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

“She’ll be fine,” Holly said. “We’ll eat on the boat and won’t drink the water.”

“Don’t drink the water, señorrrrita,” Lydia said, rolling her Rs. “Only tequila.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said.

Lydia and tequila were a bad combo. Lydia and tequila plus Mexican night clubs were a recipe for disaster. I spent one Spring Break in Ensenada a few years back. The way some girls were going on, I felt a tinge of shame for all my fellow gringos. I could only imagine the kinds of conversations the bartenders shared with one another. Estupidos would be one of the milder descriptions used to describe the border-hopping party seekers.

“Just be careful,” I warned.

The noise Holly and Lydia made didn’t seem to bother Jane at all. I envied how she could sit at the kitchen table and type away on her laptop as if no one else were in the room. I couldn’t even make a sandwich without being annoyed by the Girls Gone Wild preview in my living room. Even the clicking of Jane’s fingers over her keyboard grated on my pounding headache. I decided to take my B.L.T. into my room and just shut everyone out.

“What are you doing?” Holly asked, glancing at Jane.

“Oh, just some creative writing.”

“My sister’s a writer,” said Lydia, sounding bored.

Jane looked up for the first time since I arrived. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

Lydia shrugged as if Jane had said I didn’t know you had red shoes.

“Yeah.”

“How is it we’ve never met her?” asked Holly. “I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned her.”

Lydia pulled a bikini top from the Trader Joe's bag she kept by the couch and put it on over her clothes.

“She doesn’t live in California,” she said, checking out her own boobs under the bikini top. “She’s got her own thing going on at Harvard.”

Harvard?

Everyone stared at her incredulously. She had a sister at Harvard? We all spoke with overlapping questions.

“You have a sister at Harvard?”

“How did we not know this?”

“Is she related to you?”

Lydia laughed. Her free, irreverent laugh that was so Lydia.

“Of course she’s related to me. She’s my sister.”

“One of you could be adopted,” I offered. Or somehow the smart gene ran out before it got to Lydia. I was just assuming her sister was older, here.

“Why would you think that?” she asked innocently.

I motioned up and down her body, still holding the mayo knife. She looked down over her body, which was clad only in emoji pajama shorts and a barely there cotton cami, covered by the recent addition of a bikini top. She flipped her head back up, the messy bun flopping on her head. “What?”

Holly, Jane, and I exchanged a look.

“Nothing,” I said, returning to my sandwich building.

“What kinds of things does your sister write?” asked Jane.

“Well,” answered Lydia with a sigh, “her dream is to write for SNL, but her stuff is too angsty. She sent me a video of her undergraduate program doing one of her plays, and it was weird. She said it was a think piece. I couldn’t make it through the second act.”

Of course, anything that required thinking turned Lydia off. In a way, I admired her for that. She just didn’t care enough to use her bandwidth on anything not related to fun. She was carefree. If an arrogant movie star had given her an earth-jolting kiss last night, she wouldn’t be dwelling on it like I was. She’d probably just laugh and brag about it on Snapchat.

I let the conversation between my three friends fade as I took my sandwich and potato chips into my room, shutting the chatter out of my ears so I could pay attention to the monologue in my head. Will Darcy kissed me last night. And I didn’t hate it. My lips tingled at the memory.

I should have hated it. I should have fled for the hills. But when his imposing form hovered over me, taking my head in his elegant hands, I let the nearness of him capture me, and I melted into the kiss. The ground reeled, taking my insides for a ride. I’d never been kissed like that. He was definitely an expert kisser. But it felt real. The way he cradled my head, running a thumb over my jawline. The way his breath hitched, and his entire body committed itself to mine. It felt real. But it couldn’t have been. I was there. He was there. And he wanted what he couldn’t have like a bratty kid on the playground. Hey Beth, how does it feel to be the toy du jour? Pretty crappy with a side of fist-bumping glee. My sensical side buttoned it up while my inner jezebel went for high fives. Traitors.

I sat on my bed eating my B.L.T. with the offending letter taunting me to finish reading it. I gave it my best mad dog stare down with each bite of bacon, lettuce, and tomato goodness. Each crunch of kettle chip crumbling under my teeth was an exclamation point.

I won’t read you. Crunch.

You’re nothing but junk mail. Crunch.

But the letter stared back at me like a mobster with a Brooklyn accent.

You lookin’ at me? You can’t handle the truth.

Me: Oh yeah?

Letter: Yeah.

I don’t know why I gave it a Brooklyn accent. It just seemed appropriate.

I set my empty plate on my side table and snatched the gangster letter in my fist. I could handle the truth. I totally could. They were words on a page. Nothing more. And after Will admitted his shameful participation in Bing and Jane’s breakup, those words were empty ramblings. I perused to where I had left off.

I stand by my decision to protect my friend.

Arrogant Herod.

Now for the other accusation you charged me with. A far more serious offense, if it were true. I don’t know how much Jorge told you about his history with my family, but I will try to give you a brief sketch. Jorge’s dad and my own father had a