Love Unscripted (62 page)

My head bowed instinctively and I sighed.

“
I’m scared…Ryan,” I said slowly. “You’re going to be on location more than you will be home – wherever home may be. Separation, growing apart…” I winced. “It’s going to be hard, and I’m afraid if we force our relationship to be at stages where it hasn’t grown naturally, well…”

I looked him in the eyes. “What happens when you’re filming and you have to do some love scenes with another woman? What if her kiss is what you feel you’re missing out on? On-set romances happen all the time – some by accident. You know as well as I do that it happens. I can’t get it out of my head that all actors end up falling for actresses. What if bar owner from Rhode Island isn’t enough?”

“
Honey, there’s a big difference between kissing you and faking it for film!” he laughed out. “I’m getting cast into a lot of romantic movies, and it’s going to be unavoidable. Everyone wants to see romance. But it’s not real. It’s not this. What you and I have… this is real. You’ll just have to trust me.”

“
Well these are all the things that I’m thinking about. It’s not easy for me to trust men,” I whispered.

“
I know. I have to prove that I’m not like the others. It’s all right. I can do that,” he said, giving me an elbow nudge. “How about if I call you every fifteen minutes to remind you that I’m madly in love with you? Will that work?”

I rolled my eyes and laughed.

“
I can wear one of those iron chastity belts if it will make you feel better.”

“
Would you?” I kidded back.

“
I’ll have to get you another chain so you can wear the key as a necklace.”

I smirked. “I don’t want you to think that I’m some insecure mess. It’s just that, well, this stuff happens, and…”

“
What about letting Marie run the pub?” he quickly suggested.

Great… he found another one of my issues.

“
Ryan, the pub is
my
source of income. Marie isn’t opposed to taking care of things so I can travel, but honestly, with or without you, I need to maintain my own sense of stability. I’m not going to sit back and do nothing while having a high time spending your money. That’s not me. I’ve got to hold my own in this relationship.”

Ryan crossed his ankle up on his knee.

“
Did you give any more thought to leasing out the kitchen to Tammy? Then that’s even more income for you. Even if Tammy doesn’t use it, you can lease it out to someone else.”

“
That’s going to take a lot of money, Ryan. More than I can afford to spend right now. And I know what you’re going to say.”

“
Twenty grand, Taryn, is not a big deal. I still think that’s a lot more than what it should cost just to replace the plumbing. We can make it legal if you want so you don’t have to worry. Or we could just take it out in trade.” He pulled me by my shoulder to bump me into his chest.

I sighed.

“
Listen Taryn, I’m not going anywhere. So I have to travel when I film. So what. Like I said, we both travel from time to time and then I have a few weeks off here and there. If I promise to… slow down, will you promise to quit worrying?”

I nodded.

“
Say it!” he taunted.

“
I promise,” I said, laughing lightly at his urging.

“
Okay… and I promise too.” Ryan’s fingers lifted my chin.

I gazed lovingly into his eyes. Those eyes, so blue, filled to the brim with passion and conviction, were absolutely mesmerizing. We were drawn together by an invisible magnetism that reached all the way to the core of my being.

“
I love you, Taryn Lynn Mitchell,” he said with a smile.

“
I love you too, Ryan William Christensen.”

Although I thought I had been in love before with other men, never did those three little words mean so much to me as they did at this moment with this man. The feelings that flowed between us were natural and effortless; as easy as breathing.

While he was kissing me, I heard his stomach growl loudly. “We better get inside for dinner.” I pulled him by the hands.

“
You know, when you walked away with your keys I thought you were planning on speeding off in your car.”

“
No!” I laughed. “I actually got you a birthday present today. There’s no way I can get it home without you seeing it, so I thought I’d just give it to you now.” I unlocked the car and he let go of my hand.

“
I got it at the antiques store down the road. I hope you like it.”

“
Wow! Look at this! It’s an old Gibson!” His fingers strummed over the strings, but his cell phone buzzing in his pocket distracted him. “Ahh, I just turned the damn thing on and already it’s ringing.”

“
Hello? Who is this? Oh… what?” Ryan was short with whoever was on the other line. He turned his shoulder away from me, dropping his voice to a whisper. “I thought I made things perfectly clear the last time we had this conversation. I told you… things have changed. Then stop calling me,” he said quite callously.

He turned his phone off and walked a few feet away before noticing that I wasn’t following him. He held his hand out to me and waited until I caught up, silently towing me towards the house.

“
Are you two all right?” Ellen asked when we entered the kitchen.

“
Yeah, Mom. Taryn and I had some things to discuss that were more important than dinner.” He picked a piece of fish off of the plate and shoved it in his mouth. “See this?” he whispered in my ear. “Family, peace, no screaming fans, no security, home-cooked meals, normalcy. This is what I want. This is what I miss.”

“
I’m glad to hear that,” I said. “Because it’s the only way I know.”

After dinner, I grabbed some blankets and with two open bottles of wine we made our way out to the backyard. Ryan and his father threw more logs on the fire, setting a nice blaze in the fire pit. Millions of stars dotted the clear sky.

I took Ryan’s guitar and softly played a few chords.

“
What are you playing?” Ryan asked.

“
Nothing… I just had some lyrics in my head.”

We took turns playing, each of us adding to the melody.

We were trying to come up with words that rhymed. After an hour, we had written part of a song… our song.

“
When is your next movie going to start filming, Son?” Bill asked.

Ryan stopped playing. “Rehearsals start January 3rd. I’ll be filming in Miami for almost three months,” he said as he looked over at me.

“
What’s the movie called?” Bill continued.

“
It’s called
Thousand Miles
. It’s already been scheduled to be released by next November, I guess right around Thanksgiving again.”

