I made sure to look like the love notes that were stuffed under my windshield wiper for Ryan didn’t bother me. I even think I smiled once. I patted
them into a nice pile and placed them on the passenger seat of my car.
Did these freaking women actually think that his girlfriend would be considerate enough to pass their love notes on to him? Surely they had to
know this was my car and not his!
Maybe they hoped that if we ever got into a fight that he might pick the first love note in the pile and go running to their arms? Like these notes
were somehow entry tickets to the Ryan Christensen lottery and the lucky winner would be chosen randomly from the stack? What the hell was in all
of their heads?
I knew exactly why he broke down yesterday; these people were loose on the streets. My mind flashed back to the old zombie movies and I
pictured that Ryan and I were the only ones not turned into monsters - yet. I took a moment to program my music selection. Ah, there it is – I knew I
had it, “Zombie” by The Cranberries. I smiled, turned the volume up, and put my car into reverse. Take a picture of that.
Since I had a large amount of cash on me from my profits at the bar, the bank was the first stop on my agenda. I stood in the small bank line
waiting for the next available teller; my options narrowed when one of the two tellers working placed her ‘window closed’ sign on the countertop.
Just my luck I would have to do my banking with someone I went to high school with - Michele Weeks, another downside to living in a small town.
She noticed me standing in line and suddenly she was smiling at me from ear to ear. Great! This girl never said more than two words to me all
through high school and now she was grinning at me like we were long-lost friends. Why would she talk to me back in those days? I wasn’t part of
that crowd; I hung out with the normal kids who didn’t think they were better than everyone else.
Back then she was the head cheerleader, dating one of the three most popular guys in school, who just happened to get her pregnant right after
graduation. Now she was the head teller at my bank. I laughed inside; funny how she always had the term “head” associated to her name.
“Hi Taryn!” she greeted me. “How are you?”
Like you really care.
“Good, thanks! Deposit please,” I said, sliding the rubber banded stack of cash and my deposit slip toward her.
She took my money below the counter and typed onto her computer. She was still smiling and looking me over and I knew at any moment she
was going to ask her burning question.
“Taryn, please tell me. Is it true?” she whispered her plea to me. Her eyes scanned back and forth for eavesdroppers. “Are you really dating
Ryan Christensen?”
Wonderful, another freaking nosey fan. A few smart-ass answers ripped through my brain like ‘no, he’s just living with me and having as much
sex as one man is humanly capable of without dehydrating,’ but I kept my composure and stared at her blankly.
“Come on!” she urged. “I won’t say anything!”
“That’s good to know.” I leaned into the counter a few inches further, my eyes glanced from side to side to pique her interest, and then I dropped
the bomb. “Neither will I.”
Her smile morphed into a frown in an instant, and she shifted her focus to angrily count my deposit. She slid the deposit receipt towards me.
“Have a nice day,” she droned. I could tell she didn’t really mean it.
I decided to drive out of Seaport and into the next town to do my grocery shopping. Why? I didn’t know. Something about putting distance
between me and the zombies perhaps?
I drove past one of the large hardware store chains and another thought dawned on me. I turned around and parked in the large lot. I wanted to
get copies of my keys made so I could give Ryan his own set. I hoped he’d get a better understanding of just how much I wanted him with me.
I was just on my way into the Super CostMart when Ryan called.
“Hey you! What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m on a top secret mission,” I joked with him as I set my purse in an empty wire cart. I stopped for a moment; it felt like I had something stuck to
my shoe. I crossed my foot up on my knee to take a closer look. That’s when I noticed the older Plymouth drive slowly past me. It almost stopped
right next to where I stood.
“Oh my God,” I breathed out, ripping the gum off my heel. I dashed with the cart towards the doors.
“What?” He panicked with me.
It looked like the curly-haired, gap-toothed girl but I wasn’t absolutely sure. Who ever it was had large sunglasses on. There was no sense in
making him worry unnecessarily.
“I had some gum stuck to the bottom of my shoe.”
“Oh, you scared me for a minute!” he admitted. “Hey, do they sell socks in the grocery store? I just ripped another pair.”
“I don’t know about the grocery store, but I’m walking into the Super CostMart right now. Can I buy them here or do famous movie stars require
expensive designer socks?” I teased him.
“Let me ask Cal,” he joked. “Just get me some plain white crew socks, preferably ones without holes in them. You know the kind that I wear.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Duct tape and a shovel?” he requested.
I sighed. I could only imagine the hell Suzanne was putting him through on set. “How bad is she today?”
“She’s being difficult,” he muttered. “Taryn, you know I’m making this movie, right? So please don’t be jealous when I tell you this, but we had to
do a kissing scene this morning and she complained that I had coffee breath and she made a big freaking ordeal about it. It was embarrassing.”
I knew how he felt about her; jealousy was low on my list of emotions. “Ryan, I know it’s pretend. She’s nothing for me to be jealous over. I’m
more worried about your relationship with the director. Did you get it filmed?”
“Yeah. We had to do several takes until the playback looked good enough to be believable. Kenneth was happy with the fourth take. If you
remember, pick up a bunch of spearmint gum too. Then I have something to take the bad taste of her out of my mouth.”
I had to banish the thoughts of them kissing. “How long are you going to be on set today?”
“The call sheet says till seven for me but you never know. We shot two scenes already. I was just going over my lines for the next one, which is
coming up in about fifteen minutes.” He yawned. “Fortunately she’s not in that scene. I should be there close to seven, eight at the latest.”
“I’ll leave the back door unlocked for you; hopefully there won’t be too many hairy leeches back there waiting.”
“Did you smile for the cameras this morning yourself?” he uttered amusingly.
“Wasn’t too bad. I made sure to smile when I retrieved today’s selection of love notes off my car though. I kept them in a nice pile in case you
need bathroom reading later.”
“I was hoping for softer toilet paper than that!” he laughed out.
By this time, I had walked through the store and was staring at a wide variety of men’s socks. I tossed three packs of socks into the cart. “I’m
getting you three bags, all of your holy socks are going in the garbage tonight.”
“Hey, pick up a bag of nacho chips and some salsa. I’ve been hungry for some Mexican food lately.”
“You want tacos for dinner tonight?” I figured that sounded good too.
“Promise? Don’t toy with my emotions, Ms. Mitchell!”
“You’re bad! I’ll see you tonight. I have to go pick out some manly scented stuff for my boyfriend now.” It warmed my insides to say that word
again - out loud.
“Okay, Peaches!” He laughed.
I snapped my phone shut and turned the corner into the soap aisle. Our conversation had me smiling. I found the men’s body soap section and