went out with Cal sizing him up. Knowing he was your ex, that you had this deep friendship connection still, and seeing that he wanted you? It was driving me fucking crazy.”
“Jasper—”
“Kenzie has nothing on you,” he said softly. “I loved her once. But seeing her again just confirmed that those feelings are dead and buried. We weren’t right for each other then or now. End of story.”
Hollyn believed him, but her thoughts were still a tangle. “Then why was she here? And why were you looking so grim when you walked in?”
The tense expression he’d been wearing at the door reappeared, and he raked a hand through his hair, revealing how it had gotten so messed up. He leaned back on the couch. “She wasn’t here to get back together, but she was here about an acting gig.”
“An acting gig? I thought she already had one. That Netflix thing.”
“She does,” he said, cutting his gaze toward her. “She was here to offer me one.”
Hollyn turned, pulling a leg up on the couch to fully face him. “What do you mean?”
He looked down at his hands, which were rubbing tracks on the thighs of his jeans. “The show she’s doing for Netflix is based on a sketch she and I used to do. They apparently can’t find the right actor to play the part I used to play. She convinced them that I’m the guy who needs to be in that role.” He looked up. “The costarring role.”
The words were like syrup in her brain, slow and sticky sliding through her consciousness, taking a while to make sense. “A role on a Netflix show. With Kenzie.”
His shoulders rose and fell with a breath. “They won’t offer it to me until I do an audition for the director and producer, but from what’s she’s telling me, it’s mine if I want it.”
The reality of that sank in. A TV show. Netflix. Starring. “Holy shit, Jasper.”
He laid his head back and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I know. It doesn’t even sound real when I say it out loud.”
Hollyn’s heart was beating fast as if her body already knew the answers to the questions she needed to ask. “What does this mean?”
He lifted his head and met her gaze, a somberness there. “It means I’m supposed to get on a plane for LA tomorrow with Kenzie. The audition is Friday.”
“Friday? But the show…”
“I’ll fly back Saturday morning. I can still do the show,” he said, voice dull and flat. “I promised I’d back you up onstage and I will.”
He could still do the show, but she could hear what he wasn’t saying. She forced herself to ask the question. “But if you get the part, what about the theater project?”
And New Orleans. And their relationship.
He had heartbreak in his expression. “I know. It’s killing me. The last thing I want to do is let down the group again. Or leave”—he looked at her as if searching for the right word—“everything.”
She closed her eyes, breathed in, breathed out.
Reality was a funny thing. Something that should’ve made her feel hysterical or angry or dramatic instead made her feel very, very still. Resigned. Some sense of inevitability settled into her, like she had already known this was how things would have to be. Too good to be true had always proved to be an accurate aphorism in her life. Jasper was going to do this. He was going to audition and he was going to get the part and he was going to leave. For good.
“Right. Everything. Meaning, me. Us.”
“Hollyn—”
She opened her eyes and forced a smile, though her heart was fracturing at the thought. “No, I get it. Please don’t give me some speech. I mean, of course you’re going to do this. It’s all you’ve ever wanted. I can’t compete with that. I don’t want to.”