26. Duncan
DUNCAN
Millie's apartment smells like garlic and butter when I let myself in with the key she gave me last week, which felt significant at the time and still does every time I use it instead of knocking.
She's in the kitchen wearing leggings and an oversized sweater that keeps sliding off one shoulder, her hair pulled up in a messy knot that defies several laws of physics.
There's a wooden spoon in her hand and something simmering on the stove that's making my mouth water despite the fact I ate lunch three hours ago.
"Hey," she says without turning around. "There's wine in the fridge if you want it."
I grab two glasses from the cabinet she reorganized last month so I'd actually be able to find things, pour us both a generous amount of red because tonight feels like a red wine evening, and bring one to her at the stove.
She takes it without looking up from whatever she's stirring, which appears to be some kind of pasta situation with more garlic than any reasonable recipe would call for.
"What are we making?" I ask.
"Aglio e olio. Mama's recipe, except she'd be horrified by how much parmesan I'm about to put in this because she's a purist and I'm not." She tastes it from the spoon, makes a face, adds more salt. "It'll be ready in ten minutes. Can you set the table?"
I move around her kitchen with the familiarity of someone who's spent enough nights here that I know which drawer holds the forks and which cabinet has the plates that don't match but somehow work together anyway.
She watches me out of the corner of her eye while pretending not to, and when I catch her looking she doesn't even have the grace to pretend she wasn't.
"What?" I ask.
"Nothing. Just weird seeing you be domestic."
"I can be domestic."
"You can be domestic now. Six months ago you probably had someone doing all this for you." She drains the pasta in a colander over the sink, steam rising in a cloud that makes her hair frizz slightly at the temples. "I'm not judging. Just observing."
She's right, which is annoying because I'd like to argue the point but can't. Six months ago I had a housekeeper who came three times a week, a meal service that delivered pre-portioned ingredients, and absolutely zero interest in learning how to properly set a table because what was the point when I ate ninety percent of my meals at restaurants or standing over the sink.
Now I'm folding napkins next to plates in Millie Harris's apartment on a Tuesday night and it feels more significant than closing any deal I've worked on in the past year.
We eat at her small kitchen table with our knees bumping underneath because the thing is barely big enough for two people. The pasta is good, better than good actually, and I tell her so. She smiles in a way that suggests she already knew but likes hearing it anyway.
"Mama called today," she says around a mouthful of noodles. "Asked if you're coming to dinner on Sunday."
"Do you want me to?"
"Would I be telling you about it if I didn't?" She twirls more pasta around her fork. "Also she specifically said to tell you she's making that chicken thing you liked last time, so I think you're officially her favorite now."
"I'm honored."
"You should be. She doesn't make that for just anyone."
We finish dinner and move to the couch with the rest of the wine because neither of us feels like cleaning up yet and the dishes can wait.
Millie curls into my side with her feet tucked under her, and I wrap an arm around her shoulders in a way that's become automatic over the past few weeks.
On TV there's some reality show about people renovating houses in the Mediterranean that she's been obsessed with lately, but neither of us is really watching.
"I saw the Variety interview," I say during a commercial break. "The one where you talked about the contract."
She tenses slightly against me. "And?"
"And I thought you handled it perfectly. Honest without being defensive, clear about what happened without making excuses." I press a kiss to the top of her head because I can tell she's waiting for the other shoe to drop. "I'm proud of you."
"You keep saying that."
"Because I keep meaning it."
She's quiet for a moment, her fingers tracing absent patterns on my chest through my shirt. "Do you ever think about what would've happened if we'd just told the truth from the beginning? If we'd admitted the arrangement was fake before someone else exposed it?"
"All the time. But I don't know if it would've been better or worse." I shift so I can see her face properly. "The leak was messy and public and humiliating for both of us. But it also forced us to stop performing and actually deal with what this is, which I'm not sure we would've done on our own."
"That's annoyingly insightful."
"I have my moments."
Her phone buzzes on the coffee table where she left it face-down, which is her signal that she doesn't want to look at it but also can't completely ignore it. She reaches for it reluctantly, checks the screen, and her entire body goes rigid in a way that makes my stomach drop.
"What is it?" I ask.
She doesn't answer, just hands me the phone. On the screen is a Twitter thread from Janie Torres, posted fifteen minutes ago, already sitting at fifty thousand likes and climbing.
"Interesting how some people build entire Oscar campaigns on manufactured relationships while others just focus on their work. Good luck to all the nominees—may the best actress win!"
Below it are three more tweets in the same vein, each one more pointed than the last. References to authenticity and integrity and letting your craft speak for itself, all phrased in a way that's technically not about Millie but obviously is.
The replies are a dumpster fire of people defending Janie, attacking Millie, rehashing the contract leak with fresh outrage.
I hand the phone back and watch Millie read through the thread again, her jaw getting tighter with each tweet. Her hand is clenched around the phone hard enough that I'm mildly concerned she's going to crack the screen.
"Ignore it," I say. "She's being petty because she knows you're a threat. The best thing you can do is not engage."
"Not engaging makes me look weak. Like I'm letting her walk all over me."
"Engaging makes you look defensive. Like you're proving her point about this being about drama instead of your work.
" I take the phone from her hand and set it face-down on the coffee table again, out of reach.
"Millie, you're better than this. You're better than getting into a Twitter fight with someone who's desperate for relevance. "
She pulls away from me slightly, creating distance that feels deliberate. "You don't get it."
"Then explain it to me."
"Janie has been trying to destroy my career for years.
