He laughs, softer now. “You’re going to be great.”
Our hands stay linked through the entire landing, his thumb occasionally brushing my knuckles, even after Ciaran stirs from his nap and smirks, “Careful with that hand-holding at 30,000 feet—the air gets thin, but the implications get thick. It’s just a stunt. Or is it?” He wags his eyebrows and starts to annoy me.
I stay silent through the limo ride, shell-shocked by the clear blue Texas sky and the way my stomach has begun to coil tighter. The Four Seasons is both elegant and bizarre, as if someone tried to build a European castle out of limestone and air conditioning. The lobby is jumping with film people, too-loud publicists with cracked iPhones, critics in ironic hats, and the occasional masked actor trying to move incognito.
My suite is on the twentieth floor, and inside, my wardrobe has already been laid out: three possible outfits for the morning, four for the evening, all in shades of “please notice me, but not too much.” A hair and makeup team is scheduled to arrive in twenty minutes. My PR handler is texting every six seconds, reminding me:
Be real with them, but remember, you’re a brand now.
I want to ask her how I can be both, but I don’t think she’d understand.
There’s a knock at the door. I half expect it to be Asher, but instead, it’s room service—coffee and a pastry so artful I’m sure someone had to take a class to make it. I pour the coffee, wait for the jolt, and only after the first cup do I realize how much my hands are shaking.
An hour and a half later, as I’m deciding whether the dark green strappy summer dress makes me look like a sexy librarian or a lichen, Asher texts: “Meet me at the pool in 15?” There’s noemoji, no hint of urgency, but I know from experience that this means he’s spiraling.
I throw on the dress, dig up a pair of old sunglasses, and ride the elevator down, every floor another layer of nerves peeled away.
Asher is already there, standing by the poolside bar, elbow on the counter, talking with the bartender with a seriousness that makes me think he’s asking about poison. The pool is deserted except for the early-morning guests: an elderly woman doing slow backstrokes, a trio of tattooed tech bros drinking mimosas, and one lone man in a “Chuy’s” T-shirt who I definitely recognize from a viral TikTok but can’t place.
He sees me and waves me over, sliding me a glass of water before I even sit. “You made the best choice,” he says of the suit. “Everyone outside of LA is going to fall in love.”
I slouch, wishing I could wear a cloak of invisibility instead. “Did you sleep at all?”
“I tried, but my pillow sucks. I’ve grown used to this fancy cervical pillow I bought off TikTok a few weeks ago, and now I regret not packing it.”
“You know you’re adorable, right?” He tries to make me laugh, but he’s not hiding the nerves. His foot is jiggling under the table, and he keeps glancing behind me, as if expecting someone to materialize from the hedges.
I lean in, lowering my voice. “What’s wrong?”
He rubs a hand over his mouth, thinking about it. “I just want the night to go well. For you, I mean. If we can get through this without any drama, the press will lay off. The right people will see you for who you are. That’s what matters.”
“I thought this was about the movie, not me,” I say, confused.
He shakes his head. “It should be both. You should get something for your troubles.”
Then Asher says, “They’ll want us at the theater soon. The festival’s a zoo, apparently, but PR says we can’t be late.” He stands and holds out his arm, cartoon-gallant, and I accept. The sun is so bright I have to squint at the world, which helps keep the nerves at bay.
As we walk through the shaded breezeway toward the entrance, every person we pass tracks our progress. Some stare, but most just store us away, little snapshots to be traded later: “I saw them together by the pool—looked like the real deal.”
We’re intercepted at the curb by Frances, my publicist, who has that look on her face, the one she saves for when the event is three ring sizes too big for her finger. She launches into a sprint-walk and hisses, “Red carpet in thirty, press is already there, and there’s a TikTok duo they’re calling the ‘alt-Emma and alt-Asher’ waiting for you on the steps. Please don’t, like, push them into traffic. Just smile and tell them you love their work.”
“I do love their work,” Asher says. “They’re hilarious.”
Frances closes her eyes, “Great, but don’t say that on camera. We want you two to be the original, okay? Stay in the lane.”
She herds us into a waiting car, where the black-suited driver is blasting Lizzo and doing nothing to look unimpressed by our entrance. I catch myself in the window reflection and cringe a little: the sunglasses are too much, the hair too long for the heat, but at least the strappy dress looks less lichen and more “retro future.” I risk a glance at Asher and, as always, he looks like he walked off a smart-casual runway. It’s not fair, and I tell him so.
“They do something to you at birth in Nebraska,” he deadpans. “We’re corn-fed, but the secret is in the cheekbones.”
I almost say, “I thought the secret was your weird, earnest obsessions,” but the words catch, sticky on my tongue.
The Stateside Theater is packed. The curb is a mirage of young influencers, film nerds, and an alarming number of unrelated bachelorettes, making the event into a pre-game. Agiant cardboard cutout of Asher and me, mid-run, is propped at the entrance like a nightmare version of American Gothic.
We hit the photo line and immediately, the crowd surges forward, and I forget how to breathe. It feels like an assault—flash, pose, flash, step forward, pivot, pose again. A handler materializes nearby to show us the “cute” talking points which make me involuntarily roll my eyes. I grab Asher’s hand and we do the routine: tell them about the stunts, laugh at the director’s on-set pranks, and talk about how surreal it is to be here.
But then, suddenly, Asher says, “I’m just grateful for Emma. She’s the most genuine, absurdly talented person I know. I wouldn’t have made it through this if she weren’t in my corner.”
The interviewer, a woman in a neon suit who only blinks once every thirty seconds, says, “You two are already the festival’sitcouple. Are you ready for everyone to care about your relationship more than your work?”
