“Reggie.” Grayson forces out, shattering the stagnant moment.
“Dunn,” Reggie returns, smirking like he’s won something as he finally releases my hand. “Happy to have you back. It’s going to be a great show.”
Grayson smiles, but it seems forced. “Always is.”
There’s no quiet moment to ask about the sudden tension in the air — not with the PAs and cameramen and tech crew hovering all around us, making sure the show goes off without a hitch. Grayson keeps up the appearance of a supportive boyfriend, his arm slung casually around my shoulders, and I try not to feel guilty about it. In my head, I know I’m not cheating on Wyatt, but it feels remarkably like a betrayal in my heart.
Reggie heads onstage, gives his opening monologue to the cheering crowd, and launches straight into our introductions. I hear a relentless buzzing sound coming from my purse on the small vanity behind us, as though someone is calling over and over, desperate to get ahold of me, but there’s no time to check my phone because the interview is about to start.
I’m sure it can wait.
A crew member signals for us to step from the wings. I take a breath, paste on a smile, and follow Grayson out, my hand wrapped tightly inside his.
The audience goes wild when they spot us. Their thunderous applause slams into me like a punch to the stomach.
We grin and wave at them as we walk across the stage. Reggie is already seated behind his desk, clapping along as we approach, easily embodying the overjoyed host. There’s no sign at all of the backstage tension; his expression indicates nothing except his thrill to have us with him as we settle in on the twin wingback chairs beside his desk. The uneasiness inside my stomach fades a bit.
“Grayson Dunn and Kat Firestone, everyone!” Reggie revs up the crowd again, until their applause practically rattles the roof off the building. “Or, as you have all been manically tweeting at me for the past few days since I announced this show… #GRAYKAT!”
We laugh good-naturedly, as if it isn’t totally strange to be one half of a trending hashtag.
The interview proceeds much like our others. Reggie makes jokes at our expense —Hey, what do you call an actress starring in a Grayson Dunn movie? Topless!— and we pretend they’re the funniest things we’ve ever heard. We play a game where Grayson and I have to guess obscure facts about each other, like at what age he had his first kiss and whether or not I’m allergic to anything, his childhood pet’s name and the color of my first car. We get most of the answers wrong, of course, but that’s the point of the game; even if we were actually dating, I’m not sure I’d have been able to properly answer a single one. The audience thinks it’s hilarious, though. They’re eating up everything we serve them, falling for our act hook, line, and sinker. Desperate to believe in our star-crossed love story.
Kat and Grayson. Couple of the decade. Aren’t they just dreamy?
After we talk aboutUncharted, Reggie plays a promo clip from the movie — the scene where Violet and Beck realize they’re alone on the island. I watch the girl on screen, see the passion in her eyes as she looks at Grayson, and feel strangely separate from my own body. So much has changed since we filmed those scenes. So much has altered, in the months since I stood on a white sand beach and begged him to stay.
Watching the scene play out before my eyes is like picking up an old diary and flipping through the pages, recognizing the girl who scrawled such heartbroken words but no longer identifying with her. I see the pain and passion in my own expression onscreen, seeping through the character I was playing, bleeding between the lines of a script that seemed to so perfectly mimic my life, and feel nothing except a detached sort of sympathy for her.
That sad, broken girl with no self-confidence is a stranger to me.
Grayson’s thumb traces slow circles on my hand as the clip plays on. Once, that small touch would’ve sent me into cardiac arrest. Now, all I feel is a remote sort of acceptance. The passion I used to have for him, fueled by delusional dreams and a self-destructive streak, have burned through me like a wildfire, the flames leaving nothing behind in their wake. Lust has run its course. All that’s left is a memory, trapped within the reels of a movie. A time-capsule of heartbreak, immortalized forever on film.
“Wow!” Reggie claps, turning to face us. His beady brown eyes are unreadable. “I, for one, cannot wait to see this movie! It looks like quite the whirlwind romance.”
“Oh, it definitely is,” I agree, glancing at Grayson with a practiced smile. “We had an amazing time in Hawaii filming it. Our cast and crew got so close — we’re all like family, now.”
“Close is an understatement, I’d say,” Reggie counters. “You two have had quite the whirlwind romance yourselves, these past few months!”
The crowd goes wild again.
“We’re just happy we found each other.” Grayson’s voice is warm. “Every day, I thank my stars that I have this girl by my side.”
My fake smile stretches wider. “Same goes for me. I’m incredibly blessed.”
“That’s just so sweet — isn’t it sweet, folks?” Reggie asks the crowd. They cheer and clap. “But things will be different now, won’t they?”
Grayson tenses, as though anticipating some kind of blow.
“What do you mean, Reggie?” I ask, suddenly nervous.
“Well…” He leans in like he’s sharing a secret between friends, but his voice is booming when he speaks, ensuring that every person in the room hears his words. “Now that you’ve got the baby coming, I mean.”
I freeze. I feel Grayson go still beside me. The audience gasps, then falls into silence. It’s so quiet on the stage, I can hear the cameraman breathing as he zooms in on my face.
Grayson’s grip grows so tight it’s cutting off circulation to my fingers.
I don’t look at him. I keep my eyes on Reggie — that sniveling snake of a man — and smile benignly.