“I think they’re working on a quiet break-up for a month after the premieres,” I shrug, and drink, already dreading the end of whatever this is.
Still, the words are stuck, lodged somewhere between my throat and my better judgment. If I start, I’ll say too much, like a dam with the first crack already spreading. But then she sets her glass down with a gentle clink against the wooden table, her fingers curled tight around it until her knuckles pale. The amber light of the ramen bar catches in her eyes as she looks directly at me for the first time all night, her gaze steady and searching beneath those impossible lashes. "So, I suppose we make the most out of the next four months?” she asks, her voice barely audible over the hiss of broth in the kitchen. "What do you say?”
I want to tell her yes with a capital Y, but I’m suddenly terrified of what will happen if she actually means it. I’m bad at beginnings, worse with endings. The stuff in between is where I get lost.
“I say…” I start, but my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. I could blame the sake, but it’s just me.
She cocks an eyebrow, waiting.
“—I say we order another round.”
CHAPTER 8
EMMA
The first thingthe sake does is chase away my social terror. The second is to give my tongue a mind of its own.
By the time we stagger from the ramen joint, the ridiculousness of everything—Austin, the junket, the forced courtship—has unspooled into something blurry and effervescent, like a soda can shaken and cracked open in the Texas sunset. I don’t remember what joke makes me snort ramen out of my nose, just that it happens and that Asher nearly falls off his seat in glee. It’s a good kind of humiliation: the sort that grants me permission to be fully, spectacularly human. In the hallway of the bar, he wipes my cheek with a cocktail napkin and laughs so deeply his sunglasses fog. I think about his hands, how big and careful they are, and whether he’s ever touched someone gently on camera.
SXSW is a carnival at 7PM, the air so humid it could pickle you. Rafts of badge-wearing hopefuls crowd Congress Avenue, pulsing in and out of parties like the tide: actors, influencers, 3D-printed hipsters, actual journalists, and the sad white teeth of industry. Asher walks close beside me, sometimes so near I can feel static collecting on my wrist hairs.
Our prey for the evening is a party at the W’s roof. It’s not on the schedule, not even on my manager’s secret spreadsheet: the kind of party that never needs to be found, because it finds you. Asher claims he knows a guy who knows a guy (he always says this, like he’s in a mob movie), but as we approach, a gaggle of girls in metallic jumpsuits spy him and let loose a chorus of “Ashhhhher!” They form an impenetrable wall of sequins and Instagram handles. He accepts it, performing his persona with a glib smile, slipping into the rhythm of a man who’s done this a thousand times. I love seeing it up close—the way he lets everyone believe they’re getting the real him while keeping the most genuine parts tucked behind this annoying persona. Whenever I catch him glancing my way, there’s something private in it that heats my face hotter than the Texas air.
Bodies pack the elevator to the roof, and my dress clings to my thighs like wet tissue paper. Asher crowds behind me, his chest a furnace against my back. His lips brush my ear as he whispers, “If we get stuck in here, just know the reporter goes first.” A laugh bubbles up my throat before I can stop it. I jab my elbow into his ribs, but stay pressed against him anyway. When the doors slide open, electronic beats assault us, along with the tang of citrus and perspiration.
The rooftop is all glass, marble, and LED mood lighting. The crowd is beautiful and blinding; everyone here is the protagonist of something, and every gaze is a camera lens. I dodge the first three photographers on instinct, but by then Asher has his hand on my waist, guiding me through the swarm as if he’s shielding me from crossfire. I wish it were just for show. It isn’t.
We’re intercepted before the bar by a pair of cowboys in bespoke hats, who introduce themselves as “Gatlin” and “Parker” like it’s a package deal. They look twenty-five but wear boots with the confidence of men who’ve seen cattle rustled and caught. Asher apparently knows them from a shoot last year,and within seconds, the four of us are slinging tequila shots across a quartz counter. The second shot burns so good my ears ring. I’m not a drinker, but tonight I want to feel everything.
Parker, the one with the crooked smile and a turquoise bolo, turns to me and says, “You a Texas girl?” I say, “I’m from New York,” and he lets out a whoop like I’ve admitted to being part alien.
“No shit! You ever go honky-tonkin’?” Gatlin asks me.
“Once, at a wrap party in Burbank,” I admit. “I broke my heel and nearly my tailbone.”
“Then you’ve never really done it,” Parker says, grinning. “We gotta fix you up proper.”
There’s a current in this crowd, a cumulative daring that builds with each shot glass and each chorus of “cheers.” Someone snaps a photo of Asher and me at the bar, and before I see it, I know it’s going to look like old lovers on their tenth anniversary: my chin on his shoulder, his hand locked around mine. We’re good at this, he and I. Too good. Sometimes I wonder if I’m falling for the man himself or just his ability to make me feel like a better version of myself. I want to ask, so severely, what he thinks of me after hours, when there’s no PR handler within twenty feet.
A line-dance forms near the balcony, fueled by a local band—yes, a live band, at what’s nominally a film party, which I respect immensely—and suddenly Parker and Gatlin are dragging me along, promising to “make an honest Texan outta you.” Asher watches from the sideline, leaning against a steel post, jaw tense in a way that makes me itch to run my tongue along it.
I’m terrible at line-dancing, but also, spectacularly, not the worst. The cowboys teach me a simple step—heel, toe, stomp, spin—while a crowd of wanna-be starlets records me on their iPhones, probably shopping for memes. My legs wobble, and I nearly wipe out on the stomp, but Parker catches my elbow andsteadies me with a “You got it, Rowan!” The music’s so loud I can’t tell if my heart is racing from movement or from the way Asher never takes his eyes off me. Not once.
After three songs, I break free, sweating, cheeks molten, and stagger back to our claimed patch of bar. Asher’s already got a ginger beer waiting for me, the polite kind of drink a boyfriend orders for his girlfriend who can’t keep up with the tequila. The term feels sticky in my brain—girlfriend—like a daydream I dare not say out loud.
He rubs the condensation from the bottle and hands it to me, then says, softer than the music, “You look good when you’re flustered.”
I want to say thanks, but what comes out is, “This is the weirdest night of my life.”
He nods. “And you’re the weirdest girl I’ve ever met.”
There’s nothing ironic about how he says it. I swallow the ginger beer, cold and sharp, and the idea that he finds my weirdness desirable makes me lightheaded in a whole new way.
The following two hours, time shreds. There are flashes of conversation, and a parade of minor celebrities who want their selfie with Asher. I'm impressed the way he turns every single interaction into a bit, a performance, until I’m genuinely unsure where the script ends and the improv begins.
We stand shoulder to shoulder at the edge of the pool, watching the city flash blue and gold beneath us. Sometimes our arms brush, just enough to send a tingle down my side. I listen for what doesn’t get said—the pauses, the way he ignores texts even when his phone hums with the persistence of a dying hornet.
At some point, Parker returns with a tray of fried pickles and a dare to join him and Gatlin in a two-step. This time, Asher comes too, his hand outstretched and a challenge in his eyes: “You ready, partner?”
