Spoiler Alert

by Olivia Dade

  Carah: Ron and R.J. officially backed out of Con of the Gates, citing a too-heavy workload

  Carah: Too-heavy workload, my sweet ass

  Alex: I’m assuming they mean the workload for their Star Fighters project, since they were nowhere to be found on OUR set this last season

  Alex: Except in front of the cameras, naturally, for special features and interviews highlighting their genius and dedication

  Maria: Well, they certainly weren’t working on our scripts

  Ian: They were around plenty, whiners

  Peter: More tuna hallucinations, poor Ian

  Peter: It’s a shame everyone will miss Ron and R.J.’s session, The Art and Science of Failing Upwards As Cishet White Guys

  Ian: Fuck you, Peter

  Ian: You’re a has-been

  Ian: and since you’ve never been on a successful show before, you have no idea how things work, especially off on your stupid little island

  Alex: Is Tuna Rage a thing? Like ‘Roid Rage, only smellier and less articulate?

  Maria: “Fuck you, Peter”?

  Maria: Oh, Ian, I’m so sorry

  Maria: I’m afraid Peter requires a certain level of

  Maria: how should I put this

  Maria: personal hygiene? yes, personal hygiene

  Maria: when it comes to his lovers

  Maria: I’m pretty sure anyone who smells like the Catch of the Day is disqualified, sadly

  Carah: oooooooooooh

  Carah: the rare and elusive piscine BURN!

  Carah: FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

  Ian: That’s right, Maria

  Ian: I suppose you WOULD know all about Peter’s requirements for sex

  Summer: Stop right there, Ian

  Maria: No, go on, I’d like to hear this

  Alex: Ian, Peter might not have an IV tuna drip and muscles upon muscles, like some sort of steroid-induced pecs Inception, but he will fuck you up, my dude

  Alex: and so will I, to be clear

  Peter: Thank you for the kind offer, Alex, but there would be nothing left of him by the time I was through

  Peter: and that’s only if Maria doesn’t get to him first, because she would transform him singlehandedly into a fine pink mist

  Peter: So please, Ian, finish what you were saying

  Carah: IT’S MY FUCKING BIRTHDAY UP IN THIS BITCH

  Carah: NO TUNA IS SAFE TONIGHT

  Peter: Ian?

  Alex: Yo, Ian

  Carah: IAN, COME BACK

  Maria: He swam away, like his beloved fish

  Maria: which are vertebrates, unlike him

  Summer: Oh, wow. ::high-fives::

  Carah: ICHTHYOLOGY SHADE, I LOVE MY GODDAMN LIFE

  If Marcus could have smiled, he would have.

  Instead, he drained the rest of his water, set the glass in his deep, wide sink, and prepared to remove his suitcases from the car and literally unpack his relationship with April.

  After several trips outside, he set the luggage on his California king bed and unzipped everything, determined to empty every compartment, every pocket, every dark hiding place.

  Dirty clothing goes in the hamper. Clean clothing goes in drawers or on hangers. Toiletries go in the bathroom. Tech goes in either my nightstand table or my office.

  If he kept repeating the next steps to himself, he couldn’t think beyond the moment. Couldn’t remember.

  It was all so easy. Mindless. Mindless was good.

  One armful at a time, minute by minute, everything settled back into place. Clothing, toiletries, tech, emotions. His life, restored to its state pre-April. If he didn’t know better, he’d think he’d never left at all.

  Then he saw it, carefully tucked inside a pocket, cushioned from damage with newspaper.

  “I changed my mind,” she’d told him one Saturday, as they’d stood on the cliffs above the Sutro Baths and watched the tide roll in. “I thought you were a diamond, and then I thought you were gold. But none of that was quite right. Not once I knew you better.”

  After squeezing his hand, she’d let go of him and gone digging in her oversize purse.

  “I’ll be glad to hand it over.” The setting sun sparked in her hair as she shook her head ruefully. “It’s heavy as fuck. You’d think it would be easy to find for exactly that reason, but . . .”

