Chapter 30
THIRTY
Travis
“He wanted you to play what?” I asked.
Katie poked at her martini with the swizzle stick, then took a deep swig. We were sitting in the bar of the hotel she’d left, which had taken her back. They had given us a secluded, shadowed table in a corner. We were both too worn out to go out on the town, and besides, we needed to talk. I had taken a shower and changed, so at least I wasn’t airplane-grimy for this conversation.
“You heard me,” Katie said. Her cheeks were flushed, partly from the martini and partly from outrage. Wisps of her hair were falling out of the hairdo she’d made when she twisted it back off her face. She looked wildly beautiful, untouchable, unstoppable, and she had no idea.
I took a sip of my wine. “He wanted you to play dead.”
“And naked,” Katie added. “Don’t forget that.”
I cleared my throat. I looked around the room. I ran a hand through my hair. I cleared my throat again.
“Travis, you’re a terrible actor. I can tell you’re trying not to laugh.”
“Um.” I winced. “I’m sorry. But it’s at least a little bit funny?” I held my thumb and finger an inch apart. “A tiny bit? Enraging. But funny.”
“I turned down Edgar Pinsent after chasing him for months.” Katie looked down into her drink. “It felt so right at the time, but is my career over? He was truly offering me the role. Am I the asshole?”
“Katie,” I said, “you are so, so much better than that. On your lowest day, you’re better than that. It was a dick offer. From a dick.”
She stirred her drink again. “I haven’t had the guts to call Stella. Will she fire me?”
“Stella will fly here to put the heel of her stiletto in Edgar Pinsent’s eye for suggesting her client lose twenty-five pounds and give up three months to be in one shot as a dead body. Then she’ll send you five more scripts and tell you to pick one.”
I watched her shoulders go down, not entirely but enough. “I was so mad,” she said after a moment of silence. “So mad. I worked so hard and did so much, and when I finally got there, he really did look at me like a piece of meat. Like I didn’t matter at all. When he told me to break up with you to get the role, I knew I couldn’t do it.”
“Wait.” I didn’t think I had heard her right. “He told you what?”
“He said I had to break up with you to get the role.” She made a face. “ Get rid of him are the words he used. Like he had a right to run my personal life. God, it was infuriating.”
“Hold on.” I held up a hand, slow on the uptake. “You’re saying that after everything we did to get his attention, it not only didn’t work, but it had the opposite effect? Being with me lost you the role?”
“In a way of speaking.” Katie put her forehead in her hands. “I’m so sorry, Travis. I dragged you into this. It was all my stupid idea from the beginning. I owe you the biggest apology. I feel awful.”
I was barely listening as I stared at her in amazement. I said, “This is the best news I’ve heard since—well, yesterday.”
She lifted her head. “What do you mean? You aren’t mad?”
I stared at her, feeling weight I hadn’t known I was carrying lift off my shoulders. I suddenly felt light.
Katie and I didn’t have to date for Edgar Pinsent anymore. We didn’t have to date for Instagram or KatieWatch. We didn’t have to date for her career or mine. We could date because we wanted to.
If she wanted to.
“Katie,” I said, “will you be my girlfriend?”
She gaped at me. “I thought I was your girlfriend.”
“You were. You are. But now you can be my real girlfriend all the time, not as a script. So I’m asking—the real me asking the real you. Will you be my girlfriend?”
I watched her expressive face move through its emotions. She frowned, her eyebrows went down, and then she sat up straighter. “We could be in a real relationship? We could just do that?”
“Yeah.” I took her hand across the table and squeezed it. “Let me make my case before you decide.”
“Travis—”
“Wait.” I held up my hand. This was my chance, I could feel it. I could put everything on the line right now. If not now, when?
She might say no, but fuck it. I would never know if I didn’t take the risk.
“I have news, too,” I told her. “I have a new lawyer, and there’s a bunch of complicated legal shit, but my lawsuits are going to work out in my favor in a big way. There’s going to be a settlement, and I’ll get a lot of money. The album is doing great, and I just opened for the Road Kings. You don’t have to say yes because you feel bad for me, like I’m a stray dog. You don’t need to resurrect my career anymore. You already have.”
Katie was silent, staring at me in shock.
I continued, jumping all the way in. “So I was thinking that while you were in Budapest—I thought you were going to Budapest—I would buy a house. Something we both want, wherever you want. We make a home base. And when you got back from the shoot, you’d have somewhere to come home to. With me. I know that’s crazy.” She tried to protest, but I kept going, taking my shot. “It’s impulsive, but you don’t like your apartment anyway, so why don’t we give it a try? We’re both so busy, but we’d see each other more if we lived together. I wanted to ask you if you’d do it—for real, but it didn’t seem like something to talk about over the phone from London. So I got on a flight.” I shook my head. “It’s a big deal, I know, and you probably want to think about it or let me down easy, but I wanted?—”
“Yes,” she said.
The air left my lungs. “Yes?”
“Yes,” she said again, and then a third time, “Yes, Travis. Yes, I want to do that, for real. It sounds amazing.” She smiled. “Except I’m not going to Budapest, so we can house hunt together.”
I blinked hard. “Katie, I love you,” I said. “You’ve just made my fucking life.”
“I love you, too,” she said, and when tears rolled down her cheeks, she grabbed a napkin and wiped at them. “Oh, shit. I make this look so good when I’m on set.”
I stared at her, unable for a moment to believe that she was actually my girlfriend. This was happening. Even though we’d dated, even though we’d done—well, a lot. This was real in a different way. In the best way.
“What about your work?” I asked her as she put her napkin down. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do? Will you go back to romcoms or do something else?”
“Oh, I’ve thought about it,” she said, her eyes lighting with righteous anger. “I’m going to make romcoms. I already have one in mind.”
“You do?”
“Yes. My own.”
I sat up. “You mean Loser Academy ?”
Katie nodded. “I’m going to finish it, and then I’m going to get it made. I’m going to produce it. I might even direct it, too. I’ve spent years on set with directors. If they can learn how to do it, then so can I.” She gave me a wicked smile. “I’ve decided I don’t want to work with Edgar Pinsent. I want to be Edgar Pinsent. But unlike him, I get to wake up with you every morning.” She took my hand. “Travis, it isn’t Edgar Pinsent who makes me happy, makes me giddy, makes me excited to get out of bed in the morning. It isn’t him who makes me look forward to what’s next. It never has been. I know that now. It’s all you. Only you.”
I leaned across the table and kissed her, and then I whispered in her ear.
“Crush it, Katie,” I told her. “I want to watch.”