Seven
“I’ll go second,” Tyler says as we stride back to the set, both earrings secured on my lobes. “To talk to the authorities. This scene is only going to need one more take,” he says with unwavering speed and composure. “I’m guessing they only have one interrogation room because it is very hard to get any privacy on a movie set. They probably made them set up in prop storage. But that means we’re going to have to take turns, and when they ask, you volunteer to go first.”
“Why?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. When I look over, there’s a faint smile on his lips. “What?” he asks when he catches me looking at him.
“You’re smirking, ” I say.
He lifts a brow. “Am I?”
“What is it? Why are you going second? Do you have some master plan to listen in on my conversation? Have you planted a bug in my earring? If I turn on you, are you going—”
“Are you always like this?”
I do a double take. “Like what?”
“So…” He squints up at the sky. “Antagonistic.”
“Antagonistic?”
“Distrustful.”
That makes me pause. I swallow the lump in my throat before it can solidify. “And you’re not?”
“I meant what I said earlier. I trust you,” he says, gaze dropping back down to mine, that faint smile returning.
“Tell me why you were smirking then.”
He sighs and rumples his hair, seemingly forgetting that he still has a movie to shoot. “You are a journalist, aren’t you? Always on.”
“I—”
“I was smirking because I was imagining your face if I told you why I think I should go second.”
My interest is piqued. “Tyler,” I say, more out of annoyance than anything.
But he halts as though I’ve said something much more damning than his name. When his body rotates to face me, I’m conscious of how close we’re standing, how the sunlight is making him look like he’s walking around with an Instagram filter slapped on. “Yes, Khin?” he asks, voice angelic.
I school my face into as stern of an expression as I can pull off. “Why do you want to go second?”
“Because from past experience —” He sighs and rolls his eyes. “People tend to be… excited. To talk to me. Clamoring, even.”
I snort. “God, you really think you’re the shit, don’t you?”
He rolls his eyes again. “See, I knew you’d react like that. But if we’re lucky, the police will rush through your questioning so that they can… talk to…” He trails off with a shrug.
I bark out a laugh. “Oh my god, you do think you’re the shit!”
With a third and final eye roll, he pivots and resumes walking. “Please, just… do it,” he says.
“Why does it matter if they rush through my questioning?”
He slows down his pace and stretches out the last few feet between us and the main entrance. “Because it would appear that one of us is slightly better at being under pressure than the other.”
Offended, I stop walking and scoff. “I’m having an off day —”
“And that’s okay,” he says, stopping, too. “But it means it’s better if I take the lead.” My scowl deepens and he adds with a chuckle, “Just for today. And then you can fight me on my next suggestion, whatever the hell it may be.”
He turns out to be right. Other than the questions that we’d prepared for—“It was the second day,” I’d explained, and although I wasn’t sure how much the two male detectives knew about the second day of your period, I’d hope that two adult men would know enough—they didn’t ask me much else. Of course, that could very well be because they didn’t have much to go off of (yet): no ID, no motive, not even a definitive time or cause of death. But it could also have had something to do with one of them asking, “How many selfies did Chief say we could each have again? Five?” before I’d even left the makeshift interrogation room (which was, yes, prop storage).
We had fallen way behind by the time Tyler was done with his interview, and, cursing under her breath, Yasmin rushed everyone through the rest of the schedule.
In a way, it was nice that the past six hours had been nonstop chaos. I didn’t have time to catch up with Tyler, who, as one of the stars and executive producers, had had exactly two ten-minute toilet breaks.
And, as though the pressure of a police investigation weren’t enough, my inbox had also been graced with yet another email from Clarissa, this one informing me that she was in NYC and had just had lunch with “Radhika and Samira” (after a hasty Google search, I’ve assumed she’s referring to Radhika Jones and Samira Nasr, the current US editors in chief of Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar, respectively) both of whom had been “salivating with envy” at the story, yet “a little surprised” that she’d assigned the piece to a “new” freelancer, but she had assured them that there was nothing “new” about the way I worked. Translation: This is your regularly scheduled reminder that my ass is on the line here, so do not fuck this up . The silver lining was that she didn’t mention anything about the police, which must mean she doesn’t know. The fewer people that know, the fewer lies I need to juggle, the better. It was also the kick I needed to remember that I’m not going to get a do-over on this story. I don’t get the same day of shooting twice, so I’d lowered my head, shut out the noise, and focused like the impeccable journalist I was— am .