  He’d help her, only he had no idea what the hell she was talking about. “I’m sorry?”

  “I got you a gift,” she told him cheerfully, and kept digging.

  He stared down at her, speechless. The last time anyone had given him a present with no ulterior motive, no special occasion or achievement to celebrate—

  Well, that had never happened before. Not once in his memory.

  “There it is.” Lifting her head, she smiled with satisfaction and put something extremely heavy in his palm. It was wrapped in newspaper, but vaguely round. “Open it.”

  The sheets of newspaper crinkled as he carefully unfolded them, revealing . . . stone. The most beautiful stone he’d ever seen. It was a rich, intense blue, speckled with white, veined in what appeared to be gold. A polished sphere, cool in his cupped hand.

  “It’s lapis lazuli.” With a fingertip, she tapped the stone. “When we went to that gem and mineral warehouse the other weekend, I picked it up. While you were in the bathroom.”

  He’d have appreciated anything she gave him. Movie tickets. One of those fossilized pieces of feces—coprolites?—they’d seen in the warehouse. A soda. Whatever.

  But this . . . this was gorgeous, as lovely as the woman who’d gifted it to him.

  Then she kept talking, and his heart swelled to fill his entire chest and push up into his throat.

  “Lapis is a metamorphic rock. The original rock is subjected to intense heat and pressure, and then . . . this.” She laid her palm on his chest, over his expanding heart, her touch reverent. “Beauty.”

  He’d bitten his lip, unable to respond directly to the implied praise without weeping. “Those veins in the rock aren’t actually gold, are they?”

  “Nope.” She lifted a shoulder, the movement a bit jerky. “Pyrite. Fool’s gold. Sorry.”

  Shit, she thought he was criticizing the gift, and nothing could be further from the truth.

  “Gold couldn’t make this any more beautiful than it is.” Tipping up her chin, he kissed her with all the adoration one man’s overfull heart could contain. “Thank you. I love it.”

  Maybe she hadn’t said the words, but he’d recognized the gravity of her offering. It wasn’t just a sphere of stone, but—

  Her heart. It had felt like her laying her heart in his palm, despite all her fears.

  When it came to bravery, April possessed more than her fair share.

  When it was much too late, he’d been brave too. He’d told the truth, all of it. He’d exposed his heart to her without artifice or omission and told her, This part of me is pyrite, not gold.

  And once she knew, she didn’t want him. He was a liar, valuable only to a fool who mistook him for something more.

  And now that she was gone, he was no longer more to anyone. He was no longer a sphere of rich, speckled blue, polished and beautiful but substantial too. Weighty in his palm, then and now.

  Now he was a speck of a man. One of the sunlit dust motes that sparkled and floated inside her car, glinting and aimless and adrift.

  Yes, he was angry that she’d dismissed his concerns about his career with such blithe disregard. But he was angrier at himself. Still. Always.

  He never learned. He never, ever learned.

  His phone buzzed from the top of the dresser. Another text from Alex, who’d apparently received Marcus’s own message at long last.

  Dude. I’m so sorry, read the bubble on the screen. I’m coming over.

  Marcus exhaled. Thank fuck. He needed his best friend, and he needed something to both puncture the silence of his house and quiet the cacophony in his head.

  Alex could do all of that easily, with
a single rant about unrealistic judging expectations in televised baking competitions. Especially if he brought—

  Another incoming message. I know it’s not your usual thing, but wanna get drunk? I can pick up booze on my way there.

  Yes, Marcus wrote back. Please.

  He didn’t unwrap the lapis sphere. Instead, he placed it, still swathed in newsprint, in the back corner of his closet, behind the shoe box containing a pair of hiking boots he’d never managed to break in.

  There, it couldn’t taunt him with what he’d lost, and it couldn’t remind him of what he’d never truly had.

  APRIL WAS DONE hiding. Which meant, unfortunately, that she was going to Con of the Gates tomorrow, less than a week after her breakup with Marcus. Public scrutiny and potential humiliation and her own misery be damned.

