Chapter Fifteen
Troy
I checked my watch to see that it was twenty past ten, and I frowned, wondering why Eden hadn’t showed up yet. Earlier, we’d made a plan to meet up in one of our new secret spots at ten—a storage room on the third floor of the mansion where there were no cameras and no one ever went—but I’d been standing here waiting for ages now, and it didn’t look like she was coming anytime soon.
I waited another five minutes, and when she was still a no-show, I shrugged and headed downstairs and outside, figuring that she’d been caught up with something earlier and forgotten about our plans. Filming was well and truly wrapped for the evening, and most of the crew members had retired to their trailers for some much-needed rest. Seeing as hardly anyone was around, I decided to risk it and headed for Eden’s trailer before lightly rapping on the door.
She was wearing a faded old bathrobe when she answered the door, and I grinned up at her. “Sexy. I see we’re already past the lingerie stage.”
She didn’t laugh at my joke like I thought she would. Instead, a stony expression crossed her face. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see why you didn’t show up in our spot. We had plans, remember?”
She put her hands on her hips. “Are you serious? You think I’d show up after what you did?”
“Huh?”
She glanced around outside to make sure no one had seen me, and then she pulled me inside. “The only reason I’m letting you in right now is because the last thing I need is for everyone to see you here and hear what I have to say to you.”
“Okay….” I said, taking a seat on the end of her bed. “Mind telling me what I did this time?”
“Hm, let’s see. You practically screwed another woman in the hot tub tonight. In fact, as far as I know, you actually did screw her. I wouldn’t know; I left as soon as you slid your hands into her bikini bottoms. Does any of that that ring a bell?”
I held a hand up. “Wait, what? Oh, no…”
I knew what she thought she’d seen now, and I couldn’t help a slightly amused expression from crossing my face at the ridiculous nature of the situation. The moment was definitely not appropriate for any type of smile, and Eden narrowed her eyes and practically hissed at me. “You think it’s funny?” she said. “I actually trusted you again. But of course, you never really changed, you really are just a womanizing sack of—”
I cut her off before she could launch into a full-blown tirade. “Eden, I know how bad it would’ve looked, and I’m sorry for that, but it wasn’t me.”
“For god’s sake, Troy, don’t pull that crap with me. I was there. I saw you!”
“Yeah, you were there for most of the date. Then Glenn told you and Candice to go grab something from the lighting department, yeah?”
She nodded, and I continued. “Sarah was being a total bitch, and she also kept trying to stick her hand down my…well, you get the gist. I wasn’t okay with that. So while you and Candice were gone, I told Glenn I was done with the date and got out of the tub. He wasn’t happy with that—apparently there hasn’t been enough sexy stuff happening this season. So I said that was too bad, and I was done. It’s not like he can make me hook up with someone.”
“That’s not what I saw.”
“I’m still explaining. You know Peter the intern?”
Eden’s forehead creased with confusion at my seemingly irrelevant question. “I don’t think so. There’s about fifty different interns on this show.”
“He’s the intern for the film crew that everyone calls Troy Junior because he looks sorta like me.”
“I don’t remember him,” she said, pursing her lips.
“Well, he’s real. Anyway, he was there, and Glenn still wanted his sexy date scene, so he asked Peter if he could act as a stand-in for me. He’s not as tall as me, and his eyes are a different color, but in the water with all those bubbles and the shitty lighting, no one’s gonna know the difference. I didn’t give a shit, so I dried off and let him take my spot with Sarah, and well…she didn’t give a shit either. Horny little minx. She jumped right on him, and they kept on filming, pretending it was me.”
Eden looked incredulous. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. Go and ask any of the crew who were still there when you and Candice left. The whole thing was fucking ridiculous, but you know what Glenn’s like. He’ll do anything to get his perfect scene,” I said. “I think Peter’s happy, though. Pretty sure Sarah took him back to her room after the scene was wrapped.”
“They seriously got a stand-in to….oh my god…” Eden’s voice trailed off, and she sat down and ran a hand through her messy hair. She looked up at me a moment later, her face scarlet. “I’m so sorry. I thought…”
“I get it. It looked pretty bad. I thought someone would’ve told you what was going on when you came back. I even looked for you to tell myself, but I didn’t see you. I figured you were just busy working.”
“I guess if I hadn’t stormed off the way I did, I would’ve known what really happened,” she muttered.
I sighed. “Yeah. Look, Eden, I know you spent all these years thinking I was a lying asshole, but that was all because of a misunderstanding, remember? I’m not saying it’s your fault you feel this way. It’s hard to erase seven years of thought patterns. But we’ve gotta start trusting each other, babe.”
She nodded. “I know,” she said quietly. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m trying.”
I slung an arm around her and gave her back a comforting rub. “I guess all we can do is keep on trying, then.”
A moment of silence passed between us, and then Eden looked at me and stuck her hand out. “Let’s make a deal. No matter what happens, no matter how bad something might look, we always talk to each other about it. No more misunderstandings. No more being apart because of simple miscommunications. Never again. We talk.”
I shook her hand. “Deal.”
She smiled at me, and I grinned back at her, knowing that we were going to be fine. It’d taken a long time for us to get back together, seemingly against all odds, and while it was almost certainly going to be hard on both of us for a while, we were going to make it.
I just knew it.