Page 17 of No One Was Supposed to Die at This Wedding

“Hmmm.” I think back to the note Emma slipped me yesterday. Could Tyler have sent it? But no. Tyler didn’t know about the wedding until last night, though that could’ve been an act.

This is the problem with hanging out with film types.

You’re always questioning their authenticity.24

“El’s right, though,” Oliver says. “Why would Tyler hire Fred to be inWhen in Rome?”

“Tyler and Fred optioned the book together,” Harper says.

“Did I know this?” I say.

“Honestly, it’s like you just got into the business sometimes.”

“I know I have you looking out.”

“Didn’t you promise you’d start reading your contracts before you signed them?”

“That was for the future.”

“Did you?”

I watch the road. I signed a big new deal when I’d gotten back from Italy, and I’dtriedto read the contract. I really had. But that shit isboring.

“I did my best. But I made sure my agent and lawyer read everything twice.”

Harper sighs.

“I heard that.”

“You were meant to.”

“So they had a fistfight over bad box office?” Oliver says. “That’s a bit extreme.”

“I don’t think it was just that,” Harper says.

“What then?” I ask.

“Apparently, Tyler and Emma were an item.”

My stomach falls like this is a rumor about me. “That’s not true.”

“Are you sure?”

I slump down in my seat. The sad thing is, I’m not. Emma and I haven’t been as close the last few years. Not because anything happened, but life goes like that sometimes. Friendships slip away or fall into disuse. You have to work at them like any relationship.

But even so, Tyler doesn’t seem like her type. Plus, she has thisrule about not sleeping up. She doesn’t want to be seen as one ofthosegirls. The ones who sleep their way to the roles of a lifetime because whether that still goes on or not (it does), everyone thinks it does. She chose a public life for work, but she doesn’t want a public private life.

I didn’t point out to her that marrying Fred Winter went against that in the worst way possible.

I only thought it.

But we’re all a bunch of contradictions. It’s what makes life interesting.

“It could explain the level of anger,” Harper says. “If he’s jealous.”

“Is he coming to the wedding?” Oliver asks.

“Tyler?” I say. “I think so. The whole cast and crew are. It was the only way to keep it quiet. They’d pretend it was a shoot for the movie—”

---