  She didn’t fool herself. It wasn’t going to be comfortable. After all those tweets and blog posts and articles, too many people knew her face now. They knew her body. There would be no hiding in a crowd, and no hiding the fact that she and Marcus hadn’t attended the con together.

  Cynics would roll their eyes and say they’d recognized a publicity stunt from the start. The unkind would laugh instead. So much for his white-knight ambitions, they’d crow. Even such a gifted actor couldn’t pretend to want a woman like that for long.

  Whatever. If they judged her, fuck them.

  And even if she’d wanted to hide, like hell she’d let her Lavinia costume—the product of hours of dedicated effort by Mel and Pablo—languish in a closet out of cowardice. And there was no way she’d ever, ever skip her long-awaited gathering with her closest Lavineas friends.

  They’d notice her distance from Marcus and wonder, of course. Hopefully, they’d be kind enough not to ask. Or, failing that, smart enough to ask with a fresh tissue box nearby.

  After tucking the last of her clothing and travel toiletries into her suitcase, she zipped it shut and rolled it just inside the apartment door. Afterward, she sat on her couch beneath a blanket and listened to a podcast.

  She tried to pay attention, but she kept thinking Marcus would find the topic interesting. Not so much because he paid special attention to unsolved serial killings, but because he was as hungry for knowledge as anyone she’d ever met, his innate curiosity matching her own.

  Fuck, she missed him.

  When she realized she hadn’t registered the last ten minutes of the podcast, she turned it off. In the gathering darkness of her living room, throw pillow held to her chest, she sat and stopped trying not to think about it. About them. About her life without him.

  So quickly—or maybe not that quickly, now that she knew he was BAWN—Marcus had made ample space for himself in her daily life and thoughts. But he wasn’t everything, and he wasn’t all that mattered to her. Her work and her costume and her upcoming meeting with her Lavineas friends were proof enough of her non-Marcus interests. So were her dinner plans with Bashir and Mimi next week.

  She wasn’t lost. She wasn’t.

  Even if his absence from her home, her bed, her arms, left her hollow-eyed and aching down to her joints some days. Even if she watched British baking shows while she ate takeout for dinner, because claggy sponges and underproofed dough reminded her of him.

  Even if she loved him, and he loved her in return.

  When she shut off her bedside lamp way too late at night, she still saw him behind her eyelids, face crumpled and stricken and adoring as she railed against him in her car. Eyes wet, but too honorable to use his tears or his love as tools to force her forgiveness.

  Sometimes, as she turned onto her side and flipped her pillow yet again, she wondered if the conversation would have gone differently under other circumstances. If she hadn’t still been raw and chilled and exhausted from that long-overdue confrontation with her mother, still on edge from the proximity of her father and Marcus’s abandonment of her at her parents’ house.

  He’d blasted the heater for her. Warmed her seat. Cupped her face. Apologized earnestly.

  But her rage and hurt had still been lingering just beneath the surface, much too easy to access. The slightest scratch to her composure would have unearthed all that volatile emotion, and he’d provided much more than a mere scrape.

  With his deception, he’d gutted her.

  With her sharp words, by withholding her forgiveness, she’d gutted him right back. That was clear enough. If the devastation in those expressive eyes hadn’t told her so, his body language would have. On the way out her door, he’d moved like a man broken, cradled into himself and guarding against further jolts.

  Five days had passed since then. Out of respect for her stated wishes, he hadn’t called or emailed or DMed. That first night, he’d only texted her once. Two simple words he’d already told her, ones she knew he meant sincerely.

  I’m sorry.

  Scared. He’d been scared, so he’d hurt and misled her.

  She couldn’t blame him for that, but she couldn’t seem to forgive him, either. Not when she remembered the wrenching pain of BAWN’s sudden, now-explicable estrangement. Not when she considered all those months he’d pretended ignorance when it came to reading and writing fanfiction; all those months he’d failed to acknowledge the intimate knowledge he held of her, born out of years of friendship; all those months he’d secreted that same advantage, the understanding of who and what he really was, out of her reach.

