Maximoff nodded slowly. “I have to think about it.”
“I knew you would,” Charlie said into a laugh.
“Did you really do it for me?” Maximoff wondered.
Charlie paused for a moment. “Yes and no.” He shrugged. “I hated Ernest, and I wanted him gone. But also…the company is yours. You should have never been fired in the first place, and it would have been a tragedy not to course correct.”
Maximoff hugged him, and they kept hugging for a long beat. Farrow and I shared an eased look because our clients were at peace with each other. Can’t beat love, in all forms, all kinds—and after a big dose of drama, all I want to do is surround myself in that feel-good, can’t sleep, gotta keep my ass awake to sing the night away, kind of love.
In the garden, I watch Charlie study the chess board. It’s those soft moments people don’t see. The ones I cherish from Charlie. It’s why I trust he’ll find his way.
He defends his king with ease in two simple moves. His eyes return to me. “I’m fine with being on We Are Calloway more often. But the offer to film me traveling for a personal videography project still stands,” Charlie tells me. “I know he probably won’t take it because he wants a network deal. But it’s on the table.”
I don’t ask whether it’s something he really wants for himself or if he’s just trying to help my work schedule overlap with Jack’s.
It doesn’t matter because I doubt Jack would agree to it.
“I’ll let him know,” I say. “There’s one more thing. I have an idea, but I might need your help.” There’s something I need to do for Jack. Like all the other options, he might not take it. But I won’t stop myself from at least trying to patch-up the holes in his boat of dreams and right it back to shore.
“I’m listening.” Charlie moves his queen and it’s staring down my king. “Checkmate,” he says.
I’m not even that mad about it. Honestly, I love playing chess against Charlie.
He’s the only person who’s ever been able to beat me.
43
JACK HIGHLAND
“I burned it.”
Oscar blinks. “Come again?”
“I burned it, Os,” I repeat in a whisper. “Like it’s currently a pile of ash in a trashcan at my office.” The curtains haven’t been drawn for the ballet yet, but we’re still sitting in Charlie’s boxed seat. He pretends not to listen one row below us.
“All of it?” Oscar asks, studying my face.
All the days we spent together in Philly, New York, California, France, Greenland, Austria. It’s charred to a crisp. That was the hardest part. Knowing that I was burning some of our memories.
But I couldn’t store the footage if I’m not filming Born into Fame anymore. It’s not safe to keep any video clips of Charlie when someone could get ahold of them. And that person might not have the same feelings or intentions as me.
“I didn’t burn all of it,” I whisper, being truthful. “I kept some of the footage where Charlie wasn’t present.” I smile at him.
He understands. “You kept the footage of us.”
“Yeah.”
Oscar grins, but his lips falter. “You’re alright with ending this?”
I’ve learned a lot about Charlie and myself. I’ve met my limits on what I’m willing to do, and it’s right here. I can’t produce a show that’s centered around someone who’s self-destructive like him, who’s too apathetic about his life being seen.
I’m ending the pilot. Ending the idea of creating my own show around him.
“It’s not the one,” I tell Oscar. “And it already gave me what I wanted. Just not what I expected.”
He leans in and steals a kiss, one that melts us against each other, and we pull back as the curtains begin to rise. His hand stays in mine.
My chest rises, and I smile out at the performance of Romeo & Juliet. Barely watching, though. A strong sense of anticipation rolls through me. I can’t stop visualizing how we ended up here.
How I fell in love with Oscar Highland-Oliveira.
Like someone hit play on the video of our lives. We’re all over the fucking place. A big tortured slow-burn as I flirted my way into his heart and missed opportunity after opportunity to seize what I desired.
How we married in one drunken night.
How the annulment still lies on the metaphorical table between us.
In my head, it’s already burned in the trash with Charlie’s footage. There is no future where I’m not married to this man.
But I haven’t articulated this to Oscar, and my pulse speeds even when he peeks over at me in the ballet. I use one of those times to whisper, “I figured it out.”
His eyes rest on mine for longer.
“I’m pansexual,” I breathe, knowing this has been what I’ve felt. I’m sexually, romantically attracted to people, regardless of sex and gender. I’m at peace with choosing the label as my own, and I know because I said it to myself in the mirror.
And fuck did I feel happy.
His mouth curves upward, pride in his eyes. “I really love you.”
Emotion crashes into me. I didn’t expect Oscar to say that. I wipe the corner of my eye. Smiling more.
He wipes it for me, then quietly he pops an orange tin on his lap. One that Audrey Cobalt gave him when we arrived at the theatre.
He tries to contain a laugh.
Do I use that as a reason to lean closer? Of course I fucking do. I lean into Oscar, my lips rising when I see the cookies inside the tin.
“How sweet of her,” I smile brighter.
He contains another laugh. “She outdid herself this time.”
I pick up a glazed sugar cookie. Orange icing is piped to resemble a glass of orange juice, and she scrawled the words, Highveira, in neat pink.
Our ship name.
We have fans outside the famous ones. Hate has
