Backstage Romance: An Austen-Inspired Romantic Comedy Box Set by Gigi Blume (ebook reader with highlighter txt) 📕

app would light up with chats from people I didn’t know I was related to. I was fairly certain half of them weren’t.

There was a muffled shouting, something akin to ‘stop licking your brother’ from what I surmised. That was followed by copious amounts of giggling and a thundering crash.

Bella groaned. “I’m sorry. I gotta go. Was there something important?”

Heck if I know.

“I just wanted to tell you… I love you.”

Bella was so quiet, I thought for a moment we got disconnected. The gleeful squeals of small children in the background were the only indicator she was still on the line.

After a long pause she asked, “Are you dying?”

“No.” Not physically, but come to think of it, maybe I was slowly dying inside. Metaphorically. Perhaps I was like a caterpillar and had to go through the pupa stage before I could turn into a happy little butterfly. Pupa. What an odd word. Pupa, pupa, pupa. But good for lip exercises.

“Okaaay.” Poor Bella. She didn’t know what to do with me on a regular day. “I… love you too?”

“Brilliant. Now put those terrorists to Bedfordshire. Oh, and Bella… don’t tell Mum I rang?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

We ended the call with one of those weird you hang up first situations. Ah, it was good to catch up.

While I was on a messaging binge, I decided to send a text to Jaxson.

Emma: Hey you.

He didn’t respond right away and when he did, it was all business.

Jaxson: Hey. Don’t forget we have the green light session next Wednesday.

Yeah, I didn’t forget about that. Strangely, it was all I looked forward to. Even Harriet was too busy for me these days. I kept telling myself it was all for the best. I had a pile of scripts to sort through and a commercial to shoot for my aunt’s charity. She was going global with her fundraising these days. It was exciting.

But instead of doing something productive, I plopped on my bed and let Instagram suck another two hours out of my life. I wished Jaxson was on Instagram so I could stalk him. He preferred Twitter and even then, he hardly ever posted.

Frank used Instagram, though. He was all over the place in there—selfies galore on his grid. He tagged me in a couple of pictures from our fragrance shoot. We looked cute together. It was a recurring theme in the comments. At one point, I thought so, too. Speaking strictly of aesthetics, we did make a good match. My great hair. His Colgate smile. Close in age and temperament. No wonder the gossip sites shipped us hard. I almost believed it myself. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized Frank was so not for me. Maybe there really was such a thing as too footloose and fancy-free. Too much of a jokester. And there I was falling under his influence at the bonfire. Poor Jennifer. And poor Pinky.

My mobile alerted me to the low battery icon. Just one more call, though. I had to ring Pinky to apologise. In truth, I didn’t expect her to answer, not after the things I had said to her, but she greeted me cheerily. She was so very gracious about it, thanking me for the honour. I apologised, but it was lost in the ether. She was her usual chatty self—as though I hadn’t insulted her epic rap battle style.

“All in good fun, eh?” That was the Canadian in her coming out. Nice to a fault.

She knew about my calls and texts to Jennifer. They’d been hanging out at the time. Girl time. Not the mani-pedi, sushi munching, Oscar-winning kind I’d envisioned. Just pizza and rom-coms on Netflix. That sounded infinitely more fun. I offered to bring ice cream for the next time they had girl’s night. Maybe I sounded too desperate. She just grunted noncommittally.

Pinky and I chatted so long, I had to set my mobile to the charger, which put a crick in my neck. I couldn’t tell you what we talked about, though. Nonsense I guess and that was okay. And although I didn’t fool myself into believing things were all patched up and tickety boo with Pinky, at least I didn’t feel the need to hide under a ski mask at the green light session.

When I saw her at the Gardiner rehearsal studio on Wednesday, I hugged her—perhaps a little too tight and too long, but I didn’t care. I needed to hug the awkwardness right out of whatever it was between us from the beginning. I felt it was a fresh start between us. If only Jaxson wasn’t so cross with me.

We rehearsed once before the studio execs came in. Just marked it, that’s it. My heart cracked a little bit with Jaxson’s coldness. Everything was so efficient and quick. The kiss was practically non-existent. Transient.

But as soon as the execs sat down, and the first note rang out, sparks flew like wildfire. Everyone in the company owned it. Energy crackled, like performing opening night on Broadway. The air was pure electricity. We had a hit on our hands, and we all knew it. The execs knew it. I could see it on their faces. I could see it especially on Jaxson’s face. He glowed. Magnetic. I was afraid to touch him lest I got shot through with the sparks of lightning in his fingertips. I was right about that. That reunion kiss was everything and nothing all at the same time. It was perfection. And it was over too soon.

28

We’ll Always Have Paris

Jaxson

My mum was a huge Sting fan back in the eighties. I once found a photo of her and Dad at a concert that time Sting breezed through Sydney on the Dream of the Blue Turtles tour. They were so young and happy. The rents, not the blue turtles. Not a care in the world—no doubt because that was before kids. Before my brother and I gave them grey hair.

When I packed a