Page 116 of Score
I’m a lot, too, when my moods swing. It’s more than most can handle, even people who know everything and have been with you for years. The hazard of letting people that close is the pain when they pull away because it’s too much. I just got Monk back, even if it’s casual. He’s close enough to touch again, and I don’t want to lose that.
“I know it’s tough, Mel,” I tell her, holding her eyes with my own, spotting her guilt. “You’re a good friend to us both. Thank you for all you’re doing, how you’re taking care of her while I’m out here.”
Mel swallows and pastes on a smile that tries really hard to look normal.
“So,” she says, her tone overbright, shifting us away from this contentious topic and back to the one I wanted to avoid. “When are you gonna tell Monk what was really going on back then?”
Yeah, no. I don’t think I will.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Monk
“Did you have any notes for that Hazel Scott scene tomorrow?” Canon asks from the speakerphone on Verity’s kitchen counter.
“Nope,” she replies, warning me to be quiet with a finger to her lips when I enter the room. “I think we’re locked.”
We’ve managed to keep our… whatever this is we’re doing… a secret from the crew, but this is Canon. I wouldn’t care if he found out. Yeah, he’d tease me mercilessly, the same way I always rib him about his attraction to Neevah, but it wouldn’t be a big deal. I’d actually love to talk to him about this. Ask him if I’m delusional, naive, or something in between to let Verity this close again. She and I agreed to keep it on the low, though, and that’s fine for now.
Because I only allow myself to thinkfor now. I don’t want to consider how tangled up my feelings will get if we keep doing this. I wanted her however I could get her, and I have her. That’s about as far ahead as I let myself think.
“I feel good about the script,” Canon says. “And Belle is perfect as Hazel. She’s a trained classical pianist. She and Monk were at Juilliard together.”
I slip behind Verity, rest my hands at her hips and drop a kiss to the curve of her neck. Wearing only her denim cutoffs and a pink camisole, she melts into my chest and tips her head back to smile at me, but resumes chopping vegetables for our salad.
“She was gushing on her audition tape about how Hazel was accepted for private study into Juilliard at only eight years old,” Canon continues.
“That’s right,” Verity says, finally abandoning the vegetables. Lettingthe knife fall to the cutting board with a clatter, she turns to tip up on her toes and wind her arms around my neck.
“So how areyoudoing?” Canon asks, his tone shifting a little. “I know the last time I asked that question, you thought I was asking about your—”
Verity whirls around, wiggling out of my arms and snatching up the phone. She takes it off speaker, and in a blur of pale silk and tousled curls, speed-walks from the room, leaving me with confusion and empty arms. Thesnickof her bedroom door closing down the hall only makes me more curious.
Over the last couple of weeks since Thanksgiving, we’ve been completely circumspect if we had to be on set at the same time, but usually we spend the night together at my house or hers. We said casual, but it’s like our bodies have twelve years to make up for and we can’t keep our hands off each other. In all that time, I’ve taken calls from my agent, manager, family—never worrying that Verity could hear, speaking freely in front of her. And she’s been as open.
But it’s clear she didn’t want me to hear whatever Canon was about to say. I try to set aside the twinge of annoyance, of… doubt? Why would it be doubt? As much as I said we could put the past behind us, start fresh with no expectations, there is a part of me that maybe doesn’t trust her to tell me everything.
Because there is a part of me that believes she never has.
What really happened that semester in Cali? Why did she behave so out of character the weeks leading up to that shitty night? How could she possibly be with anyone else when Iknowshe loved me?
Like discordant notes, something is jarring about her story. It doesn’t make sense. There are pieces that don’t fit, and every time I’ve asked about those pieces, Verity has shut down and shut me out.
Like she just did.
I frown, taking up where Verity left off at the cutting board. I’m chopping the last of the cucumbers when she returns to the kitchen. I glance up, keeping my face neutral.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Yeah.” She doesn’t look at me, but walks to the refrigerator and takes out the chicken breasts we grilled last night on her patio. “You still want this for the salad, right?”
“Sure. If you do.”
It’s quiet while I finish the salad and she slices the chicken, but it’s not comfortable or easy like other nights when we’ve worked together—her on the script she still hasn’t managed to break and me on songs for theDessiscore. No, this silence is wound tight with tension and things unspoken.
“So, Canon says Belle’s working out?” I ask when we sit down to eat. “For the Hazel role, I mean?”
“Oh, yeah. Canon thinks she’ll be great.”
