45. It was real now
IT WAS REAL NOW
P reston woke to the quiet weight of Spring’s body resting on his chest. That alone felt unfamiliar. He looked at her carefully, like sleep might change its mind and take her away.
Morning light spilled across the room, soft and gold, catching on Spring’s hair where it fanned across the pillow.
She was asleep in that loose, unguarded way that made his chest tighten.
For a second, he just watched her breathe, letting the weight of the previous night settle into something real.
The girl he fell in love with all those years ago was right next to him, still beautiful. Still Spring.
He slipped out of the bed to use the ensuite bathroom. As he returned, he heard the bedroom door swing open. “Hey, Spring, I?—”
Rae froze.
Preston froze.
He was standing there, clearly just rolled out of bed, clearly not expecting company, clearly very comfortable in his own skin.
Rae’s eyes dropped. Paused. Slowly lifted. “…Damn,” she said.
Preston cleared his throat. “Good morning, Rae.”
Rae didn’t move. “Uh, Spring, you fit all that in you?”
Spring groaned from the bed. “Rae, knock next time.”
Rae finally snapped out of it. “Girl, fuck knocking, do you need a wheelchair? But… noted.” She turned around to leave, then stopped and looked back at her friend. “I just wanna say… respect. Also, I see why you was acting brand new.”
Spring grabbed a pillow and threw it at her.
Preston laughed, ducking back into the bathroom, and reappeared a moment later with his boxers on – Spring having clearly tossed them to him.
Spring also got up and disappeared into the bathroom to find something wearable.
A few minutes later the two of them emerged into the lounge room, Preston pulling on a T-shirt, Spring fixing her hair with one hand and adjusting her sleeve with the other.
When they got downstairs, Rae had her headphones on, staring at her laptop screen, fingers flying across the keyboard like she’d been working the entire time, and intended to keep pretending she didn’t see a thing.
“Well,” Preston broke the silence, dropping into the chair across from her, “nice to see the professionalism around here hasn’t suffered.”
Rae finally glanced up. “No, it hasn’t,” she replied dryly. “Some of us came dressed for work.”
Spring groaned. “Please let it go.”
Rae smirked and goes back to typing.
Spring sat up, hair wild, eyes still soft. “Can you not narrate my life?”
“I literally can,” Rae said. “That’s the problem.”
Spring and Preston smirked in spite of themselves, easy and natural, like it wasn’t the first morning they’d ever shared, but one of many. Rae watches them without interrupting, then sighed dramatically. “Y’all are disgusting,” she exclaimed. “Cute, but disgusting. I’m jealous.”
Spring laughed. “Do you want one of his friends or something?”
Rae perked up instantly. “Oh does, sexy R secondly, we haven’t talked since high school. Third, I don’t need him for the documentary.”
“You do,” Spring interjected as she leaned on this shoulder.
“Even if I did – which I don’t – we don’t know if he’d agree to be on camera.”
Spring waved him off. “He’ll agree. Leave that to me.”
Preston smirked. “You don’t even know where he is.”
“I do,” she continued. “He’s a doctor now. Opened a private practice in Third Ward, right outside the medical center.”
Rae’s eyes lit up. “Perfect.”
Spring groaned. “You’re enjoying this too much.” She turned to Preston, who was in the midst of a sigh, and kissed him on the cheek. “I forgot how cute you are when you’re stressed. It’s going to be fine, Big Bird. Leave it to me.”
“Oh, so I’m Big Bird again, after last night” Preston asked, brushing a kiss against her temple.
Rae lifted her phone.
Spring noticed. “What are you doing?”
Rae grinned. “Recording.”
“For what?”
“For context ,” Rae said. “Y’all didn’t even know I was here. This is gold, whether we use it or not.”
Spring exhaled, then laughed, finally accepting what Rae had been telling her: that she was just as much a part of the documentary as he was. “Fine. Whatever. Just – be nice.”
Rae smiled behind the camera. “I just show the truth. I have a great boss who taught me that’s enough.”
Preston looked at Spring. Spring looked back.
And just like that, the day began – messy, warm, already carrying the weight of what’s coming next.
