Sunny pulled me to her and held me, but I barely felt her touch, which would normally be just the kind of comfort that would soothe me.
As if it had needed a minute to catch up after powering on, my phone began to light up with missed texts and calls from Nolan. But what could either of us say right now that would change any of this?
After a few moments, she glanced down at a message on her phone. “Your moms want to grab an early dinner at Frosty’s or Kringle’s. I really think you need to get out of this room and eat something too.”
“Yeah,” I said, short gasps beginning to fill my lungs, and even though Sunny had seen my absolute worst, I was desperate for her to leave, because the numbness was starting to fade and at any moment, a sob might rip through my chest. “Just give me like an hour to shower and stuff.”
Sunny stood and pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “We’ll get through this.”
The moment the door shut behind her, I bit down hard on my lower lip—a sign to my body that I could finally, finally let it all out and cry. How could I let myself be so foolish as to buy into this fairy tale?
It was just sex. It was just something we had to get out of our systems.
Until it wasn’t.
And now I had feelings. Big, huge feelings that I didn’t know how to name. And as if that wasn’t confusing enough, Nolan had betrayed me.
Even though I knew I was supposed to get ready to go out, I let myself sink back down into my pillows. I wiped away the tears as they ran down my cheeks and neck until my phone vibrated, and Nolan Shaw sitting in his duke costume next to my director’s chair the night of the chili cheese fry scene lit up my screen.
What was there even left to talk about? His statement said it all. He’d disavowed me.
And yet I couldn’t stop myself from swiping and answering his call, and I hated myself for it.
He didn’t even give me a moment to speak. “Bee,” he said, his voice thick with worry. “You answered.”
“Against my better judgment.”
“What?” he asked. “What do you mean? God, I hate that I can’t see you. I should have FaceTimed you. I’m such a grandpa. Let me hang up and—”
“No. Nolan, I don’t want—I can’t see you right now. I’m just... I don’t know how it came out, okay? And I’m sorry. I mean, I might know how it came out. But despite everything, I am so, so sorry. I know that this was important to you, and I know you weren’t doing this just for you. But I fucked this up for everyone.”
“Bee, no, no, no. Listen, this is going to blow over. And maybe the Hope Channel doesn’t air the movie. They still have to pay out my contract anyway... I think. And even if they don’t, there will be other chances. There has to be. Steph is already in damage-control mode.”
“Oh, I know.”
“So you saw the press release?” he asked quietly.
“Yeah, I saw where you pretty much publicly condemned me.” It took everything in me for my voice not to crack.
“Bee, come on,” he said frantically. “You know this is all just a game. A show, even. That fucking press release isn’t real.”
“Maybe not for you, Nolan, but for me it is very real. Have you seen the shit people are saying about me online?”
“None of it matters,” he said, like it was the simplest, truest thing in the world.
My blood began to boil. How could he be so out of touch? “None of it matters because none of it is about you!”
“You think I don’t know what it’s like to be demeaned and reduced to a sound bite on the internet, Bee?”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Of course he knew what it felt like, but that didn’t change the fact that Nolan was celebrated by the media—even when he was vilified—for his promiscuity and party boy antics. I was just the fat, over-fetishized porn star who deceived her way into one of the few pure and wholesome forms of media left in this world: a Christmas movie. Not only were Nolan and I done for, but so was any post–Duke the Hallsmainstream career I might have had.
He took a deep breath. “We’re arguing. We shouldn’t be arguing.” Another deep breath. “Bee, I like you so much. I’m not ready to let go of what we have.”
And then, because one of us had to say it, I whispered three little words that I had known deep down long before last night. “It’s already gone.”
“No,” he said adamantly. “No. We can be together. Just us. I’ve wanted you for years, Bee. Ever since the first moment I saw your picture online years ago, you became my fantasy, you became my dream. And then the impossible happened and you became real. Suddenly, you were this actual person, and I felt so lucky to be in your orbit. You were smart and so funny. You quickly became the someone I wanted to share everything with. You were better than any fantasy I could’ve ever imagined. And now I can’t go back to how it was before, when you were just an image on my phone. We can make this work. We can—we can meet up every few months for a little while. And then... things will quiet down and we can have our privacy.”
“Our privacy? Just us? Nolan, I’m already the dirty little secret of millions of people.”
