Bay had me go to the throne recently vacated by Caryl. It wasn’t uncomfortable, as I’d imagined. There was even a cushion. In fact, it was far more comfortable than the collapsible chair I’d been in all morning. Bay called Ryan over, intending to speak to both of us at the same time.
“This is a song about loss. It’s also a song about aching regret. About desire. About wanting someone so badly, but there’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t even touch each other. You can’t change your situation or the fact that you’re from two completely different worlds.”
It was starting to hit a little too close to home.
“You’re a princess, and he’s a lowly knight who would do anything for you—slay any dragon, defeat any foe, defend your kingdom. But you’ll never be together. It will never be real. It will never work, and it’s killing you both.”
Now I was sure that Bay Michaelsen was straight trolling me.
“When he kneels, I want you to look at him with longing. Like he’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, and all you want to do is kiss him and hold him, but you can’t. Ryan, when you look up at her, I want to see the same thing on your face.”
This was probably the most nervous I’d ever felt in my entire life. They started the music, and Ryan walked through the forest to me, then knelt at the base of the throne.
When he raised his eyes to mine, I gasped and started breathing hard. He looked at me with so much desire, with so much naked want in his eyes, that I had to grip the armrests of the throne to not fling myself at him.
I didn’t have to act. No pretense necessary. I only had to let my emotions show on my face. Which wasn’t hard because, despite my nickname, I was a fairly emotional and passionate person. I’d never been all that great at lying. I basically had to be myself and let all the things I felt for Ryan show.
Did he do the same? Or was he a much better actor than I’d given him credit for?
“Perfect!” Bay sounded over the moon. “Let’s do it again.”
Again? I wasn’t sure how many times my heart could take it.
It turned out to be a lot of times. A lot.
Every scene that Bay had planned out, we shot at least four or five times. He said it would have been more if this were a movie.
There were some where I watched Ryan walk through the forest looking for me. One where I stood on the opposite side of that river (the Hoh River, I learned), and Ryan couldn’t figure out how to cross and get to me.
Then we shot a scene where we walked across an open meadow ringed by trees. We were supposed to walk toward each other, and when we met in the middle, we wouldn’t touch, but just stand as close as we could without doing so.
Every time we shot this, every time, I trembled as we stood in the center. To be so close to him, to smell him, to feel his warmth but not be able to do anything about it, was maddening.
I had no idea it could possibly get worse.
As darkness descended, the director told me I was done for the day but to be back at six the next morning. Ryan promised he would get me there on time. He had to stay behind to film some other scenes of him singing in a couple of different outfits: one modern, one a billowy set of clothes they would turn a wind machine on. They had set up a room with a green screen in one of the trailers and planned on filming him there. Ryan asked Lauren to make arrangements to get me to a hotel nearby. “I didn’t want to drive another five hours to get to and from Seattle, so I had Piper make some reservations. If that’s okay.”
It was okay. I also didn’t want to be trapped in a car alone with him for two and a half hours tonight and two and a half hours tomorrow morning. Especially not with how I was feeling right now.
He watched me the entire way to the wardrobe trailer, and I wondered if he felt even a little bit the same way I did.
When I changed into my street clothes, it took me a minute to find my phone. I’d had it in my pocket, but it wasn’t there now. I eventually found it under some hanging dresses. I texted Fitz to let him know what had happened and that I’d be staying the night near the national park. To ease his mind, I made sure to add that I had my own room.
Lauren found the driver, who took me to the hotel. The lodge was cute and clean but definitely rustic. I wondered if Ryan had ever stayed in a place so . . . not five stars before.
Even though I told myself I wasn’t waiting up for him, I waited up for him. I kept checking my phone to make sure it was working. But he didn’t call or text, which surprised me.
I spent another night not able to sleep as I ran the events from the day on a continuous loop through my brain. How close we’d come to touching but hadn’t. How much I craved his touch. Wanted to be held by him. It was like I couldn’t turn off my mind, and it was filled with nothing but Ryan.
I knew I had to get up early to get back to set. I kept telling myself, “If I fall asleep now, I’ll get at least six hours of sleep.” Then it was five hours. Then four. Then three. I counted all the way down until it was time to get up and get dressed.
