CHAPTER 1
LAX. Post–fifteen hours of travel.Dried skin. Swollen ankles. Sunglass-covered, dark-circled eyes. It’s no one’s sexiest look, yet it’s the one that gets photographed more than any other. I don’t know why a single soul would want to see me like this. But they must. Because every time I get off a plane, at least thirty-five people are standing outside to photograph me. And the pictures will land everywhere. My rumpled jeans and matted hair will be splashed across every single tabloid the world over.
My costars, Rainer Devon and Jordan Wilder, and I are more than movie stars now. We’re celebrities. We have the number one film.Locked.August, Noah, and Ed—the characters we play—are household names. Our love triangle has captivated the world. Twenty million book sales. Two hundred fifty million at the box office opening weekend. Action figures. Our faces are plastered everywhere. Billboards on Sunset Boulevard. The cover of every weekly.
LOCKED’SSTARSARERISING
ALL THERAIGE: PAIGE ANDRAINER, LOVE AT LAST
RAINERDEVON: PAIGEIS THEREASONTHISSERIESWORKS
JORDANWILDER ANDRAINERDEVONREPAIRTHEIRRELATIONSHIP
RAIGEPLAYSHOUSE
We’ve been on an international press tour for the last four weeks to promote our movie. Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore, Rome, London. A different city every night, sometimes every four hours. I’ve woken up more often lately not knowing where I am than having a clue.
But now I know. Now we’re home. Or, at least, in L.A.
“How are you doing?” Rainer’s voice comes warm in my ear, and I let my body lean against his as we make our way off this, our last flight.
“Good,” I say. “I’m glad we’re here.” Tour was pretty incredible. All those screaming fans, all that energy. But I’m ready for some downtime. I don’t think I’ve slept through the night since we walked down the red carpet at the L.A. premiere.
Rainer pulls me tighter to him. It will be our last embrace until we get in our car. Tawny, our publicist and media coach, has strict rules about that—no touching when there are cameras. No touching outside because there could be cameras. Keep your hands to yourself. Sometimes I feel like I’m back in preschool.
Personally, I think it drives the mania. Hiding, I mean. People know we’re together—I did announce it at a press conference, after all—but they are desperate for footage of us hand in hand. They’re on the hunt for it constantly. Rainer is superactive on social media. He’s always trying to get me to tweet. He showed me how it works while we were in Rome. He gets thousands of tweets a minute, most of them asking about what it’s like to be us. I don’t know how I’d possibly answer that, let alone in 140 characters.
Because what is it like to be us? How can I explain the dream come true it is to be a movie star? To be with Rainer? I get to live out two fantasies simultaneously. I get to be August, Noah’s lover, and Paige, Rainer’s girlfriend. And I’m grateful for that. But it’s also only half of it. It doesn’t include the parts I don’t know how to talk about, things I can’t mention in interviews. That I feel like I’m inside a blender. I can’t tell my toes from my brain. There are times when I wonder where August ends and Paige begins, and that scares me. It scares me more than the flashbulbs and paparazzi. It scares me to think I may not know who I am anymore.
What I do know is that I’m with Rainer, and Rainer can handle this. Fame, fantasy, everything in the middle. He’s not only okay in the spotlight; he thrives in it. And that’s who I need by my side right now—someone who can stand with me. Even if he’s not holding my hand.
As much as I’d like to walk out of the airport next to him, I’m also not desperate for photos of us making out to land at the grocery store my parents go to, either. So I’ll stick with Tawny’s frenzy-inducing rules.
We make our way downstairs, and at the top of the escalator, Rainer lets me go. He’ll move a few stairs down so it won’t be possible to get a photo of us together. I know the drill.
“The car will be waiting. Three minutes,” he tells me. “It’s never more than three minutes.” He says the same thing to me in every city. It’s his mantra. Ours.
I nod. I kiss him. Once, on the lips.
“See you on the flip side.”
Our bodyguards appear, out of nowhere, and then we’re down in baggage claim. I step off the escalator.
I don’t know how they know when we’re going to land. Especially this early in the morning. Does someone tip them off? Are our travel schedules somehow public? Do they spend every day here, waiting for celebrities to get off flights? I tuck my head down. I keep my eyes trained on the feet in front of me. One. Two. Three.
I hear them before I see them. They scream: “Paige!” My name, like a shotgun.
I see Rainer outside the glass double doors. He swings his backpack into the waiting black Escalade, and I empty out my lungs.
“Paige! Is it true that you and Rainer are engaged?” “Paige! How is Rainer handling the scandal with Britney Drake and his father?” “Paige! Where is Jordan Wilder?”
Don’t react. That’s what they tell you. They tell you to keep a positive face, to smile. To never let them see you sweat. But none of that helps with the giant, unquestionable need I have to tell them the truth. To set the record straight.
No, we’re not engaged. We haven’t even talked about next week, let alone the rest of our lives.
Not well. Rainer is not handling the fact that his father tried to sleep with his ex-girlfriend well. Thanks for asking!
And lastly: I have no idea where Jordan Wilder is.
