"And at that moment, when she says come back, give me something, I realized - and this is really for Lilly, for, for all the - the Brenda versus Kelly people - I realized that maybe Dylan should have been with Brenda. Maybe that would've been, uh, the thing to do." - Writer/Executive Producer Chuck Rosin, Beverly Hills 90210 podcast in June 2020, eliciting responses of: "I told you. Duh!" from Larry Mollin and a knowing smile/laugh with "Wow!" from BD's dad, James Eckhouse.
xx
With a mixed brew of exhilaration and agitation, the yet undiscovered theatre troupe bussed into the Heathrow carpark nearing the crack of dawn.
Reassuringly holding the hand of a particularly nervous first time flier, Brenda turned to catch a glimpse of the sunrise before bidding a temporary farewell to the kingdom in the sea.
Only two months and she would be home, she reminded herself, though the thought did little to calm her own nerves.
Instead, she spent the majority of their transatlantic flight either sleeping or visualizing the borders of California closing and preventing an escape home.
The plane dipped low into marshmallow clouds, free of turbulence until encountering the majestic, imposing Rocky Mountains encumbering Colorado's mile high city.
Unhindered, they departed Denver International and its hot, dry air at precisely the time listed on their tickets, arriving mere hours later into the significantly cooler San Diego.
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph," said Theo Fletcher after the group disembarked and crossed over to the regional terminal for Santa Barbara, "how do people live in that?"
"Live in what?" Brenda asked, one hand clutching her shoulder bag's strap whilst the other held the handle of her rolling carry-on.
"That heat in Denver! It's roasting. Like being in a fecking desert!"
"Oh, that's nothing," she replied with a laugh, "it's dry heat. You should try Minnesota in the summer. Eighty - I mean, twenty degrees and humid."
"Is there an ocean in Minnesota?"
"Well, there's lakes."
"Twenty degrees with a lake? I think I'll leave that weather to Majorca, thank you."
The group touched down in Santa Barbara, connecting with a rental car agency to secure their planned vehicular transport. Waiting for Theo and stage manager Isla to return with the promised automobile, Brenda observed a handful of her colleagues eyeing the airport's finer details.
"What kind of architecture is that?" whispered one.
"Oh, I read about this somewhere. I think it's called missing rebel style."
"No, you twat," said a third, "it's mission revival style."
"Did you just look that up?"
"Might've done."
They arrived into their Santa Maria accommodations later that evening, knackered from the long flight and bearing an attack of ferocious jet lag. Only a few rounds of drinks, quite a bit of laughter and the waning sun sent them straight into bed.
Waking up long before the others after another restless sleep, Brenda began to prepare breakfast.
"Hello, Brenda," said Isla, who stood carefully braiding her hair.
"Morning, Is," she replied with the flip of a skillet.
"Need some help?"
"That'd be great."
"What's the plan for today, Bren?" asked Isla. "What do you call this, again?"
"Kumquat," said Brenda, "I'm, uh, meeting some friends."
"Americans have strange names for fruit."
"I don't think these are originally American," Brenda replied with a slight laugh.
"Ah, ye ken pals over here?"
"Popping 'round to see my brother."
"Brilliant," said Isla as she grabbed a kettle brought from home, lest their various California accommodations lack in kettles.
Pushing through the day until the clock's second hand arrived on the time Andrea planned to pick her up, Brenda's apprehension began to increase. Neither her brother nor her friends would invoke a sense of nervousness, which led to her bemusement that she felt the emotion at all.
She blamed California. Within its towering palm trees and fusion dishes lay a galaxy of hurt she yearned to forget.
"Brenda! You've a visitor."
"Andrea!" she cried, immediately reaching out to her friend. "You're early!"
"What can I say, I was excited," Andrea replied, squeezing the vanishing act of West Beverly, "but not too early, I hope. You won't be ready."
"Just give me a second," Brenda said, though it turned into twenty.
They chatted along the way to Vandenberg, discussing their individual prestigious careers and answers about Brenda's life in London.
She had just started detailing the exact content of Piccadilly Circus and its upcoming winter rush when the oceanside of Vandenberg began to appear.
The women stepped out, linked arms and stood waiting.
"Wow," Brenda breathed, "they've an incredible view."
"Certainly better than I expected," replied Andrea, her focus with the shimmering Pacific Ocean that lay on one side of Vandenberg.
"Brenda!" shouted a blur, affecting her balance as it threw itself forward. Regaining her footing, she tightened her arms around the bearlike individual.
