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Wil had always liked learning Katie’s little routines. She’d bought the Twizzlers and the pretzels, she’d memorized the routes Katie liked to take between classes so she could walk with Katie during passing period, and even in the years she didn’t know Katie, she’d seen all of her movies, watched her at the awards shows, and followed her press.
It wasn’t going to be difficult for Wil to learn about Katie’s life in Hollywood. It was going to be a pleasure.
Then she realized her cheeks were flaming hot, because her brain had fed Katie’s cats and seen her newspapers and then wandered off, whistling, as though this was it. Her and Katie.
She took a deep breath. One thing at a time. The newspaper. Then, the three gazillion things before her and happily ever after.
Wil padded to the entryway. In the daylight, it was filled with a rainbow of different colors of light from the stained glass. The entry was a huge wooden door that was hinged to swing from the middle, and Katie had already shown her how to arm and disarm the alarm system, so Wil disarmed it and stepped outside.
It had to be in the high sixties and sunny. She could definitely get into that after thirty Wisconsin winters.
The wide part of the blond brick driveway where the van had parked last night was shaped like a giant kidney bean, surrounded with beautiful landscaping that set off the house like it was jewelry made of glass, wood, and color. She didn’t see the paper anywhere on this part of the drive, so she made sure her robe was belted, then padded down the narrow part that came up from the street toward the wrought-iron gate at the bottom. She wasn’t worried anyone would see her. The drive was long, and the landscaping, rock walls, and fencing created a secluded space.
The bricks were warm, and there were so many different kinds of flowers and plants to look at that she didn’t notice the tight group of men clustered around one of the brick pillars of the gate at the bottom of the drive until it was too late.
“Wil! Wil! Wil Greene! Are you involved with Katie?! Wil! Did you spend the night? Are you—”
The shouts and the sounds from them were awful. They made Wil heat from the bottom up, made her feel completely naked, humiliated, like she had broken something expensive and everyone was looking at her.
She turned around and walked back up the drive, the photographers shouting, and as soon as they were out of sight, she ran to the door, shaking, unable at first to figure out how it opened until she remembered Katie had said that when the front door shut behind you, the alarm rearmed. She went to the display, but it didn’t know her. It didn’t know her fingerprint.
She could still hear them shouting.
She had to push the option to alert the homeowner. She heard the small electronic tick of cameras from the security system training on her. All she could think of was Katie, warm in her bed, sleeping, oblivious, her arms wrapped around a pillow she thought was Wil, getting some kind of alert and seeing Wil on the cameras in front of her house in nothing but a short robe, inobviouslynothing but a short robe, panicking and trying to get inside.
Wil felt terrible.
The lock clicked, and Katie pulled the door open. When she’d made it through, Katie opened her arms. “Shh. Shh, it’s okay. Good morning, sweet baby.”
“I was trying to get you the paper.” Wil’s throat felt raw.
Katie squeezed Wil. “Oh, never change, you ridiculous Wisconsin dad. Were there a lot of them?”
“So many. Are they there every day?”
“Most days. At least a couple of them.” All of the concern in Katie’s face was for Wil—or, at least, that was how it seemed. But underneath, there was something Wil didn’t like, something that made her think at least a small part of Katie wasactingright now. “If there were a lot, that must mean either they were covering their bases, given everything going on, or someone tipped them off.”
Katie said this more to herself than to Wil.
“How bad is this going to be?” Wil asked. “Am I going to be on the front of grocery store tabloids in this robe?” She glanced down. “Do I look good in this robe?”
“You look good in everything. Look at your tits. They’reoutrageous. If I had tits like that, I would never wear clothes at all. I’d just parade about naked all the time. But to answer your first question, I don’t know. Youwillbe on the internet. Whether or not you make it to print tabloids depends on what is most interesting between now and when they go to print.”
Yes. Katie was definitely acting, or at least, smoothing. More than likely, she was doing itforWil, trying to minimize whatever ripples or tidal waves what Wil had just done was going to create for her.
Wil’s concern from yesterday rose up from her heart, tightening her throat. She could appreciate that Katie was a kind person. This was a kind decision. A little bit, though, it would’vehelpedher to know how Katie really felt.
“Look,” Katie said matter-of-factly, “there was always, always, always going to be public interest in you already because of your channel. You already had the prank calls, the disgusting offers. And I directed one of your kisses, so the world knows that we know each other, and if you’ve seen even a fraction of the chatter about it, you know the speculation is intense. I think your followers have quadrupled.”
“I’ve been kind of distracted, and I didn’t really look at anything from my channel after I posted. I think of it as running my TikTok in a very French manner.”
Katie looked at her, brows confused. “French?”
“You know. Like I put up the video, and thenOui—” Wil mimed taking a drag off a cigarette and flicking it away.
Katie burst into laughter, and then laughed some more, crossing her legs and holding her middle. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Madelynn is going to love you so much.”
“Madelynn?”