Someone in the stands left of them screams and sobs. Declan wants to take Karin’s hand, is aching to. But he can’t anymore, not out here. Out here, it’s not like that between them. The people look at them like they’ve just burned a heap of flags on stage, like they’ve betrayed them and set their dreams on fire. Damn it all.
What have they gotten themselves into?
CHAPTER FOUR
T ag and the PAs in the studio manage to rein in the crowd over the duration of their home story, the big reveal of “How we did it, how we fooled the world into believing we love each other,” and Declan barely resists the urge to wrap his arms around Karin and hide in her hair. It’s not a nice thing to be revealed as a liar, he thinks, especially when the reaction is as visceral as it is. It’s not so much that people seem angry, they look sad. There have been folks with signs spelling their names, adorned with pictures and hearts. Now they’re gone, cardboard crumpled between people’s feet. When Tag finishes the show, congratulating them once more on their phenomenal win and asks them what they’re planning to do with the money “Pay my bills,” says Karin. “Finish the renovations on my house,” says Declan, the audience claps politely but as taping ends, so does the noise.
Claudine, hurrying from the camera pit in front of the stage, comes rushing up to take them all backstage, looking a bit shaken and uncomfortable.
“That was awkward, wasn’t it?” she says and Declan can tell she is trying to ease the tension but it’s not working all that well. She backs away quickly again, leaving Karin, Courtney, Bobby and him behind the stage set, looking at each other while outside the sounds of muted chatter and footsteps permeate the air.
“Wow,” Courtney says finally, breaking an uneasy silence.
“Yes,” says Declan, toneless.
“So it was you all along,” Courtney exclaims needlessly. “That’s crazy.”
“Yes,” Declan repeats, not really knowing what else to say to her. He finds himself stepping away from a motionless Karin beside him, even if he wants to do the opposite.
“I was so sure that you both were an actual couple,” Courtney is shaking her head in disbelief. “I thought we’d at least get a hundred thousand dollars out of today. Wow.”
“I’m sorry,” Karin says, like a true sport.
“Don’t be,” Bobby hurries and takes Karin’s hand to squeeze it. “That’s the game, isn’t it? Congrats, you both.”
“Congratulations on your win, you truly fooled everybody,” Courtney chimes in and Declan can’t help but identify her tone as catty. He sees Karin register the tone and crumble slightly. She ducks out, away from Andrews grip, and mumbles something about having to go to the washroom and leaves Declan there by himself. Courtney shrugs and bids her farewell, too. She’s not exactly icy to him but her temporary goodbye isn’t cozy either.
Bobby, meanwhile, looks like a dog with a bone. “But seriously, you’re not ... you know,” he begins, leaning into Declan’s space, “sleeping with her?”
“No, I’m not,” he replies on reflex. He’s been training for this at their Homecoming-Party in the fire station.
“Never have?” Bobby keeps at it.
“No,” Declan says.
“Why?” And if any exclamation ever fit the term ‘incredulous’, this was it.
“Because,” Declan shrugs, trying not to sound as unnerved as he feels. “She’s my best friend and I don’t want to ruin that.”
“Well, she definitely wants you,” Bobby shrugs. “But then again, it doesn’t matter now, does it? You just won a show by not being together. Is that in your contract, too? Not hooking up?”
“I wouldn’t know, I haven’t checked. Because it doesn’t matter,” Declan tells him, trying hard to take the edge off his voice. “Because we’re just friends, you know?”
Bobby eyes him like he’s got three heads, but Declan sees Sinea and Foster emerge from around the corner and uses it as his cue to get away from that unpleasant line of questioning. However, he finds that seeing his dance heroes give him the exact looks the audience had just minutes before, a mix of puzzle- and disappointment, might not be favorable to Bobby’s prying.
“I am not going to lie, we were a little shocked,” Fos says after Declan asks him how it’s going, of all things.
“Oui,” Sinea agrees with her husband. “That just goes to show how wonderful performers you are. You really sold your connection!” ‘Sold your connection’ sounds very, very wrong in Declan’s ears but he is quite certain that arguing against this very assumption would not benefit his and Karin’s general case.
“It’s good to run into you,” says Foster, catching Declan by his elbow. “Because we would really like to talk to you both about working together in the future maybe.” And Declan didn’t expect to hear that. He does a double-take, looking from Fos to Sinea, but she is just smiling and nodding like she is completely fine with goddamn Foster Demmet asking a random small town dance instructor to work with him. “We’ve just lost a brilliant coach to his husband moving across the country, and we were hoping you might be able to take over for him, and Sinea is always looking for creative and fresh influences for choreography, which would be great for Rinny. Maybe we can figure something out there.”
“Oh, alright, yes,” Declan stammers and yes, he just won five hundred thousand dollars but this might be even better. “I’ll definitely talk to Rinny about it.”
But the thing is, he doesn’t.