"Where's Maddie?" she asked, looking around.
"No hello for me?" he asked.
"Hello, Steve," she beamed, "where's Maddie?"
"With Hannah," Steve replied.
"Erin's watching them," Andrea added.
"Silver," he corrected.
She remained in his leather arms, appreciating the familiarity that came with being around Steve Sanders.
A second figure swung itself out of Steve's car and halted upon sight of the woman before him.
"Andrea! You promised!" Brenda said, turning a hurt expression on her friend.
"I didn't say anything," Andrea replied.
"Steve!"
"What? Wasn't me," he swore, holding up large hands to defend himself from an impending and rather undeserved wrath.
"Yeah, I just said we were going to see Brandon," replied Andrea, "so of course he wanted to come and I may have forgotten to mention that we would be meeting you."
"I also forgot," Steve said.
Brenda examined the duo, who wore matching expressions of feigned innocence.
"You're too much," she sighed.
"Well damn, Brenda Walsh, is that you?" asked Dylan McKay, reclining against the vehicle. "I'd started to think you were a mirage."
"Very funny, Dylan," she replied with a glare towards both Steve and Andrea.
"Oh, so you do know me. Didn't think an illusion could remember."
"That makes no sense, Dylan."
"You don't make sense, Bren."
She swallowed, thinking back to the day he professed to permanently exit her world with a similar statement. Clearly, chance missed the memo.
Brenda inwardly berated herself for visiting California or Vandenberg or anywhere Dylan McKay decided to show his face - his frustratingly beautiful face.
She'd been a fool to believe she could prevent seeing him if she only steered clear of Beverly Hills.
"Andrea, help me bring in these supplies for Brandon," said Steve and the two promptly left.
She began to follow.
"Kinda thought your parents would be here," Dylan broke the silence with an awkward rub of his neck, less confident now that they were alone.
Her options were limited. She could either be discourteous and ignore any conversation her ex-boyfriend tried to initiate or hold some sense of congeniality and ease the situation for everyone, especially her brother.
"Well, they are planning to come," Brenda replied, choosing for Brandon's sake a substantial amount more of audible benevolence than she felt.
"How," he inhaled sharply, kicking his boots against the blacktop, "how are you?"
"Good," she replied.
"That's good," said Dylan.
"And you?"
"Good."
"Then we're both good."
"Yeah. It's good."
She produced a tight smile at their repetitive conversation.
"You - you were so set on keeping me from knowing you were in town that you made two of our friends promise to not say anything?"
"This isn't exactly in town."
"You know what I mean."
He failed to conceal his distress, both at Brenda and at their said friends.
"Um," she confessed, "well, actually, four."
"Four?" he asked.
"Yeah, Donna and David also know. And - I may have told Nat."
"You made all of my friends promise?" he inquired, voice quaking as if their five mutuals committed an unforgivable sin.
"It's not like it matters, Dylan," she said.
"It matters, Bren," he replied in a soft murmur, gaze locked on her petite figure.
"Look, we should get inside -"
"Why have you spent all these years avoiding me?" He lightly touched her arm to prevent the departure, brown eyes desperately searching hazel.
"Because you've avoided me," she answered plainly.
"Because you've avoided me!" he stated. "Just the other day, you got off Skype with Andrea simply because I walked into the room."
"Don't flatter yourself. I had to go."
"Sure, Bren. You gonna tell me missing Donna's wedding didn't have anything to do with me?"
"I was in the middle of a show, Dylan!"
"Convenient," he scoffed.
"Kinda like when the gang gets together on Thanksgiving, calls me and you're the only one who conveniently finds something else to do?"
"Oh, you mean like when you invited everyone else to see your show in Philly, complete with prepaid tickets that had to be returned when it was cancelled at the last minute and I didn't get one?"
"I did send you one!" she replied indignantly.
"Yeah, okay, I guess it just happened to get lost in the mail," he mocked.
"Funny, it's like publishing your first book and hearing it through Steve."
"And clearly skipping out on the tenth year reunion was just to avoid the food," he murmured, shoulders hunched in defeat. "I don't know why you hate me."
"I don't hate you."
They expelled deep sighs, years of frustration and pent-up betrayal wading through the blacktop.
"Look, Bren. I, uh, tried to call you; you know, after - after Brandon disappeared," he said quickly.
"Yeah, I got the message," Brenda replied, averting his eyes.
"You did?" he asked.
She nodded.
"Well, you never called me back," Dylan accused.
