The music swelled and the cameras panned back, Joey leaning in to make fake small talk with them until the moment his producer called “Cut.” Then, they were swept off the couch with little fanfare.
As they headed backstage again, Lilah glanced over at Shane. “Thank you,” she murmured.
He met her gaze but didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. To her surprise, she felt the pressure of his hand between hershoulder blades, just for a second, through his jacket, which she was still wearing. There was something in the gesture reminiscent of their earliest days, back when it felt like the two of them against the world.
She didn’t know what to make of any of it. All she knew was that she was grateful.
The next morning, Walt emailed them both a link to aVulturearticle, accompanied by two words:Nice job. She didn’t even have to click the link to know what it was, based on the fact that the URL ended withkarrison-shippers-assemble.html.But she clicked on it anyway.
When the page loaded, she was greeted by a header image of her and Shane on the couch, him frozen in the process of draping his jacket around her shoulders as she gazed up at him with an expression that, if she didn’t know any better, she’d say looked a lot like adoration.
12
Shane had meant to find a real date for the season-nine premiere party, but since he barely had time to breathe with the whirlwind of promo stuffed into the gaps in their shooting schedule, it snuck up on him before he knew it. For once, Dean didn’t have a date, either, so the two of them shared a car to the first venue of the evening—a theater that the network had rented out to screen the episode—which would be followed by an after-party at a historic nightclub nearby.
On the ride over, Dean was uncharacteristically quiet, staring out the window.
“You good?” Shane asked.
Dean turned to him, shaking his head a little. “Just thinking about how this is the last one of these.”
“Yeah,” Shane said. “But you know I’m taking you with me, right? Whatever happens next. If I have a job, you have a job.”
Dean’s face clouded over unexpectedly.
“Right,” he said, looking back out the window again.
Shane frowned, but he didn’t push it.
Honestly, he’d been a little surprised that Dean had lasted so long as his stand-in in the first place. It wasn’t hard, but it was still early mornings and long hours. He’d half expected Dean to blow it off after the first week to go to Burning Man without even a heads-up text. But his instinct to protect his brother, to take care of him, had overridden the (very reasonable) fear that he’d fuck it up—and Shane was beyond proud that he hadn’t.
There was a two-year gap between Shane and his older sister, Cassie, and five between him and Dean—none of them had exactly been planned, Dean least of all. As the oldest, Cassie had been forced to step up whenever their parents couldn’t, during the first nine years of Shane’s life. Because of that, she’d always felt more like another parent than a sibling. Even after things in their family had stabilized, Shane had still gotten the sense that she saw the two of them as a burden, the pain and resentment she felt toward their parents redirected at him and Dean. Though his relationship with her had gotten better in adulthood, they’d never been that close.
But while Shane’s friends complained about their annoying younger siblings, he had never minded Dean tagging along. He’d been the one who taught Dean how to ride a bike—by pushing him down a hill and yelling, “pedal,” but still. And when Dean was in middle school, Shane had been the first person he’d trusted to confide in that he didn’t think he was totally straight.Once Shane had booked the job onIntangibleand it looked like it was actually going somewhere, it had been a no-brainer to bring Dean out to share in his success.
But he was unsure what Dean actually wanted to do with his life, even less sure than he was about himself. Dean had never shown much passion or aptitude for anything in particular—nothing he’d stuck with for longer than a week, anyway. He’d always been spontaneous, the risk-taker, reaping the benefits of having two older siblings who doted on him and little memory of the period before their parents got their act together.
As the car deposited them in front of the theater, Shane tried to push his concerns out of his mind.
Focusing on the episode wasn’t much of an escape, though. He didn’t love watching himself onscreen—he’d tuned in during the first season, just for novelty’s sake, but soon realized it made him overly self-conscious on set.
It was a strange experience, though, watching it with an audience, especially one that was so receptive, filled with the people who made the show and their loved ones. When Lilah appeared onscreen at the very end, the whole auditorium erupted in whoops and applause. Shane resisted the urge to sneak a look at her, sitting a few seats down, so he could see her reaction.
It seemed like their therapy sessions were actually working. When he’d seen her face backstage atAfter Hours,he hadn’t felt any kind of gloating satisfaction at how much she was clearly struggling. He’d just wanted to fix it, and fast. And not because he was worried about her embarrassing him, or having to carry her through the interview, or anything like that. Because they were a team.
It shocked him, that feeling. Both the fact that he’d had it at all and how powerful it still was—like it had never gone away.Like the place in his heart where she used to fit had been drywalled over rather than bricked up.
And then there was the way he’d felt when she’d curled up inside his jacket, her body flush against his, his hands on her bare skin, her heart thrumming so hard against his chest that it felt like it was pumping his blood, too.
He was still attracted to her, that was all. It was fucking annoying, but it wasn’t new. He had been since the first time he saw her. He couldn’t help it. But acting on it had, historically, brought them nothing but trouble. The only thing to do about it was to continue avoiding her as much as possible.
“As much as possible” was relative, though, since as soon as he arrived at the after-party, the show’s publicist sent him to track down Lilah for cast photos.
It didn’t take him long to spot her once he went inside. She’d brought a friend as her date, one of the women from those summer camp movies she’d done—Annie, he wanted to say? He’d never heard of the series before he met her, but he’d stumbled across the first one on a streaming service a few years back and accidentally ended up watching the whole thing. It wasn’t great, but it was clear that the four of them had had a blast shooting it, the kind of chemistry that was impossible to fake. He should know.
The two of them were facing away from him as he approached, caught up in animated conversation. He felt a pang as he saw how relaxed Lilah was, her body language carefree and easy. He’d been allowed a glimpse of that, once: what she was like when she was truly comfortable around someone. He knew it was something she didn’t give up easily.
As he got closer, he could overhear their conversation.
