Page 86 of Resurrection
"Everything I don't know." He takes another pull of his beer.
I shrug, drink more as well, try to keep it light. "I'm older. Wiser. More tolerant of hot weather."
He chuckles. "I thought being in a big city was your dream."
"It was and it wasn’t," I say, glancing down at the bottle in my hand. The buzz is starting to hit me, and my tongue is loose. "One day, it felt like too much."
"And now?"
"Now I'm here," I tell him. "Closer to home. The tacos are better, and I have Oasis."
"I thought maybe you got bored of the big city."
"Maybe the big city got bored of me." I surprise myself with how easily it comes out.
"Was it a guy?"
I shift my gaze back at him, startled by the question. "What makes you think that?"
He shrugs. "Just a guess."
"It was complicated," I admit, the words tasting both bitter and freeing.
"Aren't we all?" he says, so soft I almost miss it.
The drinks are practically gone, so Tyler stands up to grab us another round. When he comes back, he settles on the bed closer than before, his thigh nearly brushing mine.
"I remember when my mom mentioned you got picked for the audition on that huge cooking show," he says. "I was really happy for you. Almost called you."
"Why didn’t you?"
"I wasn’t sure you’d want to talk."
"You’re right, I didn’t. After that drunk call you made. I was pissed. I probably wouldn’t have answered."
"What happened?"
"What do you mean?"
"With the audition?"
"I didn’t pass."
Tyler grunts out a sound of displeasure. "Assholes."
I don’t like remembering that time of my life. I was young and ambitious,right out of culinary school, an Instagram superstar. It was easy to meet people, to meet men. It wasn’t easy to choose the right ones to date.
I shift in my spot, fix the pillow a little, let the silence stretch for a few more moments, debating whether telling Tyler why I’m really back is worth it. Probably not. But I’m a little too drunk from the wine cooler and he’s a little too close, and I’m tired of pretending that none of those things happened, tired of keeping it all in.
"I was dating the showrunner," I blurt out, looking at the wall. "By the time the conversation about the audition came up, we’d already been seeing each other for a few months."
Tyler is quiet, just listening.
"It wasn’t like I approached him on purpose," I continue. "We were in the same circles. We did a few Instagram segments. A couple of interviews. He was older, experienced, had connections. I liked him. Things happened. He was the one who suggested I audition. We kept our relationship a secret since it wouldn’t have looked good if people knew I was his girlfriend. You know what he said to me when I was eliminated?" I’m starting to shake. It’s that angry tremor in my hands I can’t control, that angry tremor that made me not want to be on social media or around famous people anymore. "He said I was uninteresting to look at. Pretty but wooden. And the whole point of the show was entertainment."
I stop talking and turn my head back to Tyler.
He’s staring at me with those powerful blue eyes like he’s reading my mind. Then he whispers, "Nomes, you’re anything but uninteresting. I could watch you chop onions twenty-four hours a day."