When I got out of the shower, there was a message on my phone. I clicked on it eagerly but was disappointed to see it was from Lauren. She said a car would be waiting out front for me.
Just for me, I discovered. Ryan had a slightly later call time and wouldn’t be driving in with me.
I wasn’t sure what to make of that.
The car brought me to the set and a waiting Lauren. She took me to hair and makeup and then wardrobe. They found a coat for me, as it tended to be cooler in the mornings.
Bay wanted to take advantage of the fog in the forest. A driver dropped Lauren and me off at the location where we would be filming. They had me film some solo shots. They asked me to be sad, and I thought about my mom. They asked me to look like I was in love, something I’d never experienced. So I thought of Ryan and how he made me feel. Bay seemed happy with whatever I was doing.
Ryan showed up about half an hour later. I had hoped I’d be more immune to the costume and how he looked in it today.
I was not.
The director had us stand in front of a wide moss-covered tree. “For this shot, I want you two to stand as close together as you possibly can. Ryan will be singing the words to you, Maisy. You can ghost your hands over each other.” He stepped in to demonstrate what he meant. He ran his hand over the curve of my cheek without touching me. “But no kissing or actual contact at all. I want more of that longing, staring deeply into each other’s eyes. Okay? Roll the music! Let’s give this a shot.”
Gulping, I stepped as close to Ryan as I could. If I so much as breathed deeply, I would have touched him.
The intro played, and when the lyrics started, Ryan sang to me.
He sang softly, his voice deep and husky and beautiful. It did something strange to my heart. I felt his hands just above my arms, running from my wrist to my shoulders. It made all the hairs on my arm stand straight up.
Then I tried to look into his eyes. It was too much. My lips parted as he sang the words over them. As if I could inhale his beauty and make it a part of me.
“Perfect! Ryan, move your head like you want to kiss her, but you can’t.”
His lips above mine, so close but so far, were torture. Exquisite, agonizing, wonderful, terrible torture.
I let my eyes fall shut, feeling his hands now hovering near my waist. Like he wanted to pull me in tightly.
“Open your eyes, Maisy! Really look at him!”
When Fitz was in college in a psychology class, he had talked about this study where people who spent four minutes staring deeply into each other’s eyes felt like they were falling in love.
I could now totally attest to the truthfulness of that statement. Especially since I did it for a lot longer than four minutes.
His black pupils seemed to dilate, and I realized that our blinking and heavy breathing had become synchronized.
“Show us how you would touch him if you could, Maisy!”
I had left my arms dead at my sides, too afraid to reciprocate what he was doing. But now I had to. I started at his neck and ran my palms over his chest, wanting to brush my fingertips over his exposed stomach, curling them in so I wouldn’t. A feverish chill started in my spine and spread out as I let my fingers drift over his hair, and I wondered again what it would feel like. I saw the muscle in his jaw flex as he stopped singing and just stared.
The music suddenly cut out.
“Give us a second. Stay put. We’re having a couple of sound issues.”
We probably could have taken some steps back, created some distance, but neither of us did.
I wondered if Ryan knew I wasn’t pretending. That I was completely incapable of acting. That everything he saw on my face was real, every reaction, truth. Another desperate pleech who had fallen under his spell. Would he think I was pathetic? Would he feel sorry for me?
I couldn’t bear his pity.
“Your eyes,” he murmured, his words warm against my skin. “They have pops of yellow in them and a darker band on the outer rings. Is that blue? Green?”
“You have a starburst pattern of light brown with golden streaks around your pupils,” I said. It was a relief to tell him.
I felt my body sway toward him, and I pulled back, not letting us touch. “I feel like I’m not in control of myself. Like I don’t know what I’ll do.”
If the confession surprised him, he didn’t show it. “Like you might be planning on taking advantage of me?” Somehow his tone was both teasing and serious. “Please say you are.”
“We’re ready! Let’s go again!” Bay called out, interrupting us.
Which was a good thing, because I was about to tell Ryan he could take as much advantage of me as he wanted.
