Page 28 of Love Scenes

I avoided her eyes. “Nothing. Shouldn’t the doctor be updating us soon?”

“No. You said you could do the movie.”

“It was a random hypothetical,” I lied.

“No it wasn’t.”

“It absolutely was.”

Sarai overheard us bickering. “They killed her off of her show,” she announced to the entire room, a secret I’d revealed to my dad that she’d overheard.

My entire family stopped what they were doing and looked at me, downright mortified. It takes a lot of work for a crime show to randomly murder you off when you’re a lead, and every single one of them knew it. Mom, Guy, Tyler, Powell, Melanie. Dad’s girlfriend, Daya. Even Melanie’s new husband Terrence understood that, and he’s a tax accountant.

For a person who chose a life in the spotlight, there has yet to be a glare quite as harsh as my entire family casting judgmentupon me all at once. They all had this despairing look, like they’d just been told their childhood dog had bitten someone and needed to be put down.

“Sweetie,” Mom whispered.

“She told Dad because he’s the only one who wouldn’t freak out,” Sarai informed everyone, once again correct, and excellent at riling up a crowd.

I wanted to be mad. If it were Powell, I’d have been pulling his hair. But it was Sarai. Sweet baby Sarai. My sister young enough to be my daughter, with the megawatt smile and the eager hope for approval. The baby whose birth healed more rifts than could even be listed, uniting our sprawling clan. She was the one who made us into the big, strange, unconventional blended family we are.

I was powerless.

“Your timing couldn’t be worse,” Mom had said, as if that could ever possibly make me feel better. “We’ve already finalized things with Haven. It’s a done deal.”

Powell was almost choking on his own laughter. I slapped his arm for good measure.

“We might be able to bring you on as a producer or something though,” Mom pitched. She was already pulling her phone out of her pocket and typing. “That’s not out of reach with shooting starting this soon. As long as we can have you on set every day. We could use the extra eyes. And I—”

Then the doctor came in to tell us that Dad was recovering nicely, and the rest was history, all set in motion by the eleven-year-old standing in front of me, missing the first top molar on either side of her mouth, making her grin look infinite.

When the hysteria fades to a low roar, Dad actually leaves a crowd he’s entertaining to come find me.

He looks good, but his face is wearier than I’ve ever seen it. Still, there is a magnetism about him that’s hard to qualify. I’ve only felt it around a handful of other public figures. President Obama. George Clooney. Tom Hanks. No matter what he’s wearing or how exhausted he looks, you can sense he is someone you should know. Mom used to call it an aura. Whatever it is, it’s palpable even when he’s dressed down in a navy-blue quarter-zip pullover and old boat shoes.

He wraps his arms around me and squeezes.

“You feeling good?” I dare to ask.

“Heard you’re holding the whole thing together around here,” he says, blatantly ignoring my question.

“Who told you that?”

He tips his head in Joseph’s direction, who is most definitely looking our way.

“Don’t we hate him?” One of my favorite things about my dad is that he loves to gossip, and he loves to declare a secret enemy. At leasthebelieved me when I told him I hated Joseph back in the day.

“He almost made me quit acting, yeah,” I say, hedging.

“Right. And then your mother cast him without telling you. I remember now.” Dad takes a beat. “He’s Michael Donovan’s son, right?”

“Yes. And his illustrious family legacy has once again landed him a role he does not deserve.” My disdain sounds so false it’s almost cartoonish.

It lands wrong even for my father, who furrows his brow. “I do like his dad.”

“And I like Kearns’s sister. Bad people can have good family, Dad.”

At this point I’m playing a character instead of speaking the truth, because I can’t remember how to talk about Joseph anymore.