27. Heidi
HEIDI
Don’t panic.
Executive producers don’t panic. They manage. They triage. Except I’m pretty sure I’m not an executive producer anymore. I’m a social pariah.
Alright. Now it’s time to panic.
Why the hell did Max do that? He could have gone along with it and changed his mind later—given us time to stage a breakup before a wedding special was even mentioned.
But no. On live TV, he had to announce there was someone else.
I don’t know why Grace assumed it was me.
Maybe because it is…but that’s not the point.
I’m sitting in a bar called The Patriot.
It’s easily the worst place I’ve ever been.
The floors are sticky and it stinks of stale beer, but it was the closest place with a drink.
I’m still in my corporate clothes, feeling the grime of the barstool soak into the fabric.
But there’s no way I can stay sober right now.
I order a vodka and lemonade and down it. The citrus doesn’t even touch the taste of panic.
I turn to the bartender. He’s a big guy, mid-thirties, with a weary expression.
“Six shots of tequila, please,” I say.
He gives me two and a glass of water. I knock the shots back and take a sip of the water. My brain reflexively starts thinking about how to spin the narrative, before the reality hits. There is no edit. It was live.
On the TV above the bar, the program changes. The news comes on.
“…and breaking tonight, reality heartthrob Max Carter…”
My stomach drops. “Can you turn that off?”
The bartender hesitates. Instead of reaching for the remote, he looks at the screen.
The feed shifts into high-definition disaster. There I am. Frozen on set. Wide-eyed. Horrified. I look exactly like what I am: a woman watching her life catch fire in real-time.
Goodbye, dreams of documentaries. Goodbye to ever having a job again.
“Oh,” the bartender says, his voice dropping. “Shit.”
The screen flashes my name and my job title.
Then the footage rolls—me calling to cut the feed, Max stepping in to shield me, Grace biting him.
Then it shows Grace’s total meltdown. I didn’t see that coming.
Colette warned me, but I didn’t listen. Seeing Grace like that makes the bile rise in my throat.
I wanted the show to be a hit, but I didn’t want to destroy a person to get there.
The bartender finally grabs the remote and flips the screen to a sports recap.
My phone buzzes on the bar. Then again. And again.
I can practically see the subject lines—Urgent, Breach of Contract, What were you thinking?
I press my palm to my forehead and try to breathe. He slides another shot toward me.
“That’s the last one,” he says. “I’m not babysitting you.”
I don’t reply. I just drink it, welcoming the burn.
“Steal someone’s fiancé, what do you expect?” he asks, leaning over the bar.
“Very helpful.”
“Just saying.” He shrugs.
But I didn’t steal him. Max was never Grace’s to begin with. He wouldn’t have proposed at all if I hadn’t stepped in. I’m the only reason any of this happened. But it doesn’t matter. He’s right. I knew the risk. I knew the risk the entire time, and I took it anyway.
When he wanders off, I unlock my phone. I ignore the missed calls from Vivian and the hundreds of notifications. Instead, I scroll to my contacts and call Clara. She answers on the second ring.
“I need you to come get me,” I say.
I’m waiting out front when a battered white minivan screeches to the curb, hitting a pothole with a bone-jarring thud. I climb into the passenger seat. The smell of stale fries hits me immediately. I offer a weak wave to my nieces, Annalise, Kaylee and Mya, in the back.
“Who are you and what have you done with my sister?” Clara asks. She’s looking at me with the kind of blunt disappointment I usually reserve for her.
“You saw it then?” I ask.
“Everyone in the English-speaking world saw it,” Clara says. “Why didn’t you tell me you were dating Max Carter?”
“I didn’t know you even knew who he was.”
“I watch all your shows,” she says. “We’ve been watching this one together.” She gestures to backseat, the girls are staring at me like I just stepped out of their television.
“I didn’t think it was your thing.”
“This is just like you,” Clara says, pulling away from the curb. “You love playing the savior, but you’d rather die than admit you might have gotten something wrong. Stealing someone’s fiancé—”
“He wasn’t Grace’s fiancé,” I snap. “He was never going to end up with any of those women. And we’re serious. We’re engaged. Or we were…before he blew my career up.”
Clara’s eyes widen.
“God. That’s worse. It’s been six weeks,” she says. “Girls, look at your Aunt Heidi. This is a lesson in what not to do. If you barely know a man—”
“Are you really lecturing me about men with your track record?”
The words hang in the air.
“Sorry,” I say quickly, the fight draining out of me. “I didn’t mean that.”
I sink deeper into the seat. I’m supposed to be the older, sensible one, and letting Clara see me mess up like this has never really been part of the deal. Mostly because I don’t mess up. I don’t make stupid, reckless decisions.
“I think this is great, actually,” Clara says after a moment.
I look at her.
“Next time you try your holier-than-thou act, I have this,” she continues with a grin. “Oh, I forgot to pay a bill? At least I didn’t get engaged to the lead of my own show.”
I stare at her for a second. Then, for the first time in hours, I burst out laughing. Clara laughs too. Then I think I might cry. I sink down.
“Thanks for coming,” I say.
“Of course.”
I stare down at the cluttered footwell.
“I might need to stay with you for a while,” I admit quietly. “I’m not sure how long I can afford my apartment.”
“This literally just happened,” Clara says. “Can you be upset like a normal person for five minutes instead of planning your financial collapse?”
The truth is, I don’t want to think about what just happened. I don’t want to feel it. Focusing on the logistics are a lot easier.
“And of course you can stay,” Clara adds. “But it’ll have to be the couch.”
“Yeah,” I say.
We drive toward her house in silence, the girls whispering excitedly in the backseat about the possibility of meeting Max.
“I’ll tell you what,” Clara says after a moment. “Being on this side of the problem feels pretty good. I can see why you enjoy it.”
I give her a tight smile, then stare out the window and try not to think about what tomorrow is going to look like.