Justin nudged me with his knee and held up his phone. “It’s going viral. Good job.”
“Thanks.” Alan would be pleased. Well, as pleased as he ever got.
“You worried about Doug?”
I nodded, staring out the window.
“I’m sorry I didn’t see it before. Nobody spends that much time together playing Uno unless there’s a little something else going on.”
I rolled my eyes. I guess that was true.
My phone dinged with a text message from Doug.
Kinda freaking out over here.
I laughed and covered my mouth.Why is that?
You’re making me hope for things I’m afraid to hope for.
The butterflies in my stomach kicked up, and my fingers stumbled over the letters as I attempted to type. I wanted him to hope, but I hadn’t given him a lot of reasons to believe me.I don’t care about the show. I mean, I cared enough to help Justin not look like the loser today, and I’m hoping Alan sees this as some fun plot twist, but you’re not a plot twist to me. There were no cameras at your house yesterday. I came over with no plan, except maybe to bulldoze my way into your heart. You know I like to bulldoze.
Yes you do.
The three dots indicating that Doug was crafting another response stayed for what seemed like forever, but thankfully we’d arrived. I didn’t want to have this conversation through text. The driver pulled through the gates and down into the private parking garage for staff of the show. Putting my phone away, I got out and headed inside to face my fate. I was dying to see Doug, but that meant I couldn’t let Alan find me first.
I grabbed Justin’s arm. “If you see Alan, I’m not here yet. Create a diversion or something.”
“Got it.” He sauntered off, looking completely at ease. He wasn’t worried about how people would react to him. It had been all my idea, and I’d promised him I’d take all the blame.
But I forgot all about that when I rounded the corner and saw Doug with his gaze locked on me. His eyes were alive with an intensity I’d never seen before. And then he started running for me. So cliché. I didn’t care. I ran to meet him, and he swung me around before putting me down and kissing me like I was water and he was a man dying of thirst.
“Doug,” I tried to say.
He kissed me again before tucking me close, his arms cradling me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you, Willa. But everything was supposed to be fake. What’s wrong with you?”
“We are so getting fired,” I said, laughing into his chest. “I don’t even care. I just want to be with you in your scary house doing fun nerd things for the rest of my life.”
Doug cupped my face with his hands. “A thousand times yes. Except for the scary house part.”
I looked over to see cameras coming at us. Alan stood behind them, managing to look smug and angry at the same time. So much for Justin creating a diversion.
Doug moved to my side and took my hand. “By the way, I love you, too,” he whispered. “But you probably knew that.”
“I was kind of counting on it, you know, when I decided to sabotage my career. Ready to do about a thousand interviews? Somehow I see that in our future.”
He glanced over at me. “In this together?”
I squeezed his hand. “In this together.”
