Sean wasn’t sure he understood that logic. “Can’t you put eighty percent of your energy into that and leave twenty percent for the passion project?”
She made a pfft sound. “You know I only have one speed. If I decide to do something, I’ll throw everything I have at it.”
To the exclusion of something else she wanted, it seemed. “Work can’t be everything.”
“Maybe, if you don’t want to reach the height of your potential.” The words rushed out of her and then she clamped a hand over her mouth as if trying to stuff them back in. “That sounded really judgemental. I’m sorry. I don’t hold other people to that standard—just myself.”
“You’re entitled to your opinion. I guess work has always been a necessary evil for me, rather than something I wanted to do.” As far as Sean was concerned, the best bits of life were all the things that happened outside work—friends, surfing, his volunteer surfing lessons. “But that’s why I have a job and not a career.”
She bit down on her lip. “And that’s why I have a career and not a life.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“The whole glitzy LA life thing is a lie.” Her gold-flecked gaze searched his face for a minute, almost like she was trying to figure out whether she could trust him. “The only time I’m ever detached from my laptop is to attend a premiere or marketing gig—and that’s still work, really. It’s the ugly truth of my life… all work and no play.”
She closed her notebook and leaned forward, placing it and her pen on the coffee table. The firelight played off her dark hair, making the edges look almost burnished. He remained quiet, waiting to see what else she might reveal.
“And ever since the breakup, I’ve been living on my own in some dingy little apartment that I’m pretty sure is also home to a family of roaches,” she continued. “Which is so unfair, because they don’t even chip in for the rent.”
Sean snorted. “I’d write an eviction notice, if I were you. That’s totally unacceptable.”
“Right?” She laughed.
“It’s good that you’re still trying to laugh, even with all the bad things that have happened,” he said. “That’s an admirable trait.”
“You know the saddest thing about all of this, is that these are the first decent words I’ve written in a month.” Lily gestured to the notebook. “I’d promised a producer I worked with last year that I’d have a new script for him to look over, but… I can’t seem to get a word on the page without immediately erasing it.”
“Writer’s block?”
“I guess. Honestly, it’s never happened to me before and I used to be all smug that my muse was a well-trained word machine. And now…” She let out a groan and flopped back against the couch. “The only words that want to come out are for the one project I shouldn’t be writing.”
“Maybe that means you should write it,” he argued.
It seemed logical to Sean—if the words showed up for one project and not the other, maybe it was time to switch gears? Although, his creative skills started and ended with stick figures and scrawling happy hour details on a blackboard at Riptide, so what did he know about writer’s block?
“Have you ever had to choose between two things?” she asked, her voice soft and contemplative. “One thing you know is the ‘smart’ thing even if it doesn’t always feel right and another thing you know is a huge risk that probably won’t pay off?”
She had no idea that he’d been in that exact position.
He’d stood in his bedroom, staring at an open suitcase while torn between those two options. Option one—stay in Patterson’s Bluff with his sister and his dead-end job and his fractured, dysfunctional mess of a family. It was “smart” because at least he knew what he was in for. He knew he could cope with it. Certainty trumped possibility in his mind. Besides, he loved his sister, and she didn’t want him to leave.
Yet option two had tempted him. The risky chance of believing that Lily had written Wave of Love about his life and that she felt the same about him as he did about her. That she would be thrilled to find out he was in LA—even though she hadn’t answered his emails after the movie came out—and that maybe everything would go like the happily ever afters she loved so much.
Finding out she was dating Brock Silvers as he watched planes come and go from the airport gate, clutching his boarding pass, had proven one thing to him: risk did not equal reward.
So why was he here now, pretending to be her boyfriend and listening to her worries? And why did it feel like he was staring longingly at the risky option once more?
Ugh. Why was she even telling Sean any of this? He didn’t care about her woes. It struck Lily that she’d been very alone of late—shutting herself away in her new apartment out of shame. She really hadn’t talked with anyone about what she was dealing with.
When she was in the outside world, she had to act in a professional manner. Because what happened to women in male-dominated industries who showed any “unflattering” emotions? They weren’t taken seriously. They were “too emotional” and they “couldn’t hack it.” So, the people she interacted with professionally knew nothing of her feelings. And dodging calls from her family and friends back home had meant she was alone with her thoughts even more than usual. Too much, probably.
“It’s kind of like surfing,” he said. “There are some waves that you just know are going to dump you. But what if they didn’t? What if you manage to get the timing right and your balance on point and you just… go for it?”
Lily’s heart almost stopped beating. She knew that line. Knew the words like they were an old favourite coat because they fit so well.
They were her words. Or rather, her character’s.
“You saw Wave of Love enough times to quote it.” She swallowed. “Wow.”
Oh boy. This was the moment she’d been dreading from the second she spotted Sean in the airport. If he’d seen the movie, there was no way he wouldn’t have recognised himself.
The bad boy surfer. The toxic home life. The secretly sharp mind and tender heart.
The story was the fantasy she’d carried in her head since seventh grade, and she’d built the characters from so much reality that…
Well, she’d fallen in love with Brock while he was playing a fictionalised version of Sean.
The connection slammed into her. How had she never put two and two together? In her mind, she’d met Brock before filming and was charmed immediately. Later, she’d learned how Brock drew his characters into the real world. When he was playing a professional baseball player, he’d started watching games and talking about on-base percentages, even though he’d shown no interest before. When he’d accepted the small side role of a recovering alcoholic, he’d insisted their date nights be dry. When he’d scored the part of a man whose wife had cheated on him, he became paranoid that Lily was having an affair.
And when he’d played the lead in Wave of Love, he’d adopted the laid-back persona and surfing lifestyle. He’d smelled like coconut surfboard wax and salty ocean air. He’d worn a bracelet of lava beads around his wrist.