Winston and I had done our best to settle in without totally upending Nora’s home. Since she was in an apartment there was no outdoor zone for him, which meant he was confined to a tank when weweren’t around. When we were home he had full apartment access, though we had to be careful to close all of the doors since he liked disappearing. We’d had a few frantic search and rescue moments as he got acclimated to the place.
Nora walked into the sitting area carrying two giant plastic bowls of popcorn. “Voila. Dinner.”
I chuckled. Nora’s unusual dietary habits were rubbing off on me, which meant that I now also considered BLTs breakfast food thanks to the bacon.
She dropped down on the couch beside me. “You okay?”
I nodded quickly. “Totally fine. Maybe a little nervous about watching myself on the show, but other than that, all good.”
She squinted at me, dubious. “You know you can be real with me, right?”
In the weeks since everything had blown up I’d worked hard to put my feelings behind me. I’d gone into the ridiculous fake engagement thing with my eyes wide open. I’d known what I was signing up for, which meant the inevitable end of our relationship shouldn’t have come as a surprise.
But then … well, thenDrewhappened, and I fell for him, hard. And I thought it was mutual—more fool me. Now I just needed to get over the end of a relationship that I never should have believed was real in the first place.
“I swear, I’m fine,” I said with as much conviction as I could manage.
Could she tell I was lying? Of course she could. Even Winston knew that I wasn’t myself, which was why any time he was out of the tank and I was on the couch he opted to park himself next to my foot rather than exploring.
“How’s the popcorn?” Nora asked. She knew better than to push me, especially during this stressful night. “I put some parmesan truffle spice on it.”
If I actually had an appetite I’d be shoving it in my face by the fistful. I ate a few kernels as she watched. “Mmm, delicious!”
“See? So much better than that microwave crap,” she replied triumphantly.
The music swelled to signal the beginning of the show and I nearly choked on a single piece of popcorn.
“Oh my god, it’s calledKristen and Carter;Reel Love?” Nora laughed. “That sounds like porn.”
“Well, they met on the set of her last movie, when Carter was brought in as the personal trainer for her costar.”
The show began with teasers of what was to come and I found myself smiling as I watched the quick cuts of everything I’d experienced firsthand. Despite all of the drama the production had brought to my life, I’d had the best time.
And that realization hurt like hell.
Nora karate-chopped my gut. “There’syou! Oh my god, you’re famous!”
My mouth went totally dry at the split-second footage of me locked in an embrace with Drew. It was filmed from a distance. While I remembered the moment, I’d had no idea that we’d had an audience during it. Drew was saying something to me and I was looking up at him wearing an expression so dreamy and trusting that I wanted to leap into the TV to slap myself out of it.
How could I have been so blind?
Andwhywas I tearing up? I’d worked hard to get past my sadness. Drew wasn’t worthy of a prolonged depression, or at least that’s what I kept telling myself.
I’d done a great job convincing the rest of the world that I wasn’t impacted by the breakup but my heart wasn’t getting the message.
“Hey,” Nora reached out to squeeze my hand. “Are you sure this is a good idea? You look upset.”
Clearly my acting wasn’t as strong as I thought.
“It’s just weird, you know?” I said. “The layers I’m now seeing. It was all fake, but it was also real. For a lot of it, we specifically played to the cameras, but then there was stuff I don’t think either of us realized was filmed. It was staged, but the feelings were genuine. Or Ithoughtthey were? For me, they were.”
“I don’t know,” Nora said, eyeballing the TV. “Either he’s a fucking amazing actor, or he was having real feelings as well, because the vibes between you two look off-the-charts.”
“Stop. It was two seconds of footage. Maybe he was just horny.”
She stared at me, smirking her disbelief. “Yeah, okay. Go ahead and tell yourself that.”
“Whyare you so pro-Drew? Whose side are you on anyway?”
