Let's Make a Scene: A Novel (Theo & Cynthie, #2)

by Laura Wood

For my fellow tender-hearted introverts who are feeling sad and overwhelmed. I hope this book is the friend to you that it has been to me. I hope in these pages you find joy and escapism and a safe space to feel all your feelings. I hope you know that we like you very much, just as you are.

I am 90 percent certain that my personal trainer is trying to kill me, but if she’s truly homicidal she’ll have to get in line: the list of people who want me dead is currently pretty long.

What I want is to squeeze my eyes shut, to find a blanket and curl up under it, to hide from the whole world,

Hannah once described me as “embarrassingly confident,” which, when you think about it, is obviously not a compliment, but it is largely accurate.

Sure, she looks delicate, but I know the truth: she’s not delicate like a flower; she’s delicate like a scalpel—and twice as sharp.

Even after all this time, being around Cynthie Taylor still feels like clutching a live wire. I guess some things never change.

I am such a mess. Is a man talking about behaving with basic respect really doing it for me? Apparently so. God, the bar is on the fucking floor these days.

I decided to embrace the time-honored British tradition of pretending that nothing had actually happened, while letting the animosity simmer.

“No one actually likes sparkling water,” Cynthie grumbles, the second Suzy leaves the room. “It’s just normal water full of tiny knives.”

I can’t believe that just happened. I can’t believe he just did that. Of course it was nothing like the brief, low-key kiss we had planned. Of course it couldn’t be. No, it had to be that—it had to be a kiss that tore me apart and put me back together again, that left me shaking and wanting more, needing him in front of a live TV audience.

I suppose it’s time to admit what I’ve known all along—I’m so painfully in love with Cynthie Taylor; I don’t know what to do with myself. And I have no idea how she’s going to feel about it.

I’m excited about the us we’ll be in ten years, in twenty, in fifty. I can’t wait to know every single version of you, if you’ll let me.

It’s hard work, writing a letter to the person you love when you know nothing will ever compare to “you pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.”

Because this is an absolutely valid point, I decide not to dignify it with an answer.

I’m a mess of indecision. I can see that I’m sabotaging my own happiness, but somehow I can’t stop it.

Hannah shifts on her feet. “It’s… complicated. She wants to trust you, but it doesn’t come easily to her.” “I know that,” I say softly. “I’ll earn it. I’m not going anywhere.”

“What?” Jack prompts after a moment. I look at him and think again how strange this is. It’s not just that I can tell him what I think or how I feel; it’s so obvious that he wants to know. It’s in every line of him. I’m like his favorite book, the one he can’t put down.

He’s not the only one who’s fascinated. I want to roll around in his thoughts; I want to own every secret he has and hoard them with my own.

“I think you’re full of joy and light and you always have been.”

“You’re just going to make me feel safe and cared for and heard until I start believing in true love and fairy tales and happy endings, aren’t you?” I grumble. “That’s pretty much my evil plan, yeah.”

Not every relationship ends in disaster.

Cynthie, I won’t hurt you. I won’t lie.” He looks me in the eyes. “And I won’t leave. I will choose you every day, and I need you to know that. I need you to see that. That’s what’s going on.”

“Oh, yeah,” he says, sincerity in every line of his beautiful face. “I’m so in love with her it’s ridiculous.

And this isn’t the happily ever after moment. It isn’t the perfect ending to our story at all. It’s the perfect beginning.

Her face lights up, and seeing her happy is my drug of choice.