Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 112961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
The entire time he walks across the stage toward me, his gaze is fixed on mine.
He sits down and smiles over at me. “Hi.”
His long, muscular thigh is pressed along mine, and not to be dramatic, but it is the most erotic sensation of my entire life.
“Hi, yourself,” I say, plummeting deeper into this intense eye-contact thing we’re doing. “I didn’t know we got to embarrass you on live television.”
Connor’s green eyes twinkle. “I had to give you one last go of it before the season ended.”
Lanelle cuts in. “This is the chemistry we’re talking about,” she says, gesturing to us. “Fizzy, I heard that the only reason Connor did the confessionals was because you put it in the contract?”
“In a sense,” I say, still smiling at him. “On our first day of filming, I told him I’d walk if he didn’t do it.”
Lanelle frowns dramatically. “That’s pretty extreme.”
“It’s also a lie,” Connor says, laughing. “She’s only saying that so she looks tough.”
“Let me have this!” I playfully shove him, and the audience breaks out into laughter. “He never lets me get away with anything.”
“In all sincerity, the lesson here is for me to never doubt Fizzy,” Connor says, and the audience Awwwwws.
“But listen,” Lanelle says. “The two of you really had an amazing connection on-screen.”
Unease thrums beneath my skin. I don’t want her to put Connor on the spot like this. “A corpse would have chemistry with this man, Lanelle. Be serious.”
The Connor fangirls in the audience scream.
“No, no, this is something special. Take a look.” She gestures to the screen, where a montage of photos begins and takes my breath away: Connor and me on set, huddled around a monitor; the two of us side by side at the café that first week, him holding his iced coffee for me, letting me drink from his straw. One where I’m feeding him a bite of pasta at a crew lunch break; another where I’m standing behind him making a screwball face and bunny ears while Connor and Rory stare at something on a clipboard.
I look over at him, wondering what the hell this is, what is going on, but he’s smiling giddily up at the screen and doesn’t turn at the pressure of my attention on his face.
Then the screen cuts to a photo we asked a passerby to take of us at the Broad—
My heart army-crawls up my throat, seeking emotional cover.
—then a selfie at The Rocky Horror Picture Show, then to me screaming as I dangle from a harness at the climbing gym and Connor laughs his ass off with his two feet planted safely on the floor. There’s a photo of the day we each tried to eat tacos on set in one bite (he won), and another from when he lifted me upside down and carried me to the confessional trailer because I was being too chatty with Liz and Brenna. There’s a moment I don’t even remember where I’m watching footage from the day’s shoot and Connor is behind me, both hands on my shoulders. When the slideshow cuts to an image of the two of us with Juno and Stevie just before the Wonderland concert started, the crowd’s cheering takes on a different tenor. Reality is setting in for them—and for me.
They’re watching us fall in love.
The girls’ faces aren’t blurred out, meaning Nat, Jess, and River had to have given permission for this to be shown, and I feel my shock spread into a canyon of confusion inside me. What’s happening? I look out into the audience, searching for where I know they’ll be, right up front, but it’s a mass of darkness. My pulse is gunfire in my throat, relentless.
“A real friendship,” Lanelle says as the screen stills on a photo of me laughing hysterically in Balboa Park and, just to the side, Connor gazing at me with unmasked adoration. “Some fans even thought the real love story was right here.”
The audience bursts into screaming cheers. A lone woman’s voice rises out of the dark theater, “Kiss her, Daddy Prince!”
I turn to look at Connor, who slowly turns to meet my gaze.
Lanelle asks, “Do you know how many fans the two of you have online?”
It takes a beat before I realize she’s asking me. I break my gaze from his, turning in slow motion back to Lanelle, shaking my head. My cranium weighs seven thousand pounds. “I’m not supposed to track the show’s activity online, and frankly it was a good excuse not to go on Twitter at all.” A ripple of amusement spreads through the room.
“Connor? What did you make of all of this?”
“Well, obviously I didn’t plan to be in front of the camera.” He swipes a hand over the top of his soft hair. “I admit it’s not where I’m most comfortable.”