Page 18 of The Likelihood Of You

Instead, I close my eyes and suck in a deep breath, collecting myself as she turns back around to face me. I catch her parting those sparkling, glossy lips, and I wait for her voice to reach my ears again. I also watch her as she stumbles on her words for a second, like she’s trying to form the perfect sentence but can’t quite get it right.

A few more silent moments pass, and her voice still doesn’t appear. But that didn’t mean her thoughts weren’t louder than the commotion that was still going on behind her.

Her eyes shot to the floor, her hands tugging at the hems of her sweater, before slowly raising her head back up to reach me. “I..uh, I just wanted to say thank you, again, for the job. You have no idea how much it means to me.” She mumbles something under her breath, but I can’t make out what she said. “Anyway, I won’t keep you, you probably have more important things to do than talk to the newbie, so uh, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Before I can tell her to wait, she’s already lifting her hand to give me a subtle wave, passing me a small smile and turning away, hastily walking toward the assistant’s lounge.

I stand there for a few seconds, hooked, watching her open the lounge door and close it with worrying speed, almost like there was something invisible trying to catch her, before I feel a hand on my shoulder and the familiar sound of silence coming from Nate and Addy.

We head to our dressing rooms, all in brief conversation, but I’m not really registering any of it, not even when they break off from each other and walk in opposite directions. My mind is still stuck on Florence and the panicked look in her eyes when she upped and left me.

I was probably overthinking it, maybe she realised she was late for something and needed to hurry.

But my mind wouldn't drop it, and I couldn’t figure out why.

Despite storming off from one another five minutes ago, Nate and Addy escaped in a car together for the second time in four days. I know there’s something they’re not telling me, but that seems to be a running theme today.

Walking through Central Park to get home usually does the trick and takes my mind off things; the quiet paths that dodge the main tourist photo ops are just that, quiet. But my supposed peaceful walk home has so far included meeting an elderly lady who said her husband was a big fan of theDefendersmovie, who then spent the next fifteen minutes trying to find the camera app on her phone to take a picture with me.

I’d also run into some teenage girls who tried to convince me to call one of their friends who was ‘literally my biggest fan’, and I had her in some kind of choke hold.

And just now, I was stopped by a young mom and her son who was, funnily enough, carrying around an action man of my character, Shep. His eyes widened once his mom told him who I was, and then he got all giddy and asked me approximately eight million questions.

And I answered every single one, including when he asked me, “Do you know Thanos?” Wrong franchise, little buddy, I thought tomyself. “And can you kick him in the balls if you meet him? He’s not a nice guy. Which I don’t understand because he’s purple, and Barney the Dinosaur is purple too, and he’s the best!” His mom’s mouth hung open for the longest time after he said that, and she politely told him that he doesn’t use that kind of language.

My hand didn’t fly to my mouth quick enough to hide my grin, as I knelt down to get eye level with him, and said, “I promise I’ll do that if I meet him. If you promise not to say that out loud again, deal?” He agreed and shook my hand while I gave him a smile before he walked off with his mom, looking back at me and screaming, “Bye, Shep!”

If I had to pick a favourite type of fan to meet, it would be kids. They think you’re a superhero, and they ask the funniest questions, and I’ll never get tired of it.

They also don’t use you to kickstart their career in the spotlight, which is a bonus.

Once I’d walked far away enough from the path I was on, I came to the clearing where the lookout was. I stumbled across this place after walking home from the bookstore I used to work at.

The faded path was overgrown with weeds, abnormally long blades of grass and a sign loosely stapled to a wooden post that read ‘KEEP OUT’, which caught my eye, and naturally, I wanted to see where it led. It was stupid of me not to follow the rules on the sign, but if someone says ‘don’t do that’ immediately, all I want to do isthat.

It took me through some hedges and bushes that definitely weren’t meant to be walked through, making me think that it was just a dead end and the path had been cut off for a reason. But once I made it through the greenery, I realised why that sign was there.

The sign wasn’t there to keep people away out of fear someone could be injured by whatever lay beyond it; it was there to keep people from discovering a beautiful, untouched, real-life postcard.

The bench came into view first, followed by the crisp blue lake that sat just in front of it, and beyond that lay a perfect view of the Bow Bridge. It still looked like that now, the same untouched view, but the addition of the blue and lilac haziness of the sky and burnt orange shades of fall made it more serene, if that was possible.

The only thing that was different about the dozens of other times I’d stood at the bottom of this clearing and looked over this view was that, for the first time, someone was already sitting on the bench.

I only needed to look at the silky brunette curls, velvet bow and outfit I’d spent today memorising to know who it was.

She’s looking out onto the lake, her legs crossed underneath her and her hands resting in her lap, covered by the sleeves of her sweater. I think about approaching her, not wanting to resist that pull I felt whenever she was near, but stop myself, and instead just take in that she’s here.

It was so easy for me to assume that I was the only one who knew about this place, and it was even more surprising that shewashere, considering she hadn’t been in the city for that long. But I guess she must have read that sign that’s a hundred yards behind me and thought, ‘fuck it,’ too.

I try to stay as still as possible, not wanting to spook her or disturb her moment. But as I’m watching her, I notice her hand fly to her face, wiping something away, followed by a small sniffle. Perhaps it was just something on her face she swatted away, or she had a cold, but I knew after the third and fourth time she wiped her eyes, that she was crying.

Now that I knew that, I didn’t think twice before reversing my steps and leaving her be.

But because the universe saw an opening, my foot falls onto a twig as I go to leave, snapping it in half and making my heart drop to my stomach, followed by a tiny scream from Florence.

Chapter seven

Florence

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