Page 3 of The Viper
I could already picture my days here. Morning runs along the marsh. Evenings rehearsing lines beneath ceiling fans. Maybe the occasional stolen drink at a local bar, if I could ever get away unseen.
A girl could dream.
“Hungry?” Hannah asked from inside.
“Starving. Let’s order something.”
“Anything in mind?”
“Someone told me about a place—Verandelle?”
She brightened. “Oh, yes. I saw that on your schedule notes. The studio’s liaison said it’s a local favorite.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket and opened the restaurant’s site. The homepage loaded slowly on the weak island Wi-Fi, revealing a photo so vivid it almost moved—the courtyard awash in soft daylight, brick walls tangled with ivy, sunlight glinting off the surface of a small fountain. Tables sat beneath wide umbrellas, white napkins fluttering in the breeze like tiny flags.
“Looks peaceful,” I said. “Like the kind of place where time forgets to hurry.”
“Sounds like heaven,” Hannah said.
“It looks like it, too.” I traced a finger across the image, following the archway of old brick and green vines. “I wish I could go there.”
“You could,” she offered carefully. “If we planned it right. Private room, maybe off-hours.”
“Right,” I said dryly. “And have the chef sign an NDA?”
She smiled, acknowledging the truth. Even here, anonymity was impossible.
I stared at the photo for another long moment, feeling that strange ache I’d never been able to name—the longing for a life I couldn’t quite have. To walk into a place like that, order a glass of wine, and not have anyone notice or care. To laugh too loud. To be seen without being recognized.
But that was a fantasy. And I lived enough of those on camera.
“Takeout it is,” I said finally, forcing a smile.
We scrolled through the menu together, debating between seafood and pasta until Hannah ordered both, because she knew me too well.
As we waited, I unpacked in the bedroom overlooking the water. My clothes hung like a rainbow of characters—dresses for red carpets, for press junkets, for pretending to be someone I wasn’t. I shoved them aside and pulled out my favorite denim shorts and a threadbare tee that still smelled faintly like sunscreen.
When the food arrived, we ate on the deck, legs propped on the railing, paper takeout boxes scattered between us. The cicadas had quieted, replaced by the distant hum of boats heading back to dock.
The shrimp pasta was rich with garlic and lemon, and the crab cakes might’ve ruined me for life. “This is insane,” I said between bites. “So good.”
“Agreed.”
“I could get used to this.”
Hannah smiled, the kind of small, real smile I rarely saw on set. “That’s the idea.”
For a while, we just sat there, eating in comfortable silence. The night wrapped around us, heavy and warm, the stars sharp above the dark marsh. Fireflies blinked like tiny paparazzi—only these ones didn’t want anything.
“I still can’t believe you’re here,” Hannah said quietly. “In South Carolina. Shooting a movie about heartbreak.”
“Ironic, right?”
“Maybe healing,” she said.
“Maybe.”
The word lingered in the air between us.