By the time they got to the studio, Spring’s phone wouldn’t stop vibrating.
She ignored it at first, letting it buzz in her bag like a distant warning. The building hummed with energy the second they stepped inside – too loud, too bright, like something shifted while they were asleep.
Mack spotted them and damn near levitated to them. “Superstar,” he shouted, sprinting across the floor. “Do you have any idea what you did last night?”
Preston blinked. “No, what’s going on?”
Mack laughed – wild, manic. “Man, you went viral. Again.”
Spring felt it in her chest before he even turned the screen around.
“ My chérie amour . Restaurant footage. Someone had a perfect angle,” Mack continued. “And then – because the internet is sick – your fans, the Colehearts, dug up the old clip from the same restaurant – you remember. You’re on fire right now, boy. We couldn’t put you out if we tried.”
Preston exhaled slowly. “You’re joking.”
“I wish.” Mack lowered his voice. “And they clocked her .”
Spring stiffened.
“Spring Greene,” Mack said carefully. “At the table, clear as day. No contracts signed yet, so technically?—”
“They could post it,” Preston finished.
Mack nodded. “And they did. ”
Spring finally checked her phone.
It was on fire. Social media notifications stacking faster than she could read them.
“IS THAT SPRING GREENE??”
“WAIT ARE THEY TOGETHER?”
“THIS FEELS LIKE A MOVIE”
“PUBLICITY STUNT OR REAL???”
“I KNEW IT WAS HER”
She felt dizzy.
Mack kept going, unable to contain himself. “Here’s the part where you sit down.”
They sat.
“I leveraged the momentum,” he said. “We’re selling tickets, baby. Toyota Center is sold out.”
Preston’s head snapped up. “Already?”
“Already. And not just that,” Mack grinned. “We squeezed an extra ten million out of the deal for an international leg of the tour. I’m talking Tokyo, London, Paris. This is worldwide, baby.”
Spring’s breath caught.
“But,” Mack added, serious now, “we have to sign today. Before this turns into speculation soup.”
Preston looked at Spring, and she realized something terrifying: what they found last night – quiet, fragile, theirs – had just collided with the rest of the world.
This was what it sounded like when a fault line cracked.
The internet was trying to label it. Package it. Decide whether it’s real.
She felt another buzz.
Julian.
She didn’t open it – didn’t need to. She already knew the tone – something sharp, performative, designed to remind her of a version of herself that felt a lifetime away.
Preston noticed her stillness. “You okay?” he asked softly.
She nodded. “I just didn’t think it would be… this fast.”
Mack chuckled nervously. “Nothing stays private when the world smells a story.”
Spring looked back down at her phone.
People asking if they were a couple.
If it was strategy.
If it was fake.
If it was love.
She lifted her head.
“Whatever we do now,” she said slowly, “it has to be intentional.”
Preston nodded and looked deeply in her eyes. “For me, it always was.”
And right there – in the middle of contracts, cameras, and noise – she understood the weight of what they had chosen.
They’d found something rare, and now they had to protect it while the rest of the world rushed in to witness it.
Mack’s voice broke through her thoughts. “I’m telling you, Ma, the numbers don’t lie.”
Talia was perched on the couch like she owned it – which, in a way, she did. Arms crossed, expression unimpressed. “Numbers lie all the time,” she quipped. “Men lie more.”
Mack laughed. “See? This is why I don’t bring you to meetings.”
“You brought me,” she shot back. “And now I’m staying.”
Rae was already set up, camera low, unobtrusive. Spring clocked it immediately – this wasn’t staged. Rae was working in that quiet way she does when she wanted truth to forget it was being observed.
Spring let Rae drive today – literally and figuratively. It felt right.
Spring arched a brow. “What happens now?”
“The single tested through the roof,” Mack said, practically vibrating. “Radio picked it up overnight. Multiple markets. This is about to be everywhere .”
Talia sighed. “He says that every time.”
“And every time I’m right,” Mack fired back. “Revised contracts are coming in today. Clean. Strong. This is huge.”
Right on cue, the door opened. Her dad stepped in.