And for the rest of the (very long) day, it felt like that was the only reason we were there: Tyler, to film this movie, and me, to write about it. No murder, no elaborate matching cover stories, no nothing.
And now, I’m slouched against the front of his trailer while waiting for him to change out of his costume when I see May leaving her trailer. She’s also changed back into the black linen romper in which she arrived this morning. I wave in a “catch you tomorrow” gesture, but, upon seeing me, she grins, puts up her hand, and bounces over.
“Hey! Where’s Ty?” she asks.
I nod at the vehicle behind me. “Still changing. Great shoot today, by the way!” I say, only then realizing that I don’t quite know all the technical filming terms yet. “You were fantastic! And that scene where you cut up your dress to crawl through the vents! You got it in one take!”
She laughs as she pulls her hair up into a high ponytail with a chic black velvet scrunchie. “That was a fun bit. Speaking of fun, today was a long one. Wanna join us for drinks?”
“Oh, were you guys going to—”
Just then, the trailer door opens, and Tyler steps down. He does a short double take at the sight of May. “I thought you’d be gone by now,” he says, joining us so we’re standing in a small triangle.
“I was inviting Khin to drinks with us!” May beams.
Tyler’s brows pinch. “We were getting drinks?”
“Ty, it’s like you read my mind!” May’s bottom lip juts out, and she slings one arm around his shoulder. “I’d love to get drinks with you! And I bet Khin would love to join us, too. We can go back to mine! I’ll make you an old-fashioned. Ty loves my old-fashioneds,” she explains to me. “What’s your favorite drink? My bartending skills are my secret superpower.”
“I—” I start, but don’t know how to finish. On the one hand, I would love to get drinks with May Diamond (and god knows I need a strong one tonight). On the other, I need to regroup with Tyler vis-à-vis the investigation.
Under her arm, Tyler’s shoulders shake with a short chuckle. “Can we take a rain check?”
May’s face scrunches into a pout, and when Tyler doesn’t relent after a beat, tweaks into a half-confused, half-annoyed expression. “Come oooon, I want to catch up after these wild first two days! A potential murder and a police investigation to kick off this movie? We need to talk about how we’re going to get rid of these bad vibes. Maybe we can go burn some sage.”
“I’m just exhausted today,” Tyler says with an apologetic shrug. “You know how I am with jet lag. I’m sorry. Next week? I promise I’ll get so wasted, I’ll fall asleep in the middle of the hallway again.”
May retrieves her arm and folds it over the other into a stubborn X, lips now pursed to one side. “Fine,” she mutters. “Khin? Wanna have a girls’ night?”
“Sorry.” I grimace. “I need to type up my notes.”
May rolls her eyes and gives a dramatic sigh. “Fine, fine, you people go home and be responsible and sleep and type up notes . I’ll see you both tomorrow,” she says and flashes us a lackluster peace sign before whirling away.
“I really like her,” I say under a stifled laugh.
When I look over, Tyler’s smiling and shaking his head at her receding figure. “Me too,” he says.
We don’t quite make the quick getaway I was hoping for. Tyler’s accosted a couple of times to sign some more autographs, record a few more “Happy birthday” and “Happy anniversary” videos, and (of course) he obliges.
Half an hour later, though, we’re alone in the car and on the way back to my place, and the reality of our predicament swallows me whole once more.
“I think I did okay back there. You?” His voice slices through my jumble of thoughts.
“What?” I ask, blinking.
“The police. They didn’t ask me anything difficult. Just routine stuff. How about you?”
“Good. I think I did pretty okay, too,” I say, and he nods.
I don’t know where we go from here. I do know that more information is going to come out eventually. Maybe it already has. Maybe while Tyler and May were securing the diplomats’ residence for the eighth time, somebody has figured out who that man is. Maybe they’ve found and cracked his phone, and now they’re triangulating cell tower histories of every crew member and—oh man, I do need to cool it with the SVU .
“You know what’s weird?” My question pierces the quietness.
From his position where his back is sunk deep into the seat, shoulders actually slouched for the first time since we met, Tyler turns his head. Even with a full face of makeup, he looks exhausted . It’s the mouth, I realize. People are always going on about how the eyes are the windows to the soul, but with Tyler, his mouth gives everything away. Right now, it’s sagging at the corners, lips chapped after hours of wiping and reapplying light lipstick. “What?” he asks.
“Wh-what?” I say. I’d gotten distracted with tracing the shape of his cupid’s bow.
“What’s weird?”
