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She loved Wil Greene. She always would.
“I love you, too, Katie Kat.”
Wil didn’t say the words aloud. She mouthed them, because she’d been miked, and these words were only for Katie. They landed against her beating heart with a soft thud just at the same moment that Wil kissed her.
Wil’s mouth was soft, her fingers tangling into Katie’s hair. Katie dropped her hands to rest against Wil’s chest where she could feel Wil’s heart beating hard beneath her fingers, and she forgot to keep track of anything but how right it felt to kiss Wil, how glad she was that she’d had to wait so long and go through so many things, because it meant she could feel that. The rightness. The goodness of it, of the two of them together. The rush that was always, always the same but just kept getting bigger.
She closed her eyes, and Wil angled her head and kissed her jawline and her neck, and Katie thought of how Wil had looked at the buffet table at the holiday party, walking right up to her, smiling and saying,Guess what?
Like time didn’t matter. Like the past hadn’t happened.
Like nothing mattered but Wil and Katie, forever.
They pulled apart at the same time, the audience roaring, and laughed.
“You are doing Los Angeles so incredibly well,” Katie said. “YouareLos Angeles.”
Wil just smiled.
Busy approached them, laughing and crying, and they both turned and gave her a three-way hug. A producer ran onto the stage and miked Katie, and then they all sat on the sofa.
Producers were working the audience to get to a place of calm, and Katie waved at them and held Wil’s hand.
She’d told Madelynn the plan a few minutes before she saw that Wil was going to execute it. Madelynn had been delighted. She was completely unconcerned that Wil or Katie would fuck it up.I’ve been waiting for this moment ever since I met you. No. I’ve been waiting for this moment my entire career as a publicist. This is it, Katie. Let them interview you after, and speak from your joy. Speak from your big, expansive heart.She’d taken Katie’s hands in hers.Show them who you are, Katie Price.
The truth was, Katie had always known who she was. She would never lose track of who she was ever again. She would live her one wild and precious life, and she would tell her own story, no matter how messy.
“Katie!” Busy squealed. “Katie, Katie, Katie!”
“Busy, Busy, Busy!” Katie bounced and clapped her hands. “I crashed your show!”
“You did!” Busy mock-pouted. “I didn’t even know you were coming. I was kept out of the loop.”
“But you loved it,” Katie said, “so you can’t complain.”
Busy shook her head. “I’m speechless. It’s not my usual condition.” She waved her blue index cards in front of her face. “There’s nothing on here for this eventuality. Okay. Katie. You are herewith Wil. That was a kiss to end all the kisses. What have you got to say for yourself, girl?”
Katie looked at Wil, who reached over and took her hand. She looked back at Busy. “I mean, you’ve seen her. She’s always been like this.” She waved her hand to indicate Wil’s entire selfness. “In high school, everybody was just out of their minds about her. I’m only human, Busy. I was always at play practice, but when I finally slowed down a minute and we took a class together, that was it. I attached myself to her. She couldn’t get rid of me if she tried.”
Busy leaned forward. “Did anything… you know,happen?”
“Almost,” Katie said, with the perfect amount of coy in her smile. “But I won’t say more, and I’m not sure I would’ve known what to do if it had. You remember what it was like back then. We didn’t have Instagram or TikTok to teach us all the important stuff, we just had MySpace and, like, Tumblr.”
“Oh my God, Tumblr,” Wil said. “I had a Tumblr.”
“You did?!” Katie turned to see Wil blushing. “What was on your Tumblr?”
“I can’t talk about that on national television.” Wil Greene had never looked cooler. She was impenetrably, impossibly cool, confessing the existence of her secret, probably sexy Tumblr on live TV.
Katie would ferret out this Tumblr. She would assign a PA to the task. But that was for later.
“Wow.” She turned to Busy. “See, this is what happens when you go off-book. You learn things. But my point is, I didn’t know what I was feeling. I didn’t understand it, I didn’t have a way to understand it. I only figured out much later that Wil Greene was the first person I ever loved.”
Katie was careful to use the same language Ben had always used.I was the first person Katie Price ever loved.
She made sure that she slowed down when she told the world her version. Her story. Her truth.
Wil squeezed her knee.