Lily snorted. “Uh yeah, and end up with someone telling a media outlet I’m a horrible person, so Brock seems totally justified in publicly dumping me? Hard pass. Plus, I need people to go see my movies so I can keep working.”
“What about the book you wanted to write?”
Her expression softened. “You remember that?”
How could he forget? Some of his favourite memories of Lily were listening to her talk about the novel she wanted to write one day. She used to sit on a particular brick wall under the shade of the gum trees, always with her nose in a notebook and a pen in her hand. Sometimes he’d knock the ball out of bounds from the basketball court just so he could jog over and say something to get her attention while he retrieved it.
“You were going to write some sweeping love story about a woman who ran a sheep station and the rich man whose fancy car broke down on the country road outside her house.”
Her eyes widened. “Wow. Good memory.”
Maybe it wasn’t wise to admit how much he kept in his head about her. Too late now. “There weren’t many people with dreams like that. It’s memorable.”
“Well, the book is on hold indefinitely. Work has been…” She looked up at the plane’s ceiling. “Crazy. In fact, I had a call last week with a showrunner whose project has been picked up. It’s going to be huge—a comedy with a great female cast, plenty of romance. They’re looking to cast big names for the two leads.”
“And you’re going to be one of the writers?” he asked.
“Maybe.” She crossed her fingers. “I sent her some samples of my work and she said she’d be in touch before Christmas. So, I’ll either be celebrating at the wedding or drowning my sorrows. But, if I get the job, it will mean my schedule will be flat out. Being in the writers’ room for a TV show is no joke and then writing movies in-between seasons…”
“No time for the book.”
“Not for a while. But I’ll come back to it someday,” she said with a smile. “I will have a book published before I die. It’s on my bucket list.”
Sean laughed. When Lily said she would do something, come hell or high water, she would do it.
“But this opportunity could be my next big break,” she explained. “If I get experience in both film and television, then I’ll be a much more well-rounded screenwriter. It also means more steady work in the long run. Writing for movies can really be feast or famine, so if I get onto a successful show and find a mentor with the success this woman has… it could make my career.”
“I know you’ll get there,” he replied.
“What are you doing these days?” she asked. Now that he’d got her talking, she seemed more relaxed and open.
“I’m the bar manager at Riptide.”
“Oh.” Lily nodded, looking surprised.
Her reaction was expected. Riptide had a reputation for being rough and it wasn’t unfounded. They had their share of unsavoury characters and urban legends. It was part of the reason Riptide’s owner had taken him back after the brief stint when he’d left Patterson’s Bluff for a year. His easy-going personality, coupled with his muscular build, made him the perfect person to run the bar. He could talk most people out of doing something stupid, and for the few that persisted, he had no issue standing his ground.
But it wasn’t exactly the kind of place someone worked if they were going anywhere in life.
“It pays the bills,” he said with a shrug. “And leaves all my mornings free to go surfing.”
He could tell that Lily didn’t quite get the appeal. Her work-ethic would scare the pants off most people, and his lack of ambition probably seemed confusing to her. But Sean had bigger things to worry about than work. He was trying to repair his relationship with his father by helping renovate his house. Plus, he volunteered as a surfing instructor for a program aimed at keeping underprivileged youth out of trouble. And he was the “go-to” guy when any of his mates needed a hand.
If there was painting to be done, he was there. If someone was moving house, he was there. If his little sister, Zoey, needed help with her food truck business, he was there.
As the conversation lulled, yet another passenger approached Lily. This time it was a man asking if she would take a USB with a copy of his film script and read it. Did he carry that thing around hoping he might run into someone in the industry? Gross.
“Sorry, I don’t review scripts unless it’s for someone I know personally,” Lily said, being far more polite than Sean would have been at this point.
“It’s because I’m a guy, isn’t it?” the man replied peevishly. He was tall and reedy, with a goatee and an air of smug entitlement about him.
She shook her head. “It’s got nothing to do with—”
“Just because you got dumped doesn’t mean we’re all jerks.”
Lily scrubbed a hand over her face. No wonder she was at the end of her rope. She’d been dealing with this crap day after day, and she was still trying to be polite. Make the woman a saint! Without thinking too hard about whether it was his place to get involved, Sean got out of his seat and forced the guy to back up in the aisle.
“Dude, what the—?” The guy held up his hands, suddenly less emboldened now that he had someone standing up to him.
“Don’t be this guy,” Sean said, folding his arms across his chest. “One, she doesn’t owe you anything. Nobody owes you anything. Two, if you want to make it in the industry, the smart move would be to respect people’s boundaries. Because even though I agree that not all dudes are jerks, you sure aren’t doing much to prove that point right now. So, I suggest you sit your arse down and think about how you’d handle this differently next time, okay?”
The guy looked like he wanted to argue, but after looking Sean up and down he thought better of it and slunk back to his seat like the reptile he was. Satisfied that he’d said his piece loud enough to deter anyone else from bothering Lily, Sean went back to his seat.
“I know you can handle yourself, but that guy really ticked me off,” he said with a grunt. “The ego.”
A smile quirked the corner of her lip. “I don’t suppose I can hire you to follow me around and tell everyone who’s rude to me to bugger off?”
“Ah, you mean like an emotional bodyguard? I can do that,” he joked.
“It’s been relentless,” she admitted. “To be honest, I had a moment where I thought about bailing on the wedding. For real.”
Sean’s eyebrows shot up. Lily and Evie had been super close growing up. Their dads were brothers, and the girls had been born the same year. Her thinking about bailing on the wedding was not only out of character, but it revealed how hard she’d taken the breakup and resulting intrusive attention.
Oh yeah, Sean had looked up the #breakupgate story when she’d gone to hide in the bathroom earlier. It read like something you’d find on a satire news site. What kind of man treated his girlfriend like a piece of internet fodder? It was infuriating.
“But I couldn’t do that to Evie, no matter how difficult things are,” she continued, shaking her head. “Whatever scrutiny I have to face, I’ll face it.”