  No wonder she’d felt as if she’d known him for years. She had. But not all of him. Not enough of him.

  She didn’t hate him. She wasn’t angry anymore. She was just . . . tired.

  The warm, bright spotlight of his love was gone, and the shadows left behind were fine. She was fine.

  Absolutely fine.

  Or she would be, if she could convince herself she’d made the right choice.

  Lavineas Server DMs, Five Months Ago

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: What do you do when you feel down for no good reason?

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: What’s wrong? Are you okay?

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I’m getting my period soon. Nothing is wrong, but everything is wrong.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I hope you’re not squeamish about things like that, because if so: TOO LATE, SUCKER.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: Since approximately half the humans on this planet either have gotten or will get periods, I’ve always found that particular brand of squeamishness ridiculous.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: So you’re the type of guy who would buy his girlfriend tampons at the grocery store?

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: This is not a hypothetical. In past relationships, tampons have been procured. Back rubs have been dispensed. Bloodstains have been removed from sheets and clothing.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: And in case you were worried, my manhood has nevertheless remained intact. Despite what some men seem to believe.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Well, I’m certainly glad you reassured me about your intact manhood, BAWN.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: I’m so sorry you’re not feeling well, Ulsie.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Thank you.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Also, thank you for distracting me from my woes via our discussion of tampons. I had not anticipated that particular conversational tangent.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: I try to maintain a certain air of mystery.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: You’re a constant surprise, my friend. A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside a grocery store with Playtex in your cart.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: You never answered my question, though. What do you do when you feel down?

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Do you drink tea? Take a bath? Watch a terrible movie? Read? Eat a pint of ice cream? Have a glass of wine?

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: At various times in the past, all of the above. But these days, I mostly

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Yes?

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: BAWN?

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: I mostly talk to
you.

  27

  AFTER APPROXIMATELY TEN SECONDS OF SHARING A HOTEL suite with Alex, Marcus remembered exactly why they were no longer roommates.

  His best friend was many things. Ridiculously loyal. Sharp as a sword’s edge. Sympathetic in the face of his friend’s abject, self-inflicted misery. A good distraction from said misery, which was why Marcus had suggested sharing a suite in the first place.

  What Alex wasn’t: restful.

  Marcus had been hoping for a nap before the evening’s events began. His first photos with fans were scheduled that night, following Alex’s Q&A session, and the participants paid plenty for the privilege. He wanted to look fresh for them. He wanted to feel fresh for them.

  Since Alex had talked nonstop during the lengthy car ride from the airport, all through their check-in process, and down every single hallway leading to their suite, though, all hopes of a nap were likely to die a much-lamented death in the near future.

  “—don’t know why Lauren’s so worried.” After flopping face-first onto his queen bed, Alex propped himself on his elbows and began tapping on his phone. “I didn’t do anything particularly objectionable to the fan. I only suggested that if she didn’t have anything better to do with her time than insult total strangers, she should occupy said time by going and fucking herself. It’s not my fault she went straight to the tabloids, and it’s certainly not Lauren’s either. Ron and R.J. aren’t going to fire her over something as minor as that.”

  Marcus frowned. “What did the fan say to you?”

  “Not to me.” Alex’s finger stabbed at the screen with unwonted force. “To Lauren.”

  Ah. That explained things, at least somewhat.

  Lauren’s appearance could best be termed unconventional. She was short and round. Very short and very round, with comparatively skinny legs and bright eyes and sharp features and a near-constant frown.

  She reminded Marcus of a small, plump bird, honestly. A cute one. But he could see how strangers with ugliness inside might look at her and see only ugliness outside.

  “Don’t ask me what that fan”—it sounded like an epithet, spat that way in Alex’s most cutting tone—“said to her. It was vile and hurtful, no matter what Lauren claims. I don’t care if she’s used to hearing things like that. It’s not happening in my presence. Not if I can help it.”