I shake my head. “Bronwyn wasn’t like that,” I say. “She was—” My voice cracks. I press a hand to my throat.
“Are you okay?” Katrina asks.
I swallow. “I just realized I referred to her in the past tense,” I whisper.
Katrina rises from her chair and gives me a hug. “It had to happen eventually.”
I nod, forcing a smile as she steps back. She still looks worried, but I don’t want to talk about this now. I can’t—not whenI’m about to be on camera. “Anyway, do you know what the deal is for tonight? I haven’t gotten any kind of schedule, and I’m not sure what I’m doing with all this.” I gesture to my hair. It’s definitely seen better days.
“This is the part of the trip where we’re bringing some drama in your relationship,” she says. “Lars wants you to look a little less put together. Do your own hair—a ponytail is fine. Tonight, we’re filming you and Theo walking through the downtown and then cooking a meal here.”
“That plan assumes that either Theo or I know how to cook something that isn’t microwaved, which might be an issue.”
She shrugs as she sits back in her chair and picks up her mug. “It’s better TV if youdon’tknow what you’re doing. You know…another hint at problems to come.”
She’s right, of course. It’s a huge hint of problems to come, but anyone with two eyes would have already seen problems galore. He’s a thirty-six-year-old running a multinational company, and I’m an unemployed twenty-four-year-old who spends her days watching reality TV. We don’t even live on the same continent. On paper, there’s nothing about me and Theo that works, and if it doesn’t work on paper, how could it be expected to work in real life?
“It seems like you two are really getting along lately,” Katrina says with a sly grin.
I fight a smile of my own. “He’s okay. What about you and Lars?”
She chokes on her coffee. “Me andLars?”
“Come on,” I goad. “There’s something there. You adore him, and it’s pretty clear he adores you right back.”
“Dieu,” she says, walking to the kitchen and grabbing a paper towel, laughing. “That made coffee come out of my nose. But no.No.Please never say that again.”
It’s a far more adamant response than I’d expected. “Why not? He’s a smart, good-looking guy. And he seems nice enough.”
“Stop,” she says, placing a palm over her face. “So many reasons. No.”
I give up, for now, and return to my room to get ready. Mindy has sent jeans and a sweater, thank god, so I at least won’t be expected to pretend Norway is a balmy eighty degrees in summer.
We take a van to a public square in the center of Bergen. The streets are cobblestone, the architecture is lovely, the light at dusk is perfection. But I only care about the sight of Theo, standing next to Lars beside an old building that’s been converted into a McDonald’s. He’s scanning the square for something, and when he sees me…he seems to have foundit.
He smiles. He doesn’t look away. I smile. I don’t look away either.
I thought we were bad at pretending to be together. But we’re even worse at pretending we’renot.I move toward him and even though Lars is still speaking, Theo is moving in my direction, walking backward to reply. He turns and then he’s close, and closer, and he keeps right on going until he’s besideme.
“Hey,” he says, his gaze on my mouth.
I try to think of a way to manipulate Paula and Lars into making us kiss but come up empty.
“Hey.” God, I wish we were alone right now.Why didn’t we meet here early? Why didn’t we come here straight from Paris and spend an entire week in a hotel room, not seeing Norway once?
Mics and battery packs are handed to us. We clip them on ourselves, old pros at this point. “Tonight, we’re showing you guys exploring Bergen,” Paula says. “Chronologically, this comes after Amsterdam, so it would be very early fall. This trip will show some more hiccups in the relationship. You’ve just had anuncomfortable conversation about children, and now you’ve got to decide where to live.”
I glance up at Theo again. I’ve never wanted to do this—the fake conversations, the pretending—but I want it less now than ever. I don’t want to have what is actually a somewhat real talk about how ill-matched we are when we’re just getting started.
LJ gets in front of us. “Rolling.”
We glance at Jon. “Speed.”
“Action,” Lars calls, and we begin walking.
“Have you given any more thought to where we’ll live once I’ve sold the house?” I ask.
Theo squeezes my hand. “I thought we’d already settled on the Maldives.”