Observing the pained gaze painted onto the face of a man she once loved more than her own life, Brenda fought for the steel of the Round Table.
"Why, so we could fake pleasantries and cry over my lost brother together before you went and knocked up his fiancée?" she glowered.
"That's not what happened," Dylan said, his already dark brown eyes managing to darken ten times over at her question.
"Isn't it?"
"No," he emphasized, "Bren, listen, okay? You got it all wrong. Everyone's got it all wrong."
"It doesn't matter," she cut in, her focus laying more with the yarn roll of contemplations kayaking through her mind than with his denial.
"It doesn't?" asked a stunned Dylan.
"Yeah, it doesn't. I mean, you made it pretty clear that I'd be out of your life for good so it's not like you owe me any explanations for what you chose to do with it."
"Because you pushed me out of yours!" Dylan said.
"No, I didn't!"
"Oh, right, yeah, sorry, just out of your flat and our bed," he replied, a sarcastic tone accompanying pointed fingers.
"You seemed to recover just fine in Kelly's after you came back and again after Brandon didn't. Even got a kid to show for it."
"Dammit, Brenda, will you quit being stubborn and let me speak? Look, Kelly and I, we - Sammy isn't -"
Dylan's words were drowned out by Steve hurrying into the parking lot to yell for them to get their asses inside if they wanted to see Brandon anytime soon.
He sighed, running both hands over a countenance left unaffected by time.
"Bren, can Steve and I take you somewhere after this? I saw a diner off the freeway."
"I'm not sure that's such a great idea, Dylan."
"Please, Brenda? Look, we just really need to talk."
"Really? Because I think we've talked enough."
"You call that talking? Bren, c'mon. There's things you don't know."
"There are things I don't need to know," she emphasized.
"No, I think you do," he replied, staring directly into her eyes in a way that still invited tremors across her waistline.
"You two looking to see Brandon or what?" Steve asked impatiently, tapping his foot. "We can't even get past the lobby without Bren. He doesn't have all day, you know. The hot secretary said his PT will be here soon."
"Steve!" Brenda scolded.
"What, Bren? She is hot," he replied, broad shoulders folding into a flippant shrug.
She glanced quickly at Dylan, whose eyes met hers, and then looked away.
Producing identification to prove she was indeed Brandon's relation of the same surname - good thing she never married, Brenda thought - she sprinted down the hallway to his room.
"Oh my god, Brandon!" she said, opening the door with a clang.
"There's my stunning sister," grinned Brandon Walsh.
She barreled into him, Brandon catching her with a chuckle.
"Careful," he said.
"Sorry," she replied, though she did not release him.
"Hey, hey, Bren, it's okay. I'm here," he said softly, feeling Brenda's tears hit his shoulder.
"But you haven't been, have you?" she asked, "and I thought you never would be again."
"It isn't exactly the Walsh way to bail, is it?" he answered, rubbing her back.
"Well," she replied in contemplation, "not the Brandon Walsh way."
He chuckled again and ushered towards the cot evidently used as his bed.
"Are you and Graham still together?" he asked as they sat, easing her mind away from the difficult subject of his long absence.
"No. When you disappeared, I kinda...shut down. He accused me of pushing him away."
"Yeah," Brandon replied, tilting his head, "you do that."
"Brandon, I thought my twin was never coming back and Graham tried to make me feel better by talking about future kids I don't even know if I can have."
"Brenda. You didn't make that appointment?"
"The day they told me about you? Hell no, I didn't."
"And every day since?" he asked, surveying his sister.
"What's the point, Brandon? It's not like I meet many guys who can be classified as superb father material. My schedule's too crazy to raise a kid myself. I doubt I'd even be a good mom."
"Bren, you'd be a great mom."
They fell into an easy silence, until Brandon cleared his throat.
"Bren, I, uh, I had a lot of time alone in there to think about my life, about our lives, what I would say the next time I saw you - if there was a next time, and I just wanna say that I'm sorry."
"Brandon," she asked, perplexed, "why are you sorry?"
"Look, before we moved to Beverly Hills, it was always us. Brandon and Brenda Walsh, the Minnesota Twins. We were best friends growing up, weren't we?"
She nodded, hesitant to interrupt his soliloquy.
"Well, Bren, I mean, let's be honest. The whole thing between you and Dylan, Kelly; I wasn't exactly best friend material during it."
"Oh God, Brandon, we were teenagers. That triangle - or, square, I guess - between us and them happened a long time ago."
