Behind The Scenes

Chapter 12 (Part One): Unpack your heart

Alyssa stretched her back on the airplane's first class' seat. She hated long flights and found out the hard way that travelling while pregnant felt exactly like hell, but what could she do at that height (literally)? She sat up and faced Matthew, who had his earphones on and his eyes glued to the board TV.

"Matt," she waved at him and he took his earphones off. "I was just thinking," she said, lowering her voice. "You haven't told me anything about your family! I'll make a fool of myself and everyone will know about our contract!" She finalized with an affected voice and looking really concerned, but the actor simply shrugged.

"It's OK." He said and Hayes raised her eyebrow.

"Of course it's not OK!" Aly replied, nervous. "What kind of couple is this that the girl knows nothing about her boyfriend's life? At least anything that matters, beside the things that are all over the tabloids."

Matthew rolled his eyes, also sitting up. He faced her.

"Trust me, Aly. In my family it would look much more fake if you knew something, than you knowing nothing at all." He said and the girl widened her eyes.

"Are you from the mafia or something?" She asked and Crawford lowly chuckled.

"We're all secret agents. In fact, I'm your body guard. I just pretend to be an actor to outwit the killers." He said, then laughed at the look on Alyssa's face.

"Dumbass!"

He smiled, then put his earphones back on and closed his eyes, contradicting her.

"Get some sleep, Aly."

***

Alyssa was completely exhausted when they finally landed at the Manston airport, in Kent, after another intern flight from London. After that, to Canterbury, Matthew's hometown, it was another half hour by car, and she hoped all this effort was worth it, because she was already regretting all of it. She rose up her eyebrow and looked at Matthew, who was cracking his knuckles frantically and couldn't stop patting his fingers on the luggage cart. Automatically, she remembered their arrival at Collierville and imagined maybe he was going through the same thing, but it was weird seeing Crawford this quiet.

"Nervous?" She asked watching him arrange their luggage on the cart. He denied with his head.

"Nope." He said, but the actress obviously didn't bought it.

"It'd be more convincing if you could stay still," she joked, but only got a mechanical smile back.

Crawford wasn't up for talking. It wasn't enough all the trillions hours inside a freaking plane, and look at what she had to put up with.

She was about to pull her phone out and call someone just to have the pleasure to talk to anyone when Crawford stood in front of her, in the middle of the parking lot of the car rental office, with an uncertain look. He opened his mouth to talk, but then swallowed thick, and repeated, until finally shaking his head and facing her.

"Well, just so you know," he said, calmly. "My family is much different than yours."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Aly questioned, too tired for all this mystery.

Matthew shrugged.

"Just don't expect a reception like yours, alright?"

OK, think, Alyssa.

She had quite the welcoming back home, although her father almost killed her with the marriage talk. So, was she supposed not to wait for a reception? Or maybe an English one? Matthew was too outgoing for a British guy, to be honest, but his family might be different... Stereotypes aside, she had no idea what he was talking about.