Chapter 8 #2
I send him one of those questioning emojis. The one with the monocle.
Jerkwad: You’re right. Extremely hot.
I’m holding back laughter now. We’re not being professional, and yet I’m too bored by this speech to care.
I’m about to text back when I see Bailey get up from her seat and walk toward the ballroom doors.
“Everything okay?” I ask when I catch up to her.
“I just need a quick bathroom break,” she says. She leans toward me. “I think my strapless bra has come undone.”
“Oh,” I say. “Better fix that.”
I walk with her to the bathroom, not because I’m some kind of security guard or babysitter but because I need a break from the ballroom. And the heavens must be shining down on me, because right outside the bathroom, there’s a small sofa.
I sigh as I take a seat, happy to be off my feet for even a moment. But I get longer than that. When fifteen minutes pass, I go to investigate.
“Bailey?” I ask, walking into the bathroom.
“Claire?” I hear her say from one of the stalls toward the back. “Oh, thank goodness. Can you help me? My dress is stuck.”
I walk over to the stall, and she opens it, holding her dress up with one hand. She quickly turns around, and I can see the zipper clearly stuck on some fabric. It takes a minute, but I’m able to get her all zipped up, and we head back to the ballroom.
“I didn’t bring my phone,” she says as we’re walking. “I thought I was going to be stuck in there forever.”
There’s such a realness about Bailey that’s hard to get used to. It’s so different from other A-listers I’ve met. Which is only a few, and always through Simone. You often hear people saying how down-to-earth someone famous is, but I’ve actually never felt like that phrase fit until now.
We’re joking and laughing about what might have happened if I hadn’t shown up—how she would have had to resort to asking hotel staff to help or just walk into the gala half dressed—when Bailey stops, her smile falling.
I look up to see River and Luke standing just a few feet away. They’re close together and talking in hushed tones, River’s hands in his pockets.
River sees us first and stops talking mid-sentence, and then Luke looks over in our direction.
Crap. All our work tonight can’t be unraveled by one accidental meeting.
The look on Bailey’s face right now would be worth a mint if someone got a photo. She looks devastated—completely unguarded, every careful thing she’s held together all night suddenly gone. River is better at hiding it, but his posture has gone rigid, and his mouth is pulled into a tight line.
I glance around for onlookers, but the area is empty of anyone but us. I say a prayer to the PR gods who saved us from disaster. At least so far. The longer we stand here, the greater the chance someone will snag a picture and leak it.
It’s time to go.
Luke must have had the same thought because he grabs River by the arm and directs him away from us, while I put a hand on Bailey’s back and walk her toward the ballroom.
She looks like she’s seen a ghost when she takes her seat. I watch her from my spot against the wall for the rest of the evening—she smiles when spoken to, nods at the right times, but she’s not there. She checked out the moment she saw him.
All I can do is pray no one got a picture.
Fortunately, no pictures of them together were leaked.
Unfortunately, it would have been better if one had been, because by midmorning the next day, the fans are losing their collective minds.
Someone—probably a member of the waitstaff—gave an anonymous interview about how Bailey and River spent the entire night avoiding each other.
They had clocked everything from them arriving at different times to Bailey hiding in the greenroom while River drank cocktails, to the two of them entering the ballroom at separate times and sitting across the room from each other.
There are lots of opinions, but the most dangerous is from the fans who are questioning how Bailey and River are going to film together when they can hardly be in the same room.
“I don’t know, guys, I think the future of this show is in trouble. If they can’t even stand on the same carpet, how are they going to film together? Let me know what you think in the comments.” I feel my blood boil as I watch You Oughta Know do a full breakdown.
Except her thoughts are valid. Watching Bailey and River frozen in front of each other also had me wondering how this is all going to work. And we have FableCon coming up in ten days, where they will, in fact, have to be in the same room, and on the same panel, even.
With the uproar from the fandom, it should be no surprise that a message from Victoria Chen, the head of programming at Silverline Studios, shows up in my email right before lunch.
And yet, I am surprised.
The email basically says that they are monitoring the situation online and would like to know our next steps. The message was technically sent to Simone—something I should probably fix—and also cc’d Luke.
What are our next steps? I have no idea. Which is why I do what I do next: I call Jerkwad.
“Archie,” he says, answering after one ring.
“We need a plan.” I get right to the point.
“Right,” he draws out the word. “Should we have them post something simultaneously on social media about how they are both focused on the show?”
“I think that’s too obvious. It’ll look like coordinated damage control,” I say.
“True,” he replies.
There’s silence on the line while we both think.
“What about leaking something positive to a friendly gossip account,” I say when I finally think of something. “Like a source close to both parties confirming the evening was amicable and that they spoke briefly and there was no drama.”
“But they didn’t speak,” Luke says. “If anyone who was there contradicts it, then that’s a whole new problem. We can’t lie about something a bunch of people might have witnessed.”
I let out a frustrated breath because he’s right, and I find that annoying for many reasons. “That makes sense,” I acquiesce.
I chew on a thumbnail, my mind spinning.
“Maybe we shouldn’t do anything and just let it die,” Luke says.
“Victoria Chen just emailed,” I remind him. “We can’t do nothing. Besides, it’s Wednesday. Things die on Friday night, not midweek.”
“Yeah. That’s true,” he says.
“I think we just have to go the boring route,” I say.
“A statement,” he says flatly, knowing exactly where I was going. “But it can’t be from them—otherwise it’s too coordinated.”
“Which is why it will come from us,” I say.
“From us?” he asks, teasing in his tone, and I brace myself for whatever he’s going to say next. “Are we coming out as a couple? You could just ask, you know. You don’t have to be so sneaky.”
“Please shut up,” I say, grateful he can’t see me fighting a smile, because I still hate him, obviously.
“What do we say, exactly?” he asks, back to business.
“I’ll draft it. Something about how they both remain committed to season four and to the fans who have supported this show from the beginning.”
“It’s not going to satisfy the fans,” Luke says.
“It’s not supposed to,” I tell him. “It’s supposed to satisfy the studio. The fans will move on when something more interesting comes along.”
“That’s some very impressive thinking on your toes, Arch.”
I feel heat bloom in my belly at his words, and I tamp it down because I don’t want to feel good about anything Luke Wilder—the client-stealing backstabber—says to me. And yet . . . I do.
We hang up, and I get to work on the statement and hope it will be enough.