When Karin comes back, they’re rushed to the after party with the production crew and in an effort to appear unattached, they spend most of it apart and then it just slips his mind. Declan tells Marietta about his house, making sure to mention many times over that he’s now going to be living on the other end of town because he’s going to move out of the apartment building he shares with Karin. He promises Gorman and Bobby again that he has no romantic interest in his best friend and is mindful not to know where she is at at any point of the night which he does anyway. At two in the morning, they find each other again, their eyes locking across a crowded dance floor. Karin lifts her eyebrows, cocks her head to the side just a little and he knows her well enough to be able to translate it into “Let’s go home” immediately. He nods and indicates the exit. Ten minutes later, they meet at the coatroom, gather their stuff and head out to his car. This time, there are no people waiting for them. But there is a cardboard poster saying ‘Karin and Declan for the Win!!’ lying on the ground as they cross the parking lot. There’s footprints covering the letters. Declan tucks at Karin’s jacket sleeve to make her look down.
“They really hate us now, don’t they?” she asks him, her voice echoing down the pavement.
“I think some people were really rooting for us,” he says.
“If they only knew,” Karin says, somewhat breezily but Declan can’t really share in her ease and honestly, doesn’t want to talk about it. So instead, he takes her hand in his after checking behind his shoulder to make sure that nobody from the party followed them out, and leads her to the car. Production had asked them if they wanted to have a hotel in Scanlon but they’d declined, mostly because they wanted to sleep in the same bed instead of in two separate hotel rooms and even though Declan is tired, he gets them home to Tennessee and he’s even awake enough to listen to Karin babble as she takes her makeup off in her room at four in the morning when the sun is already starting to rise. She’s going a million words a minute about finally being able to pay off her debt and maybe getting a new couch and taking her mother and sister to a spa or maybe the south of France for a girls trip.
“I can’t believe it really happened,” Declan muses once she’s finally done and climbs into bed to snuggle against his chest.
“I know,” she says, predictably. They’ve had this conversation about a million times so far since merging onto the highway home.
“And so by next week, we’ll each have half a million dollars on our accounts?” he asks, which is a first.
“Well,
minus the tax,” Karin tells him.
“Whatever, still a lot of money,” he breathes, pulling her in closer. Her hair smells like hairspray. “I can finish renovating the house.”
“I’ll go to Paris again,” she says. “Maybe I can take you with me and hide you in my carry-on.”
“We’ll be very rich,” he reminds her, “we can charter a plane so nobody sees us.”
Karin laughs. “Think about the taxes, chartering flights to Europe might push our budget a little anyway.”
“You’re no fun at all,” he grins, kisses the top of her head and runs his hand up and down her shirt clad back, pondering something. “We’ll be fine with the people being all angry at us?” he asks.
“Definitely,” she decides. “They’ll be mad for a bit and then they’ll forget we exist.”
Karin remains very sure of that until approximately the following day when they get a call from Brody telling them that they have requests to be on several talk shoes. They’ve spent a lazy morning in bed up to that point, neither of them checking their phones. But after Karin tells Brody that, “Sure, I guess, yes, we’ll do it,” she does dive into their tag on social media and forgets her breakfast cereal entirely over it.
“There’s a news article about how we’re lying,” she says at one point and a few minutes later, her forehead in worried creases, she continues: “Social media is absolutely crazy, there’s a movement, nobody believes us. There’s so many angry comments. They are tweeting at talk show hosts to break us. Maybe we should cancel them? Before Brody can tell them we’re in.”
“But wouldn’t that look like we got something to hide?” he challenges, his own appetite fading fast. Karin grumbles, obviously agreeing but not wanting to.
“It’s kind of a thing to out celebrity couples,” Karin says, nearly unintelligible because she’s also chewing on her lip at the same time.
“We’re hardly a celebrity couple,” Declan says. “We’ll just ... deny it and then people will move on, right? Like you said?”
“Yes,” Karin grumbles and shoves her bowl to the side to keep on studying her phone. Breakfast is evidently over. “Oh,” she says after a while, “Dustin just texted, you’re supposed to check your phone, he called you. Karin had the baby an hour ago!”
For a few wonderful moments, the comments articles are forgotten when Declan darts up to the bedroom, snatches his phone from the charger and ignores all notifications except for the five missed calls of his brother and calls him back, yelling into the speaker before his brother can even get a word in. He only stops congratulating his brother and his wife on speaker long enough for Dustin to ask him and Karin to come to the hospital to meet their son. Declan agrees without even asking Karin but the way her face brightens when he tells her, lets him know that she’s welcoming the happy news greatly. They get dressed and halfway out the door, Declan takes Karin’s phone from her grip and pockets it, now carrying both their phones.
“Let’s not think about all this right now, shall we?” he asks, touching his hand to the small of her back, the satin, floral fabric soft to his touch. She nods and lets him maneuver her forward. He doesn’t put his hand on her again though, not until they’re inside Karin Shelton’s hospital room, safe from inquisitive glances.
“You ready to meet Declan?” Dustin asks as he lets Declan out of a bear hug and bows down a little to gather Declan’s Karin into his arms and they both nod eagerly and push past him to get to Dustin’s Karin and the tiny, tiny baby she holds in her arm.
