Fan Service

Chapter 26

26

The trepidation Alex had felt about her friends finding out the truth hadn’t been enough.

Before, they’d been playfully outraged. With photographic evidence of her holding Devin Ashwood’s hand, they were sincerely, justifiably pissed.

Alex and Devin weren’t even the focus of the image that must have gone out as part of some kind of press wire for the charity basketball game. But in the corner, in focus, there they were on her phone screen. Alex in profile, Devin turned more toward whoever had taken the shot. Their faces pressed close, trying not to be overheard. There was inherent intimacy to the distance between their mouths. What was the rule—sixteen inches for strangers, twelve for friends, and six for lovers? What did they say when you could count the space with the length of your finger?

Nothing good, as it turned out.

Eliza: what the fuck…this feels gross, Law.

Cam: Nothing about that body language says ‘casual first time encounter’

Eliza: WELP I guess we know now why she’s been ignoring us

Cam: I never thought we’d fall in the intimacy hierarchy to Devin Ashwood

Eliza: …this means she’s been lying for a while, right?

Cam: I gotta put my phone down before I say something im gonna regret

Sitting on one of the white couches in Devin’s living room while he took a shower, Alex stared down at her phone screen and tried to find words.

She was too old for this. For sneaking around, lying about a guy. She felt seventeen again. Only, when she’d been seventeen and had nothing, no one, least of all Devin Ashwood, Eliza and Cam were the ones who held her up, held her together.

In high school, it didn’t matter that she got picked last in gym class, that she rode the bus all by herself. She’d always had friends at the tips of her fingers. Every horrifying embarrassment, every snub, Alex weathered because she knew somewhere out there in the world there were people who liked her. Now she’d gambled those same people for a fantasy that was slipping through her fingers.

Eliza: Did you tell him stuff we’ve said about him?

Alex’s pulse slowed to mud, sludgy and dirty. The Arcane Files fandom was the foundation of their friendship, an experience they’d all shared, cultivated, come into as equals.

While they had since moved on to other fandoms, had extended their friendship beyond the boundaries of media properties, TAF had been their foundation, their touchstone.

And now it was rubble.

Alex had broken more than Cam’s and Eliza’s trust. She’d broken the bond that had brought them together.

She was here in Devin’s Ashwood big cement house. She knew what it was like to kiss him, not just to imagine it. He’d held her. She’d made him laugh.

All of that was tarnished, tawdry, now too.

Her own naked motivations were no longer avoidable. Even as she’d told herself it could never happen, Alex had wanted what she and Devin had to become something real. She’d avoided her friends because she knew that if they found out, she’d have to choose: you couldn’t be both fangirl and girlfriend.

She’d tried to avoid picking between who she was and who she wanted to be and came up empty-handed. Devin’s behavior at the game showed her exactly where she stood—several rungs below Brian Dempsey and TAF . He still believed the showrunner had more to offer him than Alex did.

When her hero cut her down at that con all those years ago, she hadn’t wanted to tell her friends. She knew how much it hurt to lose your idea of Devin Ashwood, of Colby. But she’d done it, revealed her humiliation even though it went against every safeguard she’d tried to build around herself since her mom left, and Cam and Eliza let him go willingly. For her.

Hating Devin Ashwood bonded them together more than loving him. The way he’d insulted Alex had been personal, while admiration for him was anonymous, ubiquitous.

Ever since she’d turned seventeen, Alex had built herself around a single truth: Devin called her unlovable; Cam and Eliza proved him wrong.

Devin found her crying into one of his overly firm throw pillows.

“What the fuck?” He knelt down in front of her, his eyes flashing silver. “Who did this? Who hurt you?”

“I did.” Alex wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her dress. She wished she could place some of the blame on his shoulders, but she’d known from the jump that caring for him would get her clobbered.

“What?” Devin’s irises faded back to normal. He moved to sit beside her. “What do you mean? What happened?”

“My closest fandom friends found out I’ve been spending time with you. That I’ve been covering it up.”

“And that’s, what…embarrassing or something?” His frown deepened.

Alex couldn’t explain how getting close to him in real life meant leaving Eliza and Cam behind.

She shook her head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Devin flinched. “Why?” he bit out; the ego deflation he’d experienced at the game must have still been fresh in his mind. “Because I’m not some weirdo from the Internet?”

Her breath caught in her throat before a bitter laugh erupted, carved from the hollow space between Alex’s ribs.

She got to her feet and stared down at him, this man she’d once wanted to save her. “I was so desperate to erase the version of you that hurt me that I let myself believe you’d changed.”

Fool me twice.

It had taken—what?—a handful of weeks to convince herself Devin wasn’t the selfish asshole she’d assumed. But the man she’d seen over the last twenty-four hours was still exactly as vapid, selfish, and carelessly cruel as she’d always feared.

At the first glimpse of Brian Dempsey and the weights and measures of the Hollywood machine, he’d stopped trusting her. Alex had let herself fall for yet another version of Devin Ashwood that wasn’t real.

She had to get out of here.

“Alex, wait. Where are you going?” Devin scrambled to follow her as she collected her shoes and purse.

She didn’t know. Out. Anywhere.

Reaching into her pocket, she came up with the purple flyer from the fellow fan at the stadium. Alex almost smiled. After all this time, the archive was still saving her ass. She ordered a Lyft, punching in the party address with trembling hands.

“What’s going on?” Devin was at a total loss. “What did I do?”

Alex spun on her heel, her hands clenched into fists. “I lied to my closest friends about our relationship to protect you.” And you broke my heart anyway.

“That’s bullshit,” Devin said under his breath.

Alex reeled. “Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry, but are you really gonna stand there and pretend this is the first time you’ve kept people at arm’s length?” All of the frustration he’d carried on the car ride home from the stadium was back twofold. A shower couldn’t wash it away. “You said it yourself at the cabin, the people you’re closest to, they all get little pieces of you, but does anyone get the whole thing?”

“I…” Alex sputtered. She wasn’t used to him like this, serious, almost…betrayed. How could he play the wounded party here? When all she’d done since they met was try to help him?

Devin paced before his front door. She could see signs of the impending full moon in his stride, the hulking movements almost a prowl.

She fought a sudden onslaught of guilt. She’d promised to be here with him for this, the hardest part of his transformation. The final test.

Devin ground to a halt and faced her. “I can’t believe you’re chickening out right now.”

Alex tried to gather the reins of her anger, but they were slipping. She hadn’t expected him to know her this well, to care enough about her leaving to fight her like this.

“I’m not…” That wasn’t right. Was it?

“You do this to protect yourself.” Devin stared her down, his voice harsh and openly wounded. “Your mom took off when you were a kid, and now you think if you don’t give your whole heart away again, no one can hurt you when they leave.”

How dare he. That wasn’t—She didn’t—

“Think about it. Are you ever totally honest about what you want or how you feel? Why are you pushing me away right now? Why are you running?”

All this time she’d put Devin Ashwood under the microscope, he’d been doing the same to her.

It was searing to be seen.

“You’re mad at me.” Devin’s voice softened, so her surprise must have shown on her face. “I get it. So stay here and yell at me. I can take it. Just…don’t leave.”

Alex swallowed against a tight throat, helpless, caught.

“I can’t.” She stepped around him and reached for the doorknob.

Every animal had a self-preservation instinct, even humans.

“You were right all those years ago,” she said, not trusting herself to turn around and face him. “I probably am going to die alone.” She’d fulfilled her own fate, followed his words like a premonition. “But guess what?”

Alex took her first step out into the balmy LA night, away from Devin Ashwood for the last time.

“So are you.”