Spring felt it immediately – not wrongness, exactly, but… tightness.
He looked polished, professional. “Hey, sweetheart.”
“Hey, Daddy.”
They hugged. It was genuine, comfortable. It almost made what came next harder.
“I’ve got the contracts,” he said. “But I was wondering, could we go somewhere private to sign?”
Mack nodded quickly. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”
Preston frowned. “Why? I’m just signing. We’re already here, and this is what the documentary is about. The real side of it.”
Rae’s camera didn’t move. Spring watched her father suspiciously.
He smiled. “Of course. I just think, given the scope, a quieter setting might be best. And appropriate.”
He started talking then, legalese.
And Spring felt it in her gut, because, when her dad did that – when he leant too hard into the technicalities – it wasn’t to clarify; it was to conceal.
She didn’t say anything. She took the contract instead, reading through it herself.
It was solid. Favorable. Nothing hidden. Nothing overtly wrong.
Which somehow made it more suspect.
She looked up at him. He avoided her eyes for half a second too long.
Rae caught it. So did Spring. But she handed the papers back calmly. “It’s fine.”
Preston nodded, still confused, but trusting her. “Okay, let’s do it.”
As signatures hit paper, the room exhaled, but Spring didn’t. Because whatever made her father want privacy wasn’t about the contract. It was about something else .
And she knew him well enough to recognize when he was protecting her… or protecting himself.
Rae cut the camera a moment later, casual as ever. Spring ushered her to the side hallway, leaning against a wall, tablet tucked under her arm like she was pretending to review footage when she was really replaying the scene in her head.
“Tell me I’m not crazy,” Spring said quietly.
Rae didn’t look up. “You’re not.”
Spring exhaled. “The contract was solid though. We do this for a living, and line for line it was clean. But something about how my dad moved?—”
“—was off,” Rae finished. “Yeah, I saw it too.”
They sat with that for a spell.
“Do we say something to Preston?” Spring asked.
Rae tilted her head. “Girl, that’s your man. Do you want to?”
Spring shook her head. “Not yet. I don’t even know what it is. I just know it wasn’t about the paperwork.”
Rae nodded. “Say less, I’m on it.”
Before Spring could respond, Preston walked up to them, sensing the mood. “On what?”
Spring glanced at Rae, then back at him. “We were just talking about the documentary.”
Rae backed her instantly. “Something feels… incomplete.”
Preston frowned. “Incomplete how?”
Spring took a breath. “It needs more history.”
He stiffened slightly. “We’ve covered the past.”
“No,” she said, gently but firmly. “We’ve covered your past. Not the whole story.”
Rae added, “There’s a missing thread. And he’s a doctor…” she began to smile as she spoke.
Preston knew where this was going before she said it. “Brian,” Spring says.
He shook his head. “We already talked about this.”
“Preston—”
“We don’t even talk,” he said. “Not since high school.”
“And that’s exactly why he matters,” Spring pressed. “You want me in this relationship and still professional? This is me doing that, and I have to be honest with you: this documentary needs him.”
Preston smiled. “So, we’re in a relationship?”
Rae chimed in. “I caught that too.”
“Ugh, don’t encourage him. Yes, we’re in a relationship, and you’re being just as stubborn as you were the last time we were in one. We need Brian.”
He rubbed his jaw, frustrated. “You’re asking me to reopen something I closed on purpose.”
Spring stepped closer to him. “I’m not asking you, I’m telling you, this needs to happen. You don’t have to fix anything. I’m asking you to tell the truth. The whole truth.”
A long pause, then Preston exhaled. “Fine”
Spring nodded. “See, that was easy.”
“You’re making it up to me tonight,” he grumbled. “Gotta go meet Short king.”
“Thanks, babe, I’ll set it up,” she confirmed.
He looked at her, searching for hesitation and finding none.
Rae moved with her camera. “This is good,” she said. “Trust me.”
Preston glanced between them, then shook his head with a half-smile. “Y’all are dangerous together.”
Spring met his eye. “Only when we need to be.”
And just like that, the line was crossed. Whatever Brian represented, whatever history was circling back, they were choosing to face it. Together.