We filmed that scene several more times as the sun lifted the fog. When the forest was clear of the clouds, Bay brought us over to a blanket that looked like it was made of grass and flowers. It was plastic, but the director assured me it would look real on screen. He had us lie down and then arranged us. I had to point my toes, and someone pulled my hair out behind me, I assumed artfully, and positioned my wings. They made sure Ryan’s armor stayed in place, and one of the stylists fixed his hair so it wouldn’t look flat.
They put our hands on the blanket between us. Totally close, but no contact.
“For this scene I again want the two of you to stare at each other. We’re going to be dropping some glitter and flower petals on you. Let me know if it gets in your eyes or mouth.”
There was a camera positioned above us high in the air, pointing directly down. Two ladders were set up so that crew members could shower us with petals and glitter. We did this for several minutes. Then we did another take. And another. And another until Bay called for a short break.
I sat up, rubbing glitter off my hands. “It looks like a stripper sneezed on me.”
Ryan laughed and sat up next to me, stretching his arms. His big, delicious, strong arms.
I might have sighed.
His lips were close to my ear, sending hot shivers from my ears down to my toes. “Over there.”
I looked to where he pointed. About forty yards away, apparently not bothered by the people, equipment, or intermittent music, I saw a mother deer and her little fawn. She paused, as if watching us, then sauntered off, her baby frolicking alongside her.
“So beautiful!” I said with a smile.
I couldn’t be sure, but if I’d been asked to testify under oath, I would have sworn that he murmured, “You’re beautiful.”
I heard his breath hitch. My own breathing had entirely stopped.
The cameras weren’t on, so the no-touching rule didn’t apply. Even if we were surrounded by people, I didn’t care. Apparently neither did Ryan. His palm slid across my left cheek, and I relaxed into it, craving his warmth and the feel of him. “I’ve wanted to do nothing else for the last two days,” he told me.
I reached up to grab his hand and wrapped my fingers around his wrist. All the built-up wanting, teasing, getting so close had driven me insane. I’d never felt so physically frustrated in my entire life. “Me, too.”
I heard a buzz, and before I could react, I felt something prick my face.
Oh no.
“Careful,” Ryan said, swatting his hand. “There’s a bee.”
“Too late. And I’m deathly allergic to bees.”
He started yelling for the medic, and I could feel my face puffing up. There was an itching and burning sensation, like somebody had set my face on fire. I had an Epi-Pen in my purse in the wardrobe trailer. I tried to say as much, but my throat and tongue had started to swell, making it impossible to talk.
Panicking was the worst possible thing I could do, so I did my best to stay calm. Ryan, however, did not.
He yelled at everyone to do something and held on to me tightly. Fortunately, the medic had an epinephrine shot in his bag. He administered it, saying I still needed to go to a hospital. He offered a couple of places. There was a hospital in Forks, but that was about forty-five minutes away. There was also a smaller medical center about fifteen minutes north of us.
Ryan immediately chose the closer medical center.
While we waited for a car, the medic used his fingernail to get the stinger out. He washed the area where the stinger had been, then he put some hydrocortisone cream on it. The car arrived, and Ryan picked me up and carried me over. This time I was aware and awake, and it most definitely was the sexiest thing ever. I laid my still-puffy face against his shoulder. He put me into the back seat, climbed in next to me, and immediately put his arm around my shoulders. As if he couldn’t stop touching me.
The medic climbed into the front seat, presumably to keep an eye on me.
During the car ride, I realized I could talk again. “How do I look?” I asked him in a strangled voice, wondering what he would say.
“Like you stared directly into the Lost Ark.”
His answer so surprised me that I started to laugh, which hurt my face. “Don’t make me smile.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, his arm tightening around me. “I’m sorry about all of this.”
“It wasn’t your fault. Not even Ryan De Luna can tell Mother Nature what to do.”
“Yeah, she and I would be having some words right now if I could.”
When we arrived at the medical center, I guessed that they’d been called and told to expect us, as none of the staff blinked an eye at our costumes.
The medic filled them in on what had happened, and they showed me to a room. I climbed into the bed, and a nurse came in to take my vitals. Another nurse put an oxygen mask on me. Ryan stood at my bedside, doing his best to both stay out of the way and be nearby.
