Page 54 of Fan Favorite

Jessa laughed and floofed Edie’s hair. “Who said anything about marrying Bennett? It’s only an engagement.

” Jessa considered Edie in the mirror for a long moment before taking her by the shoulders and spinning her around.

“Look, I don’t care if you turn down his proposal.

Carole won’t like it, but she’ll deal. I don’t hate a feminist, I-choose-me moment.

” Jessa arranged Edie’s hair around her shoulders.

“Bailey’s here. Did you know that? She looks beautiful, too. Like a bride.”

“Bailey?”

“It’s so weird, but it seems like she really loves him, don’t you think?” Jessa cocked her head and was quiet for a moment. But then she smiled wide. “Okay! Let’s go!”

Peter shrugged on his Burberry peacoat and walked through the lobby, past a tuxedoed Bennett Charles in the final stages of mic check, through the massive kitchen and out the back door of the hotel. Snow crunched under his loafers as he followed Ted across the lawn and into the waiting helicopter.

The helicopter lurched into the sky with the door wide open.

Peter closed his eyes. Ted couldn’t film with the door closed, and as freezing cold air whooshed into the cabin, Peter waited for his anxiety to take over.

They rose higher. Peter opened his eyes.

Apparently, his heart was too broken to bother scaring the shit out of him.

He leaned over and looked out the window.

The view was spectacular. The ground blanketed in fresh snow.

The towering fir trees all dusted in white.

The mountains rising into the sky, dwarfing the hotel’s turrets below.

Typically, natural beauty like this would make Peter think about God—whatever God was—and he’d remember that he was just some minuscule part of some great big universe, and he’d feel centered in a way, understand that everything in his life both mattered and didn’t.

But now, the grandeur only clarified that he was a real fucking idiot who’d majorly bungled his shot at being a decent person during his limited time on earth.

Maybe that was dramatic, but now it seemed clear that Peter had spent literal years of his life prioritizing his career.

Happily taking advantage of people, with very little reflection on his own culpability or intentions.

He’d ignored his family because he’d been ashamed and couldn’t handle seeing the disappointment on their faces.

And now that he finally understood all that really mattered was who you loved and how you loved them, it was too late.

He was stuck in a helicopter while the love of his life was about to get engaged to the biggest douchebag of all time.

Ted handed him an iPad.

“That’ll pick up visual from below,” Ted said into his headphone’s mic. He pointed to a button on-screen. “Press that and you’ll get the feed up here as well.”

Peter nodded.

“She’s coming out now.”

Ted took up his camera. The copilot double-checked Ted’s safety harness. With a thumbs-up, Ted was kneeling on the floor of the helicopter, shooting the scene below.

Peter sighed and looked at the iPad, at the split screen of Edie.

First, Ted’s long shot: Edie in a blur of white, moving up the mountain on Adam Fox’s arm.

Now, of course, Peter regretted all the wedding tropes they trotted out for finales.

In the close-up from the ground, her face looked emotional in a way Peter couldn’t quite parse but made his entire body singe with regret.

She reached Bennett in the middle of a circle of glowing candlelight. She took his hands.

Peter’s heart pounded. He attempted to shift his brain back into work mode and come up with some instructions for Ted to improve the shot, but the shot was perfect.

Ted didn’t need Peter to tell him how to do his job.

Ted had been with The Key for as long as Peter had.

He was the best camera op they had. Out of nowhere, tears stung Peter’s eyes.

He was going to miss Ted. He was going to miss all these people and all that they’d made together.

It wasn’t perfect, and some of it was actually sort of fucked-up, but this show had been everything to him.

“It’s been great working with you these past eight years, Ted,” Peter said, trying to keep his tone casual. “Probably my opinion won’t count for much soon, but if I can ever help, recommend you to someone, I know you were thinking about a move to film—I’d be happy to.”

“You going somewhere, Pete?” Ted said from behind the camera.

“Yeah, well…” Peter said. “You know how it goes. All things come to an end, right?”

“That they do.” Ted was quiet for a moment. “A lot of shit people in Hollywood. Always thought you did a good job. You’re solid. Fair. I always liked that about you.”

“And here I thought everyone thought I was an asshole.”

“Oh, they do.”

They both laughed before falling silent again, contemplating the scene below.

