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)
“Oh shit.”
“Yeah. The show is being canceled.” River reaches up to scratch his neck, adorably uncomfortable putting his nose in anyone else’s business. “With everything that happened between you and Connor, I just wanted to make sure he was okay.”
It’s like a fog has cleared as everything since my confession on Connor’s couch suddenly comes into crystalline focus. If North Star has lost one of its two cash cows due to scandal, they’d definitely turn the pressure up on Connor to make sure he’s running a tight ship. If word got out that we’d been together, basically making the show a sham, it wouldn’t just end his career, it could take down the entire company.
And Connor would be blamed for it all.
forty-five CONNOR
The penultimate episode of The True Love Experiment rakes in the highest prime-time rating for any reality show in nearly a decade. At an early meeting with the entire crew, it’s clear that the numbers defy comprehension. If we had champagne in the office at nine in the morning, it would be popping.
As we walk back to my office, Brenna jogs behind me, excitedly telling me about the TikTok trends, the viral edits and reels—and she sends me a few, but I think by now she knows that seeing evidence of the true hysteria online will make the pressure to execute this live finale too intense. It doesn’t help that the furor over Smash Course hasn’t died down. Today’s twenty-four-hour news cycle means the public’s memory is often short for these sorts of things, but it seems every day a new detail emerges to get people riled up again. It all hits close enough to the situation with Fizzy that one might think it would reassure me that I’m doing the right thing, and make being away from her easier to bear. One would be wrong.
When he arrives just after ten, Blaine is an overstimulated hound, circling continually, making laps around the offices. He’s crowing about the little guys showing Hollywood how it’s done, about knowing he chose wisely putting me on this and how I should trust him next time. The adulation is bittersweet: Of course I’m thrilled that Fizzy and I managed to create something that has resonated with so many viewers, but the obvious conflict of falling for her is a shadow that lurks behind my celebratory mood. My failed marriage would have been the easiest relationship to maintain—without passion, but convenient and amiable—and yet building something with the one woman I’m truly lost for has proven to be impossible.
Maybe in a few months, I think, after the spotlight has turned away and the world has moved on to the next shiny thing, we can make a go of it. But that isn’t how love works. No matter what poetry tells us, love isn’t always patient; it is urgent and hungry, eating up all of the blank space in my head.
I escape to the editing room, hoping to drown everything else out and spend the day helping put together the retrospective clips of all the Heroes for the recap portion of the live finale this weekend. But it is in this quiet retreat that Blaine finds me and slaps a piece of paper down on the mixing board.
“Blaine—”
“Contingent on you not shitting the bed,” he says, ignoring that he’s just inadvertently deleted the clip we were working on, “here’s a contract for you to produce and host season two of The True Love Experiment.”
Sensing the storm brewing, Pat, our editorial producer, pushes back from his computer and makes his escape. “Think I’ll go grab a cup of coffee.”
The door closes behind him and I peer down at the paper.
I knew it was coming—frankly it would be stupid of us to not green-light a second season—but seeing it in black and white stuns me silent for a moment anyway. I am sure, with the structure we’ve built, the crew and I could do it again with another Heroine or Hero at the center, and even if it’s half as successful as this first season has been, it would be a financial success for the company. And for me.
I just can’t imagine doing it with anyone but Fizzy beside me. Not to mention another season keeps me in the public eye and pushes a possible relationship between us even further out of reach.
“Can I think about it?” I ask.
“Think about it?” Blaine pokes the third paragraph with an insistent finger, pressing a bunch of buttons underneath it. “Kid, do you see what we’re offering you? We’re talking more money, more time, more staff, and a bigger production budget.”
I do see. What they’re offering me is part of the reason I want to consider this carefully.
Gingerly, I guide his hand away and swivel in my seat to face him. “I see the financial incentive, and I know we could do the show again quite easily. But, for as crazy as this might sound—because I know we are absolutely the biggest thing on television right now—money is not the only thing I care about. I enjoyed what I was doing before. I’m not sure I’m ready to abandon the documentary world quite yet.”