Not because I did anything to her, but because she sees me as competition and she can't handle the fact that maybe, just maybe, I'm actually better than she is.
" Her voice is rising now, anger bleeding through in a way I've learned means she's been holding this in for too long.
"And now she's using the contract leak as ammunition, acting like I'm some kind of fraud who manipulated my way into a nomination while she's the pure artist who did everything right. "
"So prove her wrong by winning. On your work, not by engaging with her bullshit on social media."
"That's easy for you to say. Your career isn't on the line every time someone decides to question your credibility."
The words land like a slap. Not because they're unfair—they're not—but because they highlight the fundamental difference between what this scandal means for each of us.
My reputation took a hit, sure, but I'm a white man with family money and enough business success that one leaked tape and a messy fake marriage barely registers long-term.
For Millie, a Black woman who's had to fight for every opportunity, this kind of public scrutiny could be career-ending if the narrative goes the wrong way.
"You're right," I murmur. "I'm sorry. That was dismissive."
She looks at me sharply, like she was prepared for an argument and now doesn't know what to do with an apology. "Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Agree with me just to avoid a fight. If you think I'm wrong, say so."
"I don't think you're wrong about any of it.
Janie is being a petty, vindictive asshole and you have every right to be furious.
" I reach for her hand and she lets me take it, though her fingers stay tense in mine.
"But I also think responding publicly is exactly what she wants.
She's baiting you into a fight because if you engage, it becomes a story about drama between two nominees instead of a story about your actual work. "
Millie is quiet for a long moment, staring at our joined hands. "I hate that you're probably right."
"I'm definitely right. But I'll pretend there was doubt if it makes you feel better."
She almost smiles at that, the tension in her shoulders easing slightly. "What would you do? If you were in my position?"
"Honestly? I'd probably respond anyway because I'm just as bad at letting things go." I squeeze her hand. "But the difference is I can afford to make that mistake. You can't. Not right now, not with the ceremony this close."
She leans back against me, tucking herself into my side again. On TV the Mediterranean house renovation show has returned from commercial and someone is arguing about tile choices in rapid Italian that the subtitles can barely keep up with.
"Tell me about high school," she says suddenly.
I blink at the abrupt subject change. "What about it?"
"I want to know what you were thinking back then.
When you were being cruel to me, when you wrote that stupid yearbook quote, all of it.
" She shifts so she can see my face. "I've been trying to reconcile the person you were with the person you are now, and sometimes the gap feels too big to make sense. "
This is dangerous territory. Not because I don't want to talk about it—I do, I've been waiting for her to ask—but because explaining who I was at seventeen means admitting things I'm still not proud of even after years of therapy and actively trying to be better.
"I was an asshole," I say carefully. "Insecure, desperate to prove I was worth something to people who didn't actually care about me, and taking that desperation out on anyone I perceived as competition or a threat."
"I was a threat to you?"
"You were talented in a way I couldn't even comprehend.
I saw you perform in that spring production junior year, the one where you played Juliet, and I remember sitting in the auditorium thinking you were going to be famous someday while I was going to end up exactly like my father, successful and miserable and completely hollow inside.
" I run my free hand through my hair, a nervous habit I've never managed to break.
"So instead of sitting with that realization and maybe dealing with my own shit, I decided to diminish you.
Make you feel small so I didn't have to feel inadequate. "
"That's what the yearbook quote was about?"
"That and the fact I genuinely didn't think you'd make it.
Not because you weren't talented—you obviously were—but because I'd convinced myself that talent didn't matter as much as connections or luck or whatever other excuse I needed to believe so I didn't have to acknowledge my own fear of failure.
" I look at her directly now, making sure she can see I mean this.
"I was wrong. About you, about what matters, about basically everything. "
She's quiet for a long moment, processing. "Do you remember what you said to me the last day of senior year?"
I search my memory and come up blank. "No. What did I say?"
"You told me I should have a backup plan because acting wasn't going to work out." Her voice is steady but I can hear the old wound underneath it. "You said it in front of three other people, like you were doing me a favor by being realistic."
I close my eyes because I do remember now, vaguely, the conversation happening in the parking lot after graduation rehearsal.
I'd been holding my acceptance letter to my top choice university, feeling superior and certain about my future in a way that only eighteen-year-olds who've never actually failed at anything can feel.
And I'd looked at Millie Harris, and thought I was helping by telling her the truth.
Except it wasn't the truth. It was my fear projected onto her because watching her chase something uncertain made me uncomfortably aware of how risk-averse I'd become.
"I'm sorry," I say, and the words feel inadequate but they're all I have.
"I can't take back what I said or undo the damage it caused.
But I need you to know that watching you succeed, watching you become exactly who you said you'd be despite everyone including me telling you it was impossible, is one of the most humbling experiences of my life. "
"You're not the same person you were then," she says quietly. "I can see that now. But sometimes when things get hard, when people like Janie come after me the way you used to, I wonder if maybe you were right back then and I just got lucky."
"You didn't get lucky. You worked harder than anyone else and you're brilliant and you earned every single thing you have.
" I cup her face in my hands, making sure she's looking at me when I say this next part.
"And anyone who tries to tell you otherwise, including the version of me that existed in high school, is wrong. "
She kisses me then, sudden and fierce, her hands fisting in my shirt to pull me closer. When we break apart we're both breathing hard and her eyes are glassy in a way that suggests she's fighting tears.
"Thank you," she whispers.
"For what?"
"For not being that person anymore. For actually changing instead of just performing growth." She rests her forehead against mine. "And for showing up even when it would've been easier to walk away."
I smile. "I'm never walking away from you."