“
What’s the movie about?” his mother asked, filling her wineglass.

“
It’s a drama about an FBI agent,” he pointed to himself, “who volunteers to drive his best friend’s sister to see her fiancé who lives in the Florida Keys. It turns out that the fiancé is a serial rapist who’s on the run. My character is falling in love with her the entire trip.”

“
Who are you going to be working with on this film?” Ellen asked. “Any other big names we might know?”

“
The only other part that I know that’s been cast is the lead actress. I’ll be working with Lauren. Lauren Delaney,” he quickly added.

The sip of wine I was taking instantly burned my throat.
Lauren? Like ex-girlfriend Lauren?

The way he said her name gave me the impression that he expected his mother to know who he was talking about.

Instantaneously, my eyes shot over to his mother to see her reaction. Her expression was a dead give-a-way; the mix of shock and panic was evident.

We drove directly to the airport fr
om the cabin. Even though we were two hours northwest of Seaport, we were only forty-five minutes west of Providence. Ryan made sure to mention that out loud.

Since it was known that the airport in Providence was the entry/exit point for our visiting celebrities, several paparazzi were on guard… waiting for any celebrity to pop up on their radar. Ryan knew what was waiting for us so we said most of our verbal goodbyes in the car on the way.

The paparazzi landed on us like flies, ruining the last few moments we had together with his parents. We gave his parents quick hugs and kisses while they retrieved their bags from the trunk; the camera flashes were disorienting and annoying.

The final proof that Ryan Christensen’s new girlfriend spent the weekend with his parents was being captured digitally on stills and video
. Wonderful - more fodder for the gossip magazines.
I felt like swinging Ellen’s suitcase around in a circle to see how many paparazzi I could knock out.

Ryan was getting angrier by the minute. I was relieved that TSA agents came right over to the car to assist us. As much as we wanted to spend a few extra minutes with his parents, we couldn’t dawdle.

Having my picture taken was a lot more tolerable than the invasive questions and comments that spewed out of the paparazzi.

Ryan and I jumped back in the car and as soon as the main traffic lane was clear, we drove off.

“
When we go to my parent’s for Thanksgiving, we’ll need security,” he muttered, getting over into the proper lane to get us out of the airport. “I’ll have a car drop us off.”

The moment we pulled into the alley, the paparazzi came running. We quickly unloaded the rest of our bags and his new guitar into the kitchen while the cameras clicked.

We were asked questions upon questions about our weekend. Did we have fun? Where did we go? Did we have a nice visit with his parents?

Mingled in there were the stupid questions; one guy actually asked us what we thought about the President’s stimulus package. Then he asked us if we heard the news about the latest celebrity who volunteered to be on that television dance show. Why the heck would we answer or respond to questions like that?

Some of their questions were down right aggravating. One of the photographers asked Ryan if Suzanne knew that I met his parents and how does she feel about that? Did it make her jealous? I wanted to tell them all to go to Hell, but I kept focused on getting the car emptied.

“
New door is in,” Ryan muttered. He was straining to keep his mind on other things and he tried to get me to focus with him.

I saw that we had a new steel door installed a few feet away from the existing kitchen door. We were so distracted by the paparazzi that I didn’t even have time to see all the progress Pete made on the new wall inside.

We drove down the alley and crossed over Mulberry Street into the open parking lot. We were just about parked when Ryan abruptly slammed on the brakes and put the car in reverse.

“
Ryan? What’s wrong?”

It took me no time at all to follow his stare. There she was – Angelica – sitting in her freaking blue Plymouth parked cattycorner to the lot on Mulberry Street. Ryan gunned the engine and drove back out onto the street.

“
Blue Gran Fury. We’re going to take care of this shit right now. Which way to the police station?”

Ten minutes later we walked into the Seaport Police Station. The officer informed us that they would investigate the matter, but we had to go to the county courthouse to apply for a protection from abuse order. That was not handled by the police.

We walked swiftly down the sidewalk to the courthouse doors. Ryan was wearing dark sunglasses and tried to look inconspicuous but he couldn’t go anywhere without being recognized. Two flustered women stopped us on the sidewalk and asked him for his autograph. Ryan momentarily slipped into his people-pleasing mode and even stood and waited for these two annoyances to find something for him to write on. He was so gracious.

We took the elevator up to the third floor of the courthouse and found the office that was supposed to help us. Fortunately the office was empty – all except for the two women who worked there. There was an older woman with bleached blond hair sitting at a tan metal desk busy typing away on a computer. She looked up at us for a second and then quickly returned to what she was doing. We didn’t even qualify as a distraction for her.

The other woman sitting behind the counter however, who was younger than the first, recognized Ryan immediately. I could tell – she looked up and blinked rapidly in astonishment. Her mouth popped open and for a moment I thought she was going to scream.

It’s amazing how quickly people jump for you when you’re a celebrity. I never knew the power that came with it until moments like these happened. Ryan could have asked the lady behind the counter to eat road kill and she probably would have obliged. If you could bottle Ryan’s fame and charm into one container, you’d have the recipe for a lethal weapon. We completed the paperwork in no time and within minutes we met with the judge.

“
I had her investigated,” I informed the judge. Ryan was surprised by this revelation, but maintained his composure. I squeezed his hand.

“
There’s a restraining order against her in the state of California for stalking another celebrity. She was also charged with breaking and entering into the celebrity’s home. She has physically placed her hands on Mr. Christensen on our way into our home, and she has been sleeping in her car outside our place of business, which is also where our home is. She has followed me all the way to South Hampton and repeatedly leaves messages for him on our vehicle and in our mail.”