Pushing closer to the vultures with video cameras and microphones. Every flash becomes more disorienting to my nervous system. Every limb stiffens when we come to the first reporter.
“Holden Strauss. We are so excited to see you here today. It’s been a while. How does it feel to be reunited with your old costars?”
Of course, they went straight for the jugular. My hand grips onto his arm.
This is the best he has ever looked. His hair is out of his face. His face isn’t displaying that brooding, cold demeanor. As far as I can tell, he hasn’t partied since that night I found him after leaving Aidan’s house. Just a clean-shaven face with a genuine smile slapped on it.
“I am equally excited. I am just grateful to have a date for this one,” he says, nudging my side.
The reporter thrusts a microphone in my face. “Speaking of dating, I hear you got a new ship name.”
Holden and I both look over at each other in unison, raising our eyebrows.
“Oh yeah?” He questions.
“HC… Holden and Charlotte,” the reporter confirms. I hold my stomach, feeling a full belly laugh creeping up, making its way to the surface.
“What’s so funny?” the reporter asks.
“I was wondering what they were yelling. Just connecting the dots in real—” I pause, smiling back at Holden, giving a sheepish grin.
I wave my finger between both of us. “They were talking about us,” I say back to the reporter.
Holden smiles at me for all of two seconds before we are shuffled through a round of people coming our way. His gaze is no longer on me and his smile has fallen.
His attention is stuck in front of us, eyeing the huddle of people down the press line. Fans slam their bodies again and again on the giant barricades while the security team forces them to hang back.
Leaning into his shoulder, I hear the drumming in his chest again. I tug on his arm, propelling us forward. The next microphone shows “Down to the Wire”—a trendy media outlet for Gen Z that gets the scoop on everything and everyone.
“Long time no see,” the reporter says as we make our way over to her.
“Yes, how’ve you been, Tricia?” he says sternly, jump-starting him into the new round of questions.
Holden is about to open his mouth when the microphone is pointed toward me.
“Charlotte, what are you wearing? You look gorgeous.”
“Um…” The word trails on as I hope it can give me enough time to think of the answer. Couldn’t it be multiple choice? I know what designer Holden is wearing. I didn’t think to remember mine.
The awareness builds before I forget the question entirely, concentrating on only his lips. He only kisses me for a few short seconds, but it’s slow and intoxicating.
The kind of kiss that removes the outside world right from under you.
“Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. Isn’t she gorgeous tonight?” He sweeps his arms up and down my body, gesturing to my dress and hair.
The reporter is eating it up. I hear her talking to the camera man to zoom in on us before she responds with, “Beautiful, for sure.”
I don’t think I know how to be aloof anymore.
I turn away from Holden, unsure of where to put my hands or even where to look. We are moving down the line quickly. In thenext few interviews, I am locked into my fifteen-year-old self, waiting to escape my parents so I could hang out with a boy.
All I have to do is make it through this next round of questions to the girl at the very end of the press line.
“Are you excited to reunite with Sloane and Graham?” the reporter asks.
Holden says nothing for a good moment as the reporter points to Graham and Sloane, both taking photos at the center of the backdrop.
Fashionably late.
