56
BIRDIE
Birdie didn’t knowwhat she was expecting in this grand plan, but having Kai bound onstage was definitely not on her agenda. As soon as the crowd realized what was happening, they were back on their feet. The booing turned to screams, and even Clay Dodara looked a little gobsmacked, like never in his wildest magical ideas could he have dreamed of something that would garner this much press. His eyeballs had dollar signs on them; Birdie could practically hear him counting up the rising tally of his YouTube subscribers.
Kai landed in front of her and held up his arms, his fists curled into balls, like he’d just won a marathon.
“What are you doing here—” Birdie started. She thought she’d been clear last night, but now he was in front of her, now he was in front oftwo thousandpeople, and Birdie felt off-balance, uncertain. She looked out toward the house seats, to find Andie, Mona, Elliot, but the stage lights were bright, and she could make out only shadows.
“Birdie,” Kai said. He placed his palms on her cheeks, like healways did. Why was he always assuming he had the right to her focus, her body, her gaze? “I wasn’t honest last night.”
Birdie’s stomach dropped.
“I wrote you both letters. It was me.”
“You what?” Birdie yelped.
“I got nervous last night—when you asked. I didn’t want to show my hand, play all my cards, but—” He dropped his head now, a perfect leading-man touch. He glanced back up at her with lonely, welling eyes. “It was me, babe. I don’t want to live without you.”
He turned toward the audience.
“Also,” he said, “I want to make something clear, not that she has asked me to say this. But my brother, Sebastian, well, I love him. But he can be an arrogant asshole, and I don’t want anyone blaming Birdie for what happened onLove Grenade. I’ve reached out to the studio, told them I’ll step in for my brother if they’d like me to, and it looks like the movie is going to get back on track.”
He turned back toward Birdie like this was the greatest gift he could imagine, him saving her movie, him saving her broken heart. Then he was down on one knee. And Birdie wasn’t sure if she was going to pass out or puke.
He reached into his blazer pocket.
No no no no no no.
“I saw you here—with the livestream, I mean, and I just knew I had to make it right, Birdie. I knew I couldn’t live another day without you,” he said.
And then there was a little black box in his palm, and then there was an enormous diamond inside the little black box, and then the audience reached a decibel that Birdie thought would shatter the space-time continuum. Birdie had no idea when Kai would have found the time to buy a ring with a small glacier onit, but she envisioned him running into some fancy jeweler in the ground-floor level of the Wynn, pointing to a ring—it didn’t matter which one as long as you could shoot it from a wide-angle lens—and billing it to his room.
“Holy shit,” Clay managed into the mic. “Holy fucking shit.”
Birdie’s eyes floated over to him, like maybe he could save her, but he looked frothy, giddy, and so her gaze shifted back to Kai, who was making gestures to the audience to be quiet.
“Guys, guys,” he said. “Shh, we need to hear Ms. Robinson’s answer. Wehaveto hear Birdie’s answer.”
Birdie blinked quickly and tried to speak, but her tongue felt anesthetized; her brain was complete static. She’d wanted Kai for so long, and yet now she no longer wanted him at all.At all.And if she could evolve so much as to spurn Kai goddamn Carol, she clearly could evolve in other ways too. Like being completely fine if she stayed single forever. Like being more than okay if she had topivotto an indie horror film because at least that might feel authentic.
“Ms. Robinson?” Clay prompted.
“Ms. Robinson?” Kai echoed sweetly.
And then Birdie heard a voice from the audience, and everyone turned, and it wasn’t who she expected, because she expected Elliot. But Elliot could never save her, because that was the stuff of movies.
So she watched in complete disbelief as her best friend, Mona, shouted, “It’s BirdieMaxwell, you fucking fuckball,” and then pushed through her row and landed onstage. “And you didn’t write that first letter. I know because I did.”
57
ELLIOT
Elliot thought hewas having a stroke. Or an aneurysm. Or a psychotic break. Something. Anything to explain why his twin sister was onstage dressing down Kai Carol by explaining that there was no way he could have sent that anonymous letter because she was the one who had.
He heard Andie mutter, “What the actual hell?” under her breath, so he figured he wasn’t, in fact, having some sort of brain malfunction, and he grabbed her arm and said, “What is even happening?” and she simply turned to him with saucer eyes and shook her head.
Mona had swiped Clay’s microphone and was demanding that Kai get to his feet.
