In the van on the way to the convention center, Lilah sat silently in the back as the rest of them chatted and joked around her. Shane joined in, but kept her hand tightly in his the whole time.
The building spanned what seemed like an entire block, with a capacity of hundreds of thousands—hordes of people in brightly colored wigs and costumes were buzzing around the outside. Even though they were brought in through a back entrance, the distant roar of activity on the main floor was already oppressive. Lilah toyed absently with the laminated badge around her neck as Raf and Brian discussed which panels they were hoping to sneak away to catch in between their own commitments.
Before leading them onto the floor, the convention staffer who’d been assigned to them gave them a rundown on the rules: They weren’t obligated to sign anything they didn’t want to.They could take pictures and chat, but the priority was keeping the line moving. If they felt unsafe at any point, they should alert the security guard posted next to the table. Lilah’s heart thudded beneath her collarbone, her eyes slipping out of focus as the door opened and she was swallowed whole by the noise of the crowd.
She’d expected the autograph table to be in its own room, but it was right in the center of the action, the roped-off lines of waiting fans practically indistinguishable from the masses of other passersby trying to shove their way through. The table was at least a dozen yards away from the door, and Lilah fought to keep her nervous system from getting overwhelmed at every step.
She could vaguely make out people screaming their names—LilahKateShaneHarrison—as an endless sea of phones pointed at her from all directions, but the only time her extra-wide smile faltered was when she felt someone yank on her arm. She whirled around, but whoever it was had already been absorbed back into the crush.
Once they were seated at the long table—Shane on one side of her, Natalie on the other—Lilah was able to relax a little, her smile turning genuine as she waved at the long line of fans beaming back at them. She leaned over to Shane, her lips by his ear.
“Is it always like this?” Her memories of the one and only time she’d done this were beyond hazy at this point, but this still seemed exponentially more intense.
He glanced out at the crowd. “Never,” he murmured back, giving her forearm a quick squeeze.
“KISS HER!” someone yelled, and Lilah jerked away from him like she’d been tased. A cheer rose up from the crowd, a handful of others taking up the chant: “Kiss HER! Kiss HER! Kiss HER!”
Lilah’s face burned as she fought to keep her expression neutral. Shane turned back to the crowd and shook his head, waving the request away with a self-deprecating smile—as always, knowing how to strike the perfect balance of firmly shutting it down without looking like an uptight asshole. Her heart ached with gratitude for him.
Once the signing got under way, though, Lilah found herself enjoying it. The majority of people who made their way through the line were sweet and respectful. She got genuinely choked up as one person after another gushed thatIntangiblewas their comfort show, that bingeing it had gotten them through chemo, or divorce, or the first lonely weeks in a new city. That Kate had inspired them to be bolder and more outspoken and unafraid to chase what they wanted. That the show’s exploration of the long tail of grief had helped them work through their own.
Still, there was no ignoring the fact that there were more than a few fans there whose interest in the show—and the two of them—bordered on extreme. She knew to brace herself for them because they would either give Natalie a death glare or ignore her completely en route to Lilah.
One fan turned their nose up at everyone else at the table, only to shove a homemade shirt in Lilah’s face to sign. Her stomach dropped when she realized what was on it: “#KARRISONFOREVER” in big block letters, over a picture of the two of them kissing onLNL—as themselves, not their characters.
For a split second, she considered refusing to sign it.But we asked for this,she thought ruefully, flashing the fan a brilliant smile as she scribbled her autograph above her own head.
Toward the end of the hour, a woman in her late thirties dumped a pile of memorabilia spanning the entire run of the show in front of Lilah. As Lilah began to work her way throughit, the woman crossed her arms, her gaze flicking back and forth between Lilah and Shane.
“I knew it the whole time,” she said with a smirk.
“Knew what?” Lilah asked, barely looking up from the copy of the original pilot script she was autographing.
“That you’ve been married since the first season, and all your other relationships since then were faked to try to throw people off.”
Thatgot Lilah’s attention. She looked up abruptly. “Excuse me?”
The woman pressed on. “Is it true you left the show because you were secretly having his baby? And that’s why you didn’t work for the next few years?”
Lilah gaped at the woman, lost for words. “Uh…”
The fan seemed to take her shock for confirmation. “Don’t worry, I don’t think most people figured it out. But you left so many clues, it was easy to put it all together once we started looking for them. I have this blog…”
Lilah buried her face back in the stack, signing the last few items as quickly as possible as the woman rambled on. “Thanks for watching,” she mumbled, avoiding the fan’s gaze as she pushed the pile over to Shane, who remained oblivious.
Once their time at the autograph table was up, Lilah skipped lunch in favor of taking a nap in their hotel room, the adrenaline leaving her body so fast that she passed out practically as soon as her head hit the pillow. She woke a few hours later to Shane’s hand on her shoulder, gently coaxing her into consciousness.
“How are you doing?” he asked, his voice tender, his gaze even more so. “Did you grab something to eat?”
“I’m okay,” she said, in response to both.
He nodded, though the look on his face was skeptical. “The panel’s in an hour. I wasn’t sure if you set an alarm.”
“I did, but I must have slept through it.” She stretched, making no attempt to get up yet. He slid his hand down her collarbone, resting on her stomach, bare from where her tank top had ridden up. He looked like he was about to say something, then bit it back, smiling to himself.
“What?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing. Just…you can hardly tell you had my secret baby.”
