“Disagree!The Doctor Supernova arc was only good in the most recent reboot,” my bearded fan from the beginning of the panel shouts. “And there was no mention of Kim—I mean, Hemlock—having a poison pussy.”
I can feel my cheeks burning bright red, and I want to beg them to stop talking about my character’s theoretical death vagina. Which, for the record, is not a thing in any of my movies. My Hemlock poisons people the good old-fashioned way—with needles and poison-tipped assassin blades.
Blake looks like he might be about to step in, but Jai beats him to it. “Microphone etiquette, people! And remember that you paid money to talk to the stars of the film, not argue with each other, yeah? Save that shit for my podcast.”
But the crowd doesn’t seem to be calming down, and corset girl shoves forward, practically climbing over the people in the front row. “You want a pussy that’s not poison, Blake?” she shouts.
I gape. “Whoa, seriously?” I manage at the same time that Blake frowns and says, “Hey, that’s not okay—”
“How could you take Kim back?” she says, dodging the hands of convention security finally stepping in. “She’s such an uptight bitch.”
Blake half-stands up, grabbing the mic in front of him. “Don’t say that about my wife,” he snaps, and the room goes suddenly still, with the exception of the corset girl struggling as security pulls her from the room.
My pulse pounds in my neck.
To hear him call me that again . . . it’s surreal and incredible and makes me flush all over.
But for him to say that right now, in front of all these people . . .
“Yourwife?” the reporter in the polo shirt asks, eager as a lion spotting a limping gazelle at the back of the herd. “Are you saying the two of you got re-married?”
Blake sits back down, his face pale. “No, I—It was a slip of the tongue. We were married for so long, and I—I just . . .” He’s clearly distressed, and I get it—the press will run with this for weeks, pestering our families, our kids, and our friends to find out if we got re-married.
“Was it just a slip? Or was there some secret wedding ceremony you don’t want your fans to know about?”The reporter leans forward, and I swear half the room does too.
“No,” I say firmly, jumping in to try to help out. “There was no secret ceremony. We aren’t re-married.Just dating.”
I think I see Blake blanch, but it’s such an imperceptible thing, there and gone, and then he’s nodding, agreeing with me.
Should I not have said that? But it’s true, and if we go back to not denying false rumors . . .
I remember what Claire said—or supposedly said—and now I really do want to cry. How could it not have occurred to me what the public might do to her?
The microphone ends up in the hands of another guy, one who hasn’t spoken yet, wearing fishnet pantyhose and platform stripper boots on bottom and a camo military jacket and buzzcut on top. I’m not sure if this is a character or a political statement or both. “This question is actually for Sarah Paltrow, the AD.”
Sarah turns in surprise from her seat in the front row, though her little boy—long since abandoning interest in the panel to play games on her phone—doesn’t seem to notice.
“Are you still with soap opera star Ryan Lansing?” the soldier/stripper asks.
There’s a moment where the convention employee nearest her shoots a questioning look at Jai, as if asking whether she should hand Sarah the mic or not. Jai shrugs, and I get the feeling he’s about as ready for a stiff drink as the rest of us.
Sarah is handed the microphone. “Um, no. I haven’t seen him in seven years.”
“So he isn’t the father of your lovechild?”
“No,” she growls.
Jai sighs and jumps back in the fray. “Let’s save the questions for the people on the panel, yeah? God. How about a movie-related question? And by that, I mean a question related tothis movie?”
The crowd is buzzing again, and Blake still looks profoundly uncomfortable, and my head is spinning with all the guilt and accusations and talk about my pussy—
Then I see Marguerite at the back of the room, with Luke’s hand clutched tightly in hers. A couple of uniformed security are beside her, and she looks panicked.
My insides freeze.
“Blake,” I say quietly, not paying attention to the possibly movie-related question another audience member is asking. But he has already seen them.
“Excuse us a minute,” he says, and both he and I walk down from the raised platform and hurry to meet Marguerite and the security at the side of the room. Panic is building in my chest.
