The Reunion by Kayla Olson(14)
“Millie looks the same, though, wouldn’t you say?” Ford stage-whispers, loud enough for the whole table to hear. Millie turns and gives him a smoky-eyed look—she’s definitely not the five-year-old from our first season anymore.
“Your hair, Ford!” Sasha-Kate exclaims, and we all laugh. For the first three seasons, production insisted Ford’s glorious shoulder-length mane be worn exclusively in a man bun—a trend that wasn’t trendy until he made it so. It wasn’t until he became an official romantic interest for my character, Honor, that they let him wear it down for the first time. Our ratings skyrocketed when that happened, and it became his official look for the rest of the series, far outlasting the brief romantic detour between our characters.
The scenes flash by, six years of our best moments—and a number of our best bloopers—condensed into a twenty-minute compilation. By the end of it, I have tears in my eyes. I’m not the only one.
Dan and Xan take the stage to close out the presentation.
“I’m supposed to give a speech here,” Dan begins, “but as it turns out, I’m speechless.” He surveys the crowd and lingers a little when he meets eyes with me; he gives me an almost imperceptible nod. “You have all left me speechless. What a legacy this show has left since its premiere! Twenty years—it seems like no time and forever all at once.” A wave of applause fills the room. Dan takes a sip of the water he’s brought onstage with him, and Xan puts her hand on his back. “Thank you all for being our dream cast—I’m not exaggerating when I say that Xan and I would never have done a moment of it differently.”
Xan leans over to the mic. “This show was the ride of a lifetime for us,” she adds. “And we’re excited and grateful for the opportunity to experience the ride again—thank you to Shine and to Fanline and to everyone else who had a hand in making this reunion possible. Thank you to every one of you for signing on to return!” She looks at our table when she says this, at Ransom and at me, and then raises her glass. “To twenty years!”
We all raise our glasses, drink to the occasion. The rest of the night is a blur of faces and half-finished conversations, of chardonnay and music and laughter under the starlit ceiling.
Ransom and I are pulled in opposite directions almost immediately. He gets caught up with Annagrey and Laurence—who played my character’s parents—and I find myself trapped in a particularly longwinded, one-sided conversation with Edna Arcadia, who’s looking good for eighty-four; she played one of our teachers on the show. Ransom and I keep catching each other’s eye, and it makes everything a little more bearable. He’s a life preserver, keeping me afloat. Until one of the Fanline execs cuts in and steals him away, that is, and then I’m on my own.
When Bre eventually rescues me, I can finally breathe again.
“Okay, so Hālo’s amazing—she told me to call her Lo, what her friends call her, and it took everything I had not to tell her about how my favorite Peloton instructor includes at least one song off Hallowed in every ride!”
I laugh. “I take it you’re having a good time?”
“That’s an understatement, Liv, it’s been incredible. Hālo even offered to take me on a tour of her studio sometime.”
“Think you can handle an entire studio tour without spilling your deepest, darkest secrets about your Peloton obsession?” I laugh.
“Absolutely not,” she says. “But at least I didn’t lead with that!” She takes a sip of rosé, which appears to have been freshly refilled. “And it seems like you’re having a good time, too?” She glances at Ransom across the room, then gives me a look.
I feel a blush creeping into my cheeks. “Oh yeah,” I say. “Edna Arcadia is a scintillating conversationalist.”
Bre smirks. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Sure,” she says, barely containing her grin. “Guess I just imagined your blazing-hot costar whispering with you during that heartwarming montage.”
“We were all whispering, the whole table, not just Ransom and me.”
She arches a single eyebrow.
“Okay,” I admit. “It’s possible the majority of commentary came from the two of us.”
She’s won this one, and she knows it. “He’s into you—I could see it from a mile away.” And you’re into him, she doesn’t add, but it’s written all over her face.
“We’re just friends,” I protest, but Bre knows better. “Or… we were.”
I scan the room on instinct, see him up near the stage, looking devastatingly handsome as he chats with our producers and Shine.
I don’t know what we are now, but I do know this: Ransom Joel being into me is the last thing I need.
Out of nowhere, Ford hooks a casual arm around my shoulders. “Want to go chat up some Fanline execs with me?” he says, a wild gleam in his eye.
I’ve never loved this part of the job—cozying up to the execs, passing it off as if I truly believe they’re the most important people on the planet. “Not really,” I say, “but it would probably be a good idea.”
While most everyone else in attendance seems to be having a blast tonight, the Fanline execs—other than Shine Jacobs—have proven hard to read. There are four of them, interchangeable in their black suits and impassive expressions.