"Just hear me out, okay? You were hurting and I kinda, well, I brushed it off as normal high school drama when there wasn't anything normal about it. I basically chose one sibling over the other so I wouldn't have to choose, which really doesn't make sense when you think about it, and yeah, Dylan was my brother then and he's my brother now, but you're my sister. And to top it all off," he gave a sardonic chuckle that transformed into a wince, "I went and fell in love with the woman who hurt you."
"You really don't need to apologize for loving Kelly," she said, "We could all see it from the beginning. You were just too stubborn to admit that you liked her until after she got with Dylan."
"Yeah, I guess," he said. "Maybe it was just because she was your friend. I mean, I knew what it was like to have your sister date your best friend and if I'd been the brother dating the best friend?"
"You, dating Kel in high school? Nope, can't picture it."
"I can. Would've saved all three of you a lot of pain," Brandon replied, his smile rueful.
"Well, it didn't happen and we're much older now so if that's all you thought about while we sat wondering if you were alive, I mean, Brandon, you might want to get a more interesting life."
He laughed, wrapping a bruised arm around Brenda's shoulders to draw her against his side in the comforting way that only her brother could.
"And for what it's worth," she replied, voice muffled by his shirt, "I forgive you."
The twins sat, simply enjoying each other's company or perhaps reminiscing of days before love triangles and broken trust.
A light tapping on the door jarred their tranquility.
"Hey, B," Dylan said, casually leaning against the door. At first glance, his countenance appeared nonchalant. Both twins, however, could easily detect the tears clinging to his long lashes.
"Hey D," Brandon replied.
West Beverly High's continued reigning kings exchanged bright smiles, clapped each other on the back and moved closely together in a tight embrace. They had managed to retain a strong friendship since hitting the Green Room, regardless of their tumultuous past involving a certain blonde.
"Thank you for coming back to us," Dylan shakily whispered, clutching onto Brandon.
Neither time, vices, distance nor even Kelly Taylor aided in permanently demolishing a brotherhood.
"I should go," Brenda said, slightly uncomfortable at her perceived intrusion in the duo's private moment.
"No, Bren, stay," Brandon urged.
"Yeah, Bren, stay," Dylan echoed, one arm hanging around Brandon's shoulders whilst granting her a penetrating gaze.
"I don't know," she hesitated, "I think I'll just be in the way."
"Who? You? Brenda Walsh? In the way? Nah, not a chance. Right, D?"
"Right, B."
"Why are you two making me feel like a teenager again?" she whined, resisting the urge to stamp her foot in childish behavior which would certainly waft forward an air of adolescence.
"Probably because we know you better than anyone," Brandon replied.
"Anyone, huh? I don't know, Brandon, I think there's quite a few people in London who would disagree with you on that one."
"Trust me, Brenda," he said, "if you haven't told these London people about the time you decided to dye your hair blonde, then they don't know you better than we do."
"You're just never gonna let that one die out, are you?" she scowled.
"Interesting choice of words there, Bren. Dye."
A loud sound began to rumble, which the bickering twins soon discovered took the form of Dylan laughing.
"What's so funny?" Brenda asked, intertwining bare arms over her chest.
"You two. The Walsh twins, doing what you Walsh twins do. God, seeing you both in the same room again, it's surreal," Dylan replied, shaking his head to stifle the laughter.
"That's right. How long has it been?" Brandon asked, exchanging a look with his sister.
"Well, you had that layover in London," she reminded him.
"I know that," he replied. "I mean, how long has it been since we've both been around Dylan?"
Brenda pondered, mentally replaying their interactions before Brandon's disappearance - a few trips to London, one wild weekend with Val in Berlin and a short Christmas in Melbourne, none of which involved Dylan McKay.
"Actually, I don't know," she confessed.
"Too damn long," murmured the man in question.
"How long, Dylan?" asked Brandon, comprehending his friend's mumbled statement.
"Put it this way, man," Dylan replied, "you, well, there was one time in DC" he pointed, "and she," he looked at Brenda, "left the country back when Clinton was president, so the two of you together?"
"Damn, that long?" Brandon said, scrunched features indicating inner tabulation.
"Yeah, Brando. That long."
"And when you last saw Brenda?" he asked.
"Brandon, you know I haven't seen Dylan since I moved," she replied, so accustomed to the decade-long lie that it robotically slipped out.
"Oh, give it up, Bren. Brandon knows. He's the only one who does," said her exasperated ex.
"He knows?" she asked, bewildered.
"Yep," Brandon nodded, "I know."