I make a vague gesture with my hands. “How did no one else see him? I thought at least one other person would’ve mentioned that they remembered him lurking around or something, but everyone seems to be completely taken by surprise. Which is bizarre because how did that guy hang around without a single person noticing him? I mean, you shook hands with every single person on set and yet even you didn’t see him? I know it was getting dark and it’s a huge set and everyone had first-day nerves—”
Tyler sits up. “What do you mean how did he hang around ? You saw him on set? Before the… incident?”
“No. But he knew my name and what I did, so—”
“What do you mean he knew your name?”
“He… said my name.” I frown down at the section of leather separating us. I don’t want to think about that night, but I need to get this right. “Yes.” I nod, flinching internally as the asshole’s rasp rings through my brain. “He called me Khin. And he called me a… journalist bitch.”
Tyler’s voice drops low. “And you’re sure you’d never met him before?”
“Never,” I confirm, to him and to myself.
“Khin.” I watch him inhale but not exhale. Instead, he starts rubbing the back of his neck. “I think we—”
Thud thud thud. We both jump in our seats at the knocks on the black glass partition in front of us. “Yes?” Tyler asks.
“Sorry to bother you,” Yan says as he lowers a few inches of glass. I notice for the first time that the car has slowed down. Like, really slowed down to the point where we might as well be parked. “But we have a situa—”
Our collective attention snaps to the screams that cut through the (supposedly) soundproof glass windows. We’re in front of the entrance to my apartment. Which is swarming with teenage girls like this is a zombie movie and they’re the zombies and this building is housing every single human left on this earth.
“What the—” I start.
“Fuck,” Tyler mutters. I’m not prepared for the fear in his eyes when he looks back at me. Fear and… something else. Something like… guilt? He confirms it when he says, “I’m so sorry. Someone must’ve trailed me here this morning. I didn’t mean…”
I don’t know how to respond to a situation like this (I never thought I would have to). But Tyler looks so miserable with guilt that I wave it off like it’s no big deal that my building looks like it’s the site of a one-night-only One Direction reunion.
“It’s not your fault. I’m more worried about you, ” I say, giving him my most empathetic smile. “They’re going to leave once they realize you don’t actually live here. But what about what might be happening at yours? Do you have enough security? Wait—” I say, realizing something for the first time. “Why don’t you have security? You do back in the States.”
Tyler gives a small shrug. “I didn’t want my family to feel weird when we went out. The staff in my building have all been informed on how to deal with this, but generally speaking, I didn’t think it’d ever get this bad.”
“You’re Tyler Tun,” I say.
He shrugs again like that means nothing to him. “Do you want security, though? Because I can—”
I shake my head frantically. Have a stranger trail me and be up in my business at all times? NDA or not, no thank you, sir. “I don’t think we should be actively hiring people to follow us around,” I murmur with a pointed raise of my brows.
“Oh. Right.”
“Sir?” Yan pipes up. “What, um… should we do?”
“We can leave,” I offer, ignoring the thrumming ache in my calves and my heels, a result of being on my feet for the better part of nine hours. “I can grab dinner at a restaurant and get a taxi back later.”
The truth is, I had planned on driving to the park after Tyler dropped me off to try to find my pen in the area around the lake. I know crawling around a park this late at night with a phone flashlight is not the smartest idea (especially given what transpired approximately twenty-four hours ago), but this is the only free time I have. Otherwise I’ll have to wait until my day off, which is four days away, and what if someone else finds the pen before Sunday?
“Absolutely not.” Tyler’s firm reply drags me back into the present. “Someone could’ve spotted you this morning and recognize you at the restaurant. Do you…” He searches my face. “Want to come back to mine? Just until this goes away. Yan can call the building staff to see what’s happening,” he adds. “Like you said, at some point, they’re going to figure out I don’t live here and they’ll leave.”
“Oh, I don’t—” I clear my throat. “I don’t think that would be… appropriate. Journalism ethics, appearances in case someone spots me, you know? It’s quite late already, and if someone happens to see me entering your place, then they might assume…”
“Shit, of course,” he says hurriedly. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Um.” He looks around the car. “Is there anywhere else you can shelter in place for a few hours? With someone you trust?”
I could argue again for the restaurant, but the protective crease between his brows tells me either he’s leaving me at a friend’s house, or we’re going to shelter in place in this car until this crowd disperses.
Two addresses spring to my mind, and, making a split-second decision, I choose the geographically closer of two evils. You home? I text after giving Yan directions.
My phone buzzes a minute later. About to make dinner. What’s up?
Look presentable is all I write back.