The nurse who took my blood pressure and checked my temperature asked me questions about my medical history, like whether I’d had a reaction like this before. I moved the mask aside and told her I had, once, when I was eight. I always carried an Epi-Pen with me.
“The doctor will be in shortly,” the nurse said when I’d finished answering her questions. She closed the door shut behind her.
“Why didn’t you tell me you had this allergy?” Ryan had pulled up a chair on the right side of my bed and held my hand.
“When was that supposed to come up in conversation? ‘Hi, I’m Maisy. I’m into music and long walks on the beach, and I’m allergic to bees’?”
“I don’t know, maybe when we started filming in a forest?”
He was right, but there was no way to explain myself. While onstage in outdoor arenas and stadiums, I kept an Epi-Pen in my guitar case. When I went out, it was in my purse. But I’d taken one look at Ryan in his knight getup, listened to him sing his beautiful song to me, and stared into his gorgeous eyes, and I didn’t think about bees even once.
“Did I ruin your video?”
“Screw the video.” Only he didn’t say screw. “They can make it out of what they have now. We were almost done anyway.”
“I guess the important thing is that it all worked out horribly.”
Ryan shook his head at me. There was a knock at a door, and a second later a harried-looking older doctor came into the room.
“I’m Dr. Martin. I understand you had a run-in with a bee and lost?” She put some antibacterial gel on her hands. Then she took out a penlight and looked in my ears and eyes and down my throat. “Isn’t it a little early for Halloween?”
I would have explained, but she was using a tongue depressor on me at the time. She checked out the sting site. Then she had me sit up, and she used her stethoscope to listen to my lungs. When she was finished, she went over and washed her hands. “Given that the swelling has gone down and you seem to be able to breathe and speak, I am going to have one of the nurses bring you a prescription-strength antihistamine, and then you should be on your way.”
Lauren came into the room carrying our clothes and belongings. “I have a car out front to take you back to Seattle whenever you’re ready. The medic can ride with you if you want.”
I was about to tell her that was unnecessary, but Ryan insisted he accompany us. I thanked Lauren for everything, and she left.
“I’m going to get changed in the bathroom,” I said. I wanted to get this costume off me.
“Do you need any help?” Another serious/joking question.
“I’m a big girl, Ryan. I can do it myself. I’ll be right back.”
It was actually a little harder to get out of the dress and wings than I’d anticipated. The wings were completely bent and broken, and I hoped they weren’t planning on using them for anything else, as they were now a lost cause. I used the facilities, washed my hands, and did my best to wash my face. A puddle of glitter surrounded me on the floor. I had the feeling that was going to be happening for a while.
When I came out, I saw that Ryan had also changed into regular clothes. Which was kind of a bummer.
A young nurse knocked on the door with a small cup on a tray. “Here you go.”
“This stuff always knocks me out,” I said before swallowing it.
“You’re not driving, are you?”
“No, she’s not,” Ryan answered.
I saw the moment when the nurse realized who he was. She got really flustered. “Oh. Okay. Great. Well, here’s your discharge papers with the instructions for what you should, uh, what you should do if your symptoms return.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Please call us if you need anything. Anything at all.” Only she said that last part to Ryan and not to me.
He thanked her as well and then took me by the hand to lead me to the waiting car. He kept his head ducked down the whole way, not wanting to be recognized.
I could tell it was too late for that. The allergy medicine kicked in, making my limbs feel lethargic and my mind fuzzy. Ryan had to keep me from stumbling more than once.
We got into the car, and I lolled my heavy head against the back of the seat. “I have glitter in places that do not bear mentioning,” I murmured.
I felt him pull me in close and rest my head against his shoulder. “I was really scared today. The thought of something happening to you . . . and there was nothing I could do . . . don’t ever do that again.”
“I’m not in charge of the bees,” I told him in a tired voice, my eyes fused shut, sleep enveloping me.
“I know.” He might have kissed me on the forehead, or I might have imagined it. “It just made me realize that . . . Maisy? I think that I’m falling in—”
I passed out before he could finish his sentence.