"You know about London?"
"Oh yeah," Dylan said, "he knows about London."
"All about London?" she asked, a flush creeping into her cheekbones.
"All about London," both men emphasized.
"Well then," Brenda replied in a huff, "I suppose we should be grateful that you apparently haven't told anyone."
"Speak for yourself," Dylan said, maintaining a steady gaze.
She ignored him.
"I can't believe he told you," she pointed an accusatory finger at Dylan, changing direction towards Brandon, "and you never said anything to Andrea or Steve. What about Kelly?"
They answered with matching head shakes.
"Brandon. You didn't even tell Kelly?" she inquired, stunned.
"Wasn't my place," Brandon replied in a shrug. "Dylan told me in confidence."
"You never mentioned anything," she said, confused.
"Like I said, Bren. Dylan told me in confidence. If you wanted to, you would've. I didn't want to push anything."
"Well," she said, still fazed by their confession, "then I guess it's only right to say that I told Val."
Dylan's startled expression turned to her.
"You told Val?" he asked.
"Of course I told Val," she replied.
"But I thought there was nothing to tell," he said quietly, repeating Brenda's own words.
"Remind me to congratulate Val on a secret well kept," Brandon said, attempting to soften the tension pervading his space, "might be her first one yet about someone else."
Dylan's gaze locked on hers a bit too long for comfortability, Brenda decided as she hurriedly severed their connection to glance at her brother.
"I don't know, Brandon. You're doing an awful lot of talking for someone supposedly at death's door," she teased.
"That was last week," he said.
"When are they gonna let you out of here, Jones?" asked Dylan.
"Soon. They're checking with the PT to see if I'm up to code, but Brady says I oughta be good by sometime next week."
Brenda squeezed him tightly, relieved that there appeared to be little concern with permanent effects from his traumatic experience.
"Hey, Bren, watch it," he said, wincing.
"Sorry," she said, releasing her hold.
"You flying back to DC?" Dylan asked, consternation cracking through feigned indifference.
"Nah, man, think I'll head down to LA."
"Well, that makes one of you," he replied, granting Brenda an accusatory expression.
"What does that mean?" Brandon asked.
"Nothing," she said, silently wishing that her ex would cease his constant staring.
"It means that Bren is determined to avoid SoCal, though we all know why and he's standing right here so it's a moot point."
"Steve!" she said, throwing up her arms. "God, all you boys are against me."
"I mean, they're not wrong."
"Andrea!" she groaned, "Not you, too."
Walking into the open doorway, Steve and Andrea momentarily linked glances before simultaneously rounding on Brenda.
"It's just, Hannah really wants to see you -"
"Yeah, so does Maddie -"
"And you've already seen Dylan, anyway -"
His head jerked in reply, reignited hurt flickering through an unwavering stare.
Brenda turned her expression downward, determined to avert four gazes focused solely on persuasion.
"Unless you're also trying to avoid Kelly."
"David and Donna couldn't even be here. You still haven't seen their kids."
"And Nat's making a pie."
"Nat's always making a pie," she hastily pointed out.
"But not when your brother's here and wants to share Nat's famous peach pie with his sister before she flies all the way back to London," Brandon added helpfully - or unhelpfully, depending on the individual mindsets currently congregated in the room.
"Yeah, when you disappear on us again," Dylan murmured.
"You four are the actual worst, you know that?" Brenda remarked, frustration peaked with their guilt trip.
"I'm just good at cajolery," Andrea replied, "nothing wrong with that."
"Yeah and I have an adorable kid who you say you love but rarely see," said Steve.
"That's low, Steve."
"It's necessary, Bren."
"So?" Andrea prompted.
"So," Brenda replied, "you all suck and you can pick me up at the community theatre in Santa Maria on Friday night, okay?"
"Yes!" cheered Andrea and Steve in unison, smacking their hands together to form a high-five.
"Wait, Bren, are you performing in Santa Maria on Friday?" Brandon asked.
She nodded.
"Well, then why don't we all just come see you? I should be out by then."
"Hell yeah!" Steve said. "We can make it a group trip and bring her home afterward so she can finally spend some time with the kids."
"You don't have to do that," Brenda replied, nervously shifting her feet.
"Well, maybe we want to," said Dylan, adding under his breath just loudly enough for her to hear, "and then some of us might actually be able to talk to you."
Brenda could usually read Dylan as easily as he could analyze poetry - a difficult feat, for understanding pointless poetry unorganized into a script never came easy to her - but in that moment, she remained Cher Horowitz levels of clueless.
