“Uh, no?”
“Pretend it’s all make-believe.”
“Well, that’s easy—it feels like make-believe.”
“I won’t be leaving your side.”
“I’m counting on that.”
The second the attendants opened the door, the screaming intensified. As Lana got out—swinging both legs at the same time and accepting the attendant’s arm to pull her up, asEvangeline had instructed—it amplified again. After the air-conditioned hush of the limo, the heat and noise walloped her. Griffin rounded the car and offered her his arm, smiling. She practically snatched it, given the dizzying combination of the slinky dress, the towering heels and her nerves. What must this be like when you’re actually up for an award, and not just the date of a presenter?
Lana could hear people yelling her name, but she kept her eyes fixed on the red path. Evangeline and Peter walked slowly ahead, and Elliott signaled Griffin and Lana to follow. “Smile and keep your eyes open,” Elliott said.
Griffin had warned her what to expect. First the photographers, who yelled at you while they snapped away for a couple of minutes, and then the press line, where you did your best to give intelligent answers to inane questions. Even so, she clung to his arm like it was her sole supply of oxygen.
Estelle had also volunteered advice: “The journalists will ask Griffin about his work, and you about your dress and hair. The photographers will shout at you to turn around and look over your shoulder, but whatever you do, don’t. You know why? They’ll say it’s because they want to see the back of your ‘gorgeous’ dress, but it’s so they can get your tits and ass in the one shot.”
Like most things to do with Estelle, Lana wasn’t sure if she was trying to help her or terrify her. Estelle had relaxed slightly since she’d started dating a normie of her own—Officer Sheng, who had tried his luck asking her out when she’d called to thank him for his help. When she’d accepted, it had rendered him speechless for a full minute—a long time on a phone.
Lana’s smile was so plastered in place she wouldn’t be surprised if it remained like that until she chipped off her foundation later. As they moved into the press area, cheers rose from the bleachers behind them.
“I’m guessing Darnell’s arrived,” Griffin said.
Darnell had taken the drama of his near-death experience in his stride. Griffin joked that he was never going to shut up about his role in bringing down an actual crime ring. He’d even taken up poetry again, claiming that being sedated had reenergized his creative brain. Once a month, he visited Lana’s library to teach a poetry workshop targeted at disadvantaged teens.
Griffin was also a frequent visitor, having pulled back on his punishing work schedule to bring more balance to his life. In the early days, his pop-ins had regularly gotten out of hand, but he’d stuck to it until the paparazzi lost interest in getting shots of him browsing the aisles and picking out books, and the regular patrons stopped doing whiplash-inducing double-takes, though there were still plenty of sly glances. He called it his practice at being human, and it had given him confidence to do other human things—visit bookstores, jog in parks. He even tried swimming in a public pool, but when the bleachers filled with people watching like it was an Olympic final, he didn’t return. Mostly though, he had made himself boring—and he loved it. He was also no longer scanning for paps wherever they went. Not that people had stopped watching; he’d just stopped caring if they were watching. He’d even quietly started being himself in media interviews—ditching the arrogant playboy persona and embracing his inner sweet, introverted film geek.
“How’s America’s first-ever celebrity librarian doing?” a journalist asked, shoving a microphone in Lana’s face. A TV camera swept so close she thought it might swallow her.
“Uh, good, thanks,” she squeaked. She probably should have thought up some intelligent answers ahead of time. Her library’s book-recs social media accounts had taken off since it was discovered she curated them, and she was signing dozens of people up for library cards every day. Her boss joked that she’d become the unofficial national spokesperson for librarians’rights, which was generating a surprising amount of hate mail. But she still spent most days teaching eighty-year-olds to install the library app on their phones, and helping kids find books about the Marvel universe—and yes, it made no sense that they were shelved under nonfiction. But now she also had extra dimensions to her life. And she liked Griffin Hart’s dimensions very much.
“Griffin, you’ve made libraries cool again—how does that feel?”
Lana couldn’t help responding. “What do you meanagain?”
Griffin laughed. “Libraries have always been cool.”
“Libraries have never been cool,” Lana chided, “and why should they have to be? Libraries are everything. Libraries are the world. The world doesn’t go through phases of being cool and uncool. It just is.”
Oh, boy. What had she just said on live TV? She thought of her parents, watching from a motel in Cedarwood Falls—with Vivien, who’d returned to the commune to heal after being discharged. To everyone’s surprise—most of all Vivien’s—she’d decided it was where she belonged. She’d begun studying remotely for a psychology degree, with the goal of becoming a social worker.
The next journalist along the line asked Griffin about his last day on set as Achilles, which he answered with laid-back charm and an easy smile. It occurred to Lana that she hadn’t seen the blank face in months. He’d become “unapologetically himself,” as that journalist had called him years ago. Open, relaxed, charismatic. As beautiful on the inside as he was on the outside—and no longer afraid to show it.
“And what’s your next project, Griffin? You’re producing your first film?”
“I can’t tell you much at the moment, but the working title isBadass Librarians. And I’mco-producing it,” he added, with a meaningful glance at Lana.
As they finally reached the theater entrance, she felt his bicep give a little. So hehadbeen a little tense.
“You seem happy,” she said.
He took a deep breath, which she felt envious of, given the confines of her dress. “I am Luke, no longer haunted by the fear of the dark side.”
“You’re who?”
“It’s a movie. I’m trying to sayyoumake me happy. I feel calmer with you here.”
“I cannot imagine how I can make anyone feel calm. I’m radiating terror. I’m just glad you’re here to lean on.”
