Hollywood Remake (A Celebrity Love Story)

Prologue

"And they lived happily ever after."

"Tell me another one, Grandma!"

Kate sighed. Her youngest granddaughter was just at the age when little girls have an insatiable appetite for love stories. Well, maybe there were some little girls who never outgrew that particular trait.

"Let's see," Kate said. "Did I ever tell you the one about the girl whose family forgot her sixteenth birthday?"

"You mean Sixteen Candles?" Her granddaughter rolled her eyes with impatience. "Yes, Grandma. I've seen it a hundred times. I wanna hear a real story!"

"A real story?"

"Were you ever in love, Grandma?"

Kate let out a gasp of indignation. "What do you mean, was I? Your grandfather is right in the next room!"

"You were in love with Grandpa? But he's so old!"

"You know, he wasn't always so old," Kate chuckled. "There was a time when women in every single country on the planet were wildly in love with your grandfather."

The little girl crinkled her forehead in confusion. "Why?"

"Why what?" Aidan asked as he walked into the room.

"Your granddaughter wants to hear a love story," Kate replied. She followed her husband with her eyes as he sank down beside her with a groan on the well-worn living room couch.

"Love story, huh? I might know a few of those."

"Tell me the story of when you asked Grandma to marry you!"

Aidan looked at his wife with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "When I asked your grandmother to marry me," he said. "Do you remember?"

Kate grinned back at him. "Which time?"

"That's true," Aidan confirmed. He pulled his eyes away from Kate's face and nodded at his granddaughter seriously. "Just one marriage proposal wasn't good enough. Not for your grandmother. No, I seem to recall at least—" He looked down and started counting on his fingers. "How many was it?"

Kate pressed one hand to her cheek as she watched him. "You remember very well," she said.

He shook his head at her. "I lost count. But now the first one – that was a thing of beauty. That was the stuff they pay the screenwriters big bucks for in Hollywood. You know there's a word for the kind of woman who would turn down a proposal like that one."

"There was no ring," Kate said.

"No ring." Aidan closed his eyes for a moment and sighed.

"Tell the story!" his granddaughter demanded, bouncing up and down with excitement.

"Well, let's see," Aidan began. "It was a Sunday afternoon, as I recall—"

"You really want to hear this?" Kate gave her granddaughter a skeptical look. "But you already know the ending."

"Oh, Grandma! Don't be dumb. It always ends the same anyway."

"Yeah, Grandma. Don't be dumb," Aidan said, taking Kate's hand in his. She looked up to see his eyes dancing with laughter, and she felt her heart constrict as she remembered a different time when he held her hand – an afternoon 40 years ago, when the look in his eyes had been a different one entirely.

"Now, where was I?" Aidan said.

"It was a Sunday afternoon," the little girl prompted.

"Raining cats and dogs," Kate added with a wistful smile. She squeezed her husband's hand as he smiled back.

***

June 2013

A neon signed blazed overhead – Fill 'Er Up in cursive script – casting the rain-soaked highway rest stop in red-gold monotone, like an old sepia photograph come to life. Kate stood frozen in place, looking down at the man who knelt before her on one knee. The water ran down his face in rivulets. Droplets dangled from the tip of his nose. Kate watched the water trickle and fall, and she listened to the words she thought she'd never hear him say, the words she thought were lost to her forever:

"Katie, you're the one. I love you. Will you marry me?"

She touched him on the cheek. His eyes were locked with hers, trying to read the answer on her face before she said the words. He was holding his breath – they both were – and she felt the air escape from her lungs in a silent sigh.

"Aidan," she said at last, tugging on the hand that was holding hers. "Get up."

He dropped her hand and pressed his lips together for a moment before he rose to his feet. "I'm guessing that's a no, then?" he said, his eyes on the ground.

"It's not a no. It's just—" She shook her head. "Aidan, it's way too soon."

He rubbed one hand across his eyes to clear away the rainwater. "OK then," he said, nodding once. "Let's go." He jerked his head toward the car and started walking toward it.

Kate grabbed his arm, and he turned back toward her. His gaze was directed somewhere just over her left shoulder. "I love you too," she said. "There's just a lot we still need to figure out."

"Yeah." He shrugged. "I get it. Totally." He forced his eyes to meet hers, and the sadness she saw in them tugged at something deep inside her chest. "Aidan," she whispered.

"It's OK," he said, forcing his lips to curve into a smile. "Come here." He pulled her into his arms and looked down into her face. He brushed the damp hair off of her cheeks, and then he lowered his head to kiss her, slowly and gently.

"What now?" he asked once they were back in the car.

Kate looked down at her watch. "Right now you have a flight to catch," she said.

"That's not what I meant."

"What, then?"

"You said it's too soon, so I'm asking you, what now?"

She shook her head. "I don't know."

"I think you need to come out to LA."

"Aidan, you can't just snap your fingers and expect me to turn my whole life upside down—"

"—I'm not asking you to turn your life upside down. I'm asking you to come for a visit. I have six weeks of downtime before I head out on the summer tour."

"I can't take six weeks off work," she protested.

"So how much can you take?"

"I don't know." She looked up at the ceiling of the car for a minute, calculating. "Maybe two weeks?"

"OK then. Come to LA. Stay with me for two weeks."

"Just drop everything and jump on a plane to Hollywood. That's what you're asking me?"

"No, Kate. I'm asking you to marry me." He reached out and took her hand, twining his fingers through hers. "But if two weeks is what you'll give me, then two weeks is what I'll take."