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Wil hoped all of thiseverything,including all the everything Katie wasn’t telling her, could smash together just like her and Katie.
Holding on tight so they didn’t have to ever let go.
Chapter Eighteen
Katie knew that Wil’s walk outside for the morning paper had precipitated a true crisis when Madelynn walked into Katie’s house with what Katie called her “big bag”—a huge leather messenger that contained an oversized laptop, multiple files she didn’t want digitized, and phones. Madelynn always had more than one phone.
Katie waved at her. Wil was in a chair in the back where they’d had breakfast, with earbuds in, taking a call about law school with one of the people she’d had a meeting with in Green Bay.
It seemed like a hundred years since Katie had called Beanie and asked her to set up that meeting on Wil’s list. As though it had happened in a completely different life. That day with Wil, Katie had only been spending time with an old friend. Testing to see if it still felt the same as it used to. Thinking about paths she hadn’t taken.
That wasn’t what she and Wil were doing now.
Wil had been on the phone an hour and a half, making Katie a little tiny bit nervous, since this meant they hadn’t talked since they talked over breakfast, and that was an intense conversation.
As Wil had correctly intuited, Katie’s entire sympathetic nervous system had been hijacked by the run-in with the paparazzi and what it meant.
This beautiful, unfurling, delicate, dangerous thing they were making between them had just become global news at the same moment that April was talking to investors, to Marisol, toeveryone,in order to convince them Katie would innovate the director’s chair and make movies that changed Hollywood and keep it relevant for the next generation.
When she’d let Wil back into the house this morning, Katie’s heart had broken to see Wil’s panicked face. Ever since, she’d been trying to remember that there was nothing real or true about the idea that her relationship with Wil was scandalous. She’d beenangrywith April for suggesting that Katie’s relationship with Wil diminished the power of the video Katie had filmed for Wil’s channel.
But Katie was spooked. Worse than spooked. Petrified.
Until she caught a glimpse of Wil pacing along the pool, her earbuds in, her big phone in the back pocket of her jeans, gesturing to the person she was talking to, and she was so beautiful, Katie couldn’t even take in a whole breath. Wil had always been beautiful, but Katie had only ever basked in it. She had never felt Wil’s beauty could have secrets for her.
Like how her brows furrowed together when she came, lifting up the corners of her eyes and softening her mouth.
Like the way her wrist bent when she was sleeping.
Like how she bit the side of her tongue when Katie let her see how turned on she was.
Even the way her tiny patch of freckles faded in a pale flush when Wil was frustrated withKatie.
Which was new.
Like everything, everything else.
“Katie.” Madelynn set up her computer on Katie’s dining room table. “Nice to see you.”
“Is it?” Katie sat down on a chair and crossed her legs, smilingat Madelynn. She had gotten herself in “Katie Price” mode, blowing out her hair, winging her eyeliner, and putting on her brightest pink lip. She’d dressed in tall jeans, tall shoes, and a sweater Harry Styles had sent her when she hearted it on his Instagram. “Because I’m conscious that Christmas is in two days, and perhaps you would rather be with your family than coming to my home to put out the fire I started.”
Madelynn looked at Katie over her kelly green John Lennon glasses. “My family are all publicists.”
“Right.”
Having organized her secret files, Madelynn dug for a pen. “My dad’s Linden, Webber, and Soh, and my mom founded Adelaide Communications, naming it after my sister, Addy Soh, who you may have heard of as the communications director for the governor of California. My brother is based in D.C., where he puts out fires for politicians, and my niece is an intern at Beeker International.”
“Oh my God.” Katie leaned forward. “Iknewthis, but I didn’t understand how… alotthat really is.”
“All of us will be working through the holidays. The holidays are traditionally our biggest billing days of the year. People get themselves into some things over the holidays.” Madelynn smiled. “My family celebrates Christmas at the end of January. Always pretty quiet then.”
“Wil’s on the phone. She’ll come in soon.”
“Good. We can talk about you.”
Katie blew out a breath. “I would love to fast-forward to the end of January. I’m really looking forward to finding out how nicely everything will have settled down by then.”
Madelynn tapped her lip, considering Katie. “And I would have loved to hear, from you, that you’d known Wilifred Greene since you were children, since you wereinfants,and you attended the same schools, and your mothers are close friends. Best friends,according to my sources. Minimally. I might have spun such an excellent story out of that.Home for the HolidaysmeetsSweet Home Alabama.Perhaps then April’s scheme to label your short film directing debut as a Banksy-esque art drop might have been embroidered with a little folksy lace.”