"What, all of you?" Brenda asked, outwardly ignoring his perplexing temperament whilst inwardly debating if he simply missed their friendship.
"Sure, why not?" replied Andrea. "Steve and I, Dylan and Brandon, the Silvers and Kelly. I'm sure we can get Erin to babysit again. It'll be like old times. I mean," she paused, "if you're okay with us bringing Kelly."
Brandon's oceanic eyes sparkled at the mere mention of her name.
Brenda sighed, her plan to face California and leave intact crumbling with every suggested idea her well-meaning and tremendously irritating friends hurled into the atmosphere.
"Yeah, whatever, bring Kelly."
"Great!" Andrea smiled, "It'll be so good to have the gang back together again to see you perform. We're all so proud of you, you know."
"You are?" she asked, desperately clinging to a shaky resolve that would shatter if she dared to cry.
Brenda convinced herself when she moved to London that none of her old friends would miss her. Their dynamics hung precariously at California University, with the exception of Andrea, whose relationship and pregnancy kept her separate from the harrowing drama and Dylan, who shared that he still loved her but not in the way that she confessed to loving him.
That is, until he unexpectedly appeared at the Lyceum two years later and their dance began again with a final conclusion.
Or what he claimed as the final time, since the man who insisted their lives would be devoid of all contact if he exited her flat presently stood in the same room with evidently no inclination to leave.
That may have been due to Brandon, she acknowledged.
"Yes," Steve said, "we are, though none more so than Donna."
"I beg to differ," Brandon said, "if anyone's the proudest of Brenda, it would be her only brother right here."
"Only brother?" Steve asked, lifting one blond eyebrow.
"Biological twin brother," Brandon added.
"I don't know, man," his friend replied, "if you haven't scanned every play on the West End trying to find Brenda's name so you can post it on the fridge, then you haven't reached the Donna Silver stage of proud."
"I'm on Donna's fridge?" she asked.
"Not at the moment, no. It's covered in the kids' daycare artwork, but during the summer? Bren, you were all over that fridge."
"Is that why Dylan spent the entire summer avoiding the Silver place?" Andrea whispered to Steve.
Dylan's head whipped up, vigorously shaking in an attempt to prevent his ex-girlfriend from overhearing.
Unfortunately for him, she did hear the loud whisper and immediately concluded Andrea's inquiry as proof of his disinterest in her life.
"Let me get this straight. Donna featured me all over her fridge and Dylan purposely didn't go to her house for a whole summer because of it?" Brenda asked.
"I shouldn't have said anything," Andrea answered, placing her face into her hands with a quake of cotton layered shoulders.
"No, it's fine," Brenda replied, "I mean, it solidifies what I already thought."
Dylan looked directly into her eyes, tilting his head to the side.
"And what, exactly, do you think?" he asked.
"That you hate me," she stated candidly.
"God, Bren, you have no idea, do you?" he breathed, fists clenched at his side.
"Much as I'm intrigued by this rerun of the Dylan and Brenda saga," Steve cut in, "can I get a moment alone with Brandon? Holly says his PT will show up within the hour."
"Of course," Brenda replied, turning to place a kiss on her brother's cheek, "I should probably be getting back, anyway."
"We'll drive you," said Dylan.
"We will?" asked Steve.
The two men began to communicate in hand motions and eye contact.
"I can drive her," Andrea said, "I have an interview up in Pismo. It's on the way."
"You're interviewing for something?" Brandon asked.
"No, Brandon. I'm interviewing someone for a story."
"Yeah, I figured," he replied with a pat on her shoulder.
Whispering statements of affection and promising to not foil their plan, however much it concerned her, Brenda embraced Brandon and Steve once more. Taking Andrea's hand, the women departed, leaving one incredibly frustrated surfer behind in their wake.
xx
Kelly! Thank you for reading and enjoying! It's a full circle - you were one of the first (if not the first) Liason authors I ever read on here, thirteen years ago. I'm stunned.
To silentlyreader - I greatly enjoy the podcast and love that Pete digs deep into every aspect of the series. He just needs to get Shan and Tiff on there, though I don't see that happening with either.
Thank you also to everyone for your lovely reviews! Delighted you're loving this story as much as I am loving writing it. Quite surprised how easy these kids are to write (while hopefully staying in-character.)
[Sidenote: Completely forgot about the kissing with Sarah and Tim, respectively. Just rewatched it yesterday. Must have blocked that out.]