“How are you?” his Karin asks, sitting down on the bed gingerly. “Declan said you’ve been here since yesterday.”
“Labor was a bit of a battle,” his sister in law says. “But we’re here now.”
“He’s so adorable,” Karin coos, leaning forward so Declan has to move with her to be able to see the baby right. “He’s perfect.”
“Do you want to hold him for a second?” Dustin’s Karin asks, already holding up the child to pass him to a nodding Karin. She’s so eager that she’s already scooped him up by the time Declan plops down on the bed next to her.
“There you go,” his sister in law says. “You’re doing great. Guess that baby training pays off.”
“Oh, he’s an angel, no expertise necessary,” Karin mutters, eyes fixed on the baby and it does things to Declan, like it had when she’d carried Averi around on the island. Except this baby is very new and a Shelton, which makes the sight before him practically a sucker punch in the gut.
“Look at him, he’s so cute,” he breathes, leaning over Karin’s shoulder to see the baby, breathing in the scent of her hair, her neck.
“He looks a little like you,” she says, which makes him nearly whimper. He’s not ready for kids yet but the sheer image of Karin having a little baby that looks like him, because it’s his, is wonderful and makes his belly feel warm and fuzzy. He can’t help but kiss her cheek and try to keep from making a strange snorting noise, just because he’s so happy that this is a future he can see one day.
“We should take the baby off of them before they decide to rush the family planning,” Dustin quips behind him.
“Shut up, Dan,” Declan snaps, his nose still smushed against Karin’s.
“Yes, we’ve still got time for that,” Karin says and leans out to smile down at baby Declan. “For now we’ll just practice, huh?”
Declan can’t help wiggling his eyebrows, because he’s got a dirty mind and not a very curated sense of humor. “That’s what she said,” he jokes and all the other adults in the room groan.
“Declan!” they chide in unison.
“What I’m saying is,” he hurries, sheepish, “if you ever need a babysitter, just ring us up.”
They spend another hour cooing at the baby until he gets fussy and Scarlett arrives with Charlotte in tow who she’s picked up from school. Declan says hi and bye to his mom, promises to bring Karin over for dinner soon, and goes briefly through his plans to hire a contractor to finish his house within the month. Dustin says he’ll help in any way he can as soon as they’ve settled in with Declan at home a little.
“Don’t worry, bro,” Declan tells him, coming out of the hug goodbye. “This is far more important than the shingles of my house.”
“But it means something to you,” Dustin smiles. “So it means something to me.” He glances at Karin as she’s chatting with their mother. “We’ve always done it like that.”
Declan grins and as if on cue, his Karin finds him, winds her arm under his and wedges against his side. This is how it’s right, how life was always supposed to be. Surrounded by his family, with the love of his life tucked to his left. It’s a pity that he has to let go as soon as they leave the room.
Back at home, he keeps with the recent habit of going straight up with Karin instead of stopping at his own apartment and then realizes about ten minutes in, that he needs this or that from his place and goes to get it. When he lets himself in with the spare key she’d given him the other day, she’s waiting for him with an empty decorative box in her hands that fits exactly in her open plan shelf at the far wall of her living room.
“This is your box now,” she declares, setting it on the couch table. “You can keep whatever you’re going to need in here and I made room for some clothes in my drawer in the bedroom.”
“We’re at drawers already?” he asks her, his cheeks already taut from grinning.
“We’re going on eighteen years here, now,” Karin scoffs. “I think we can skip a couple of the steps, no?”
“I’d say let’s elope tomorrow but I don’t want to scare you,” Declan shrugs and Karin cackles.
“I wouldn’t be scared at all, I think you would be, though,” she challenges and he is a little scared, like she knew he would be, which is why there’s a shit-eating grin on her face and a ‘got you’-look in her eyes.
They stand there for a second, on the cusp on possibility but he finds that she seems comfortable there. She doesn’t wait for anything
from him and that is what gives him the confidence to not make any declarations. He would, he could, too, because he knows she’s it for him, no one else will ever make him feel the way she does, but they’re good as they are for now. They’re in their mid-twenties, they don’t need to get married yet. But still, between them, in that moment, a word passes, unsaid, and they both know it. Someday. Someday, he’ll ask her if she wants his name and his hand forever and he hopes she’ll want it then the way she seems to now.
The next three days, they’re finding their footing in this new world where Karin doesn’t have to work to afford university, which is why she’s quit waitressing and waits out the start of her next semester getting savvy at social media instead. Declan arranges for a contractor to meet him at the house, tells him what he wants done and gets an estimate of three weeks until completion and an invoice for a down payment that has his stomach flip until he remembers that he’s a little bit rich now. They go and visit Dustin’s Karin on her last day at the hospital, buy a second set of comforters for each of their beds so that they don’t steal the blanket from each other at night and finally get that Shelton family dinner in. It’s a marvelous three days altogether. So marvelous, that Declan is completely caught off guard when at the end of it, the first shoe drops.
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