Love Unscripted (48 page)
Authors: Tina Reber
Ryan Christensen’s steamy nights in Seaport
Ryan and Suzanne – their devastating breakup
Trouble in Paradise! Split could ruin the next
Seaside
It’s Over! – Ryan moves on
Ryan’s New Love
I clicked the last selection and was redirected
to some gossip news website in the UK. There was a picture of Ryan and me as we were coming back from Cal and Kelly’s. I could tell when it was taken by which side of my body was facing the buildings. I read the article.
Ryan’s New Love
Ryan Christensen and Suzanne Strass may play star-crossed lovers on screen but fate has something else in mind for these two actors in real life. Ryan has ended his almost two year relationship with Suzanne and is reportedly dating local Seaport, Rhode Island business owner, Taryn Mitchell.
“
Ryan met Taryn several weeks ago and is completely smitten,” says an insider. Ryan, 26, and Taryn, a 27-year-old New York native, have been turning up the heat on their relationship. Ryan has been seen entering and exiting her apartment at all hours of the day and night and has spent several all-nighters with the attractive blonde.
It was also reported that Ryan had all of his things removed from his private suite at the Lexington Hotel on Monday, where he had been staying while on location, and had them delivered to Ms. Mitchell’s apartment. His reps have neither confirmed nor denied the relationship.
“
Ryan has been disappearing a lot lately and has been spending less time with his co-stars,” says another insider, although last week we reported that almost the entire cast spent several hours together at a private party hosted by Ms. Mitchell herself.
“
Suzanne and Francesca left the party early and both appeared quite distraught. That’s the day Ryan let Suzanne know there was someone else in his life now.”
I scrubbed my fingers through my hair. Even though the relationship rumors between Ryan and Suzanne were completely false, there was still a lot of truth mingled in the article. God, most of this happened less than twenty-four hours ago and it was already in print! No wonder his manager called yesterday. I clicked on another link.
Split could spell disaster for the
Seaside
movie series.
Timing could not have been worse for Ryan and Suzanne’s relationship to fall apart – Charles and Gwen’s relationship in the third installment of
Seaside
is elevated to new intimate levels and is
the
primary focus of the story. “Everyone is worried that their off-screen relationship will have damaging effects on their on-screen chemistry. If there is tension between the two of them it will certainly show in the film. The smallest of changes can really destroy their amazing chemistry,” says a
Seaside
insider.
I spent the next hour searching him on the Internet. I was shocked to see how many photos there were of Ryan, along with thousands of other pictures of him and Suzanne together. There were even a few fan-made websites devoted to worshiping his every move; the one website included almost a day by day blog of his life.
I found that there were photos of me on several of the tabloid websites as well. Someone had taken several pictures of me walking down the sidewalk alone; there were also pictures posted of Tammy and me taken the day my window was smashed. There were a lot of pictures of Ryan and me from the night we went to Cal’s.
The general consensus indicated that I was nothing more than a home-wrecker, the reason why Ryan and Suzanne were being ripped apart. I could all too clearly imagine the die-hard
Seaside
fans coming after me to burn me at the stake.
How convenient for me that they were already out on my sidewalk.
I thought about having to leave the apartment to go grocery shopping and panic welled in my veins. Will the paparazzi follow me into the grocery store to report on what type of body soap I pick out for Ryan? I’d seen pictures of celebrities before and most of them were of the celebrities outside, although the inside of airports seemed fair game; could they follow me inside the grocery store?
I looked out my front window; most of the street seemed clear, except for the normal traffic. Maybe Ryan was seen leaving this morning and the paparazzi and obsessed fans followed him?
I took a shower and spent extra time fixing my hair and makeup, just in case. I took my time, fighting the urge to stay holed up in my apartment instead of going outside… out
there
. I could understand why Ryan hid in his hotel room.
I put on my best jeans and my black low ankle boots with the chunkier two-inch heel – just in case I needed to run – and my black leather jacket and sunglasses. I counted the money Ryan had left for me - one hundred and twenty dollars – and put it in my purse. Grocery list, purse, bank deposit, keys, cell phone… bravery? Where did I leave my guts?
Don’t let them decide for you, you can do this.
I paused by the back door, fixed the alarm, took a deep breath, and stepped out into the alley. That’s when the cameras began to click. About five paparazzi followed me, asking me questions the entire way down the alley. I didn’t answer; I kept my focus on getting to my car. At one point I found that I was almost able to tune out their questions by thinking about something else.
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.”