“How many people you think we’ve seen come through here?” Ted asked.

“On the show? Hundreds. Including casting? Thousands.”

“All these people looking for love,” Ted mused. “And the funny thing is, in all these years, this is the first time I’ve ever seen The Key deliver. Too bad the man she loves isn’t down there.” Ted pulled away from the camera and looked at Peter. “Sort of ruins the moment, don’t you think?”

Peter’s eyes went wide as he took in Ted’s meaning.

Of course, Ted would’ve noticed something going on between Peter and Edie.

Ted was always there, a fly on the wall.

It was literally his job. Peter’s face went red when he realized how many times Ted had probably watched Peter stare at Edie holding hands with Bennett, or kissing Bennett, or laughing with Bennett, Peter frowning on the sidelines like an angsty, lovesick teen.

On the iPad, Bennett was talking but there was no audio.

It was clearly a speech, a declaration of love that Peter himself should be making.

And all at once, that part of Peter that believed in love very deeply, that believed in Edie, that understood it was now or never, burst to the surface. He had to do something.

“She does love me, right?” Peter said, standing up as best he could in the tiny space. “That’s what you’re saying?”

“Jeez, Pete,” Ted said from behind the camera. “For a smart guy, you can be pretty dense.”

“Well, you could’ve mentioned it before we got on the fucking helicopter!”

With adrenaline coursing through his veins, Peter leaned into the cockpit and told the pilots to let him the fuck out.

“What the hell you talkin’ ’bout, mate?” the pilot said in a thick British accent. “We can’t ‘let you out.’ This is a helicopter.”

“Yeah, I know what it is,” Peter said, suddenly exhilarated. “Can you land?”

“Look at the trees—if you wanna land, we gotta go back.”

“No time for that.” Peter looked around. The door was already open. “You got a ladder, a parachute or something?”

The copilot cracked up. “Nobody told me we was flyin’ James Bond.” He made eyes at the pilot. “We got James Bond here.”

Peter flicked his eyes to the iPad. Bennett looked dangerously close to getting down on one knee. “Fly over there!” Peter pointed toward engagement rock. “Fly above them. Until the snow swirls around and fucks up the shot.”

The pilots looked at each other, skeptical.

“Yeah, those aren’t our instructions, mate. The girl was clear—stay far enough away they can’t hear the copter.”

“Well, I don’t give a shit,” Peter declared. “ I’m the show-runner and I’m in charge of this entire production.”

“That’s true,” Ted said. “He’s the showrunner.”

Grumbling, the pilot turned the helicopter and flew lower— WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH —toward engagement rock. Peter looked to the iPad, at Edie and Bennett now looking up at the sky.

“Give me the ladder,” Peter demanded. “I’m getting out.”

“You’re gonna break your legs, mate,” the copilot said. “But if you insist.”

The copilot lifted a seat cushion and removed a metal chain ladder from a compartment below.

He motioned Ted out of the way, and the helicopter’s feed cut off as Ted took a seat.

The copilot attached one end of the ladder to bolted hooks on the helicopter’s floor and then threw the whole thing out the door where it flew like a kite in the wind.

The copilot took Peter by the shoulders. “Don’t let go, mate.”

Peter swallowed hard. Took off his jacket. Rolled his shoulders three times. And then he began his descent.

“Before you came back into my life, I was adrift,” Bennett said as he held Edie’s hands.

He rubbed his thumb back and forth across her skin.

The cameras circled. “I knew there was more in this world meant for me. And then you, Edie Pepper, showed up, my oldest friend. You made me strong. You made me loyal. You showed me who I could be: a husband.”

Over his shoulder, Edie watched a helicopter approaching. Strange, it kept getting closer until Bennett’s words were swallowed in its roar. Everyone turned to look.

“Cut, cut, cut!” Jessa yelled. “Who’s got ears on the helicopter?” She spun in a little circle in the snow. “Somebody tell them they’re way too close! It’s fucking the shot!”

Edie took the deafening WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH that would kill their mics as an opportunity to talk to Charlie for real. She grabbed the lapels of his tuxedo and yanked him in.

“Charlie!” she screamed. “Don’t propose to me! Do you hear me? You can’t, you don’t love me!”

He grimaced. “You’re my choice, Edie.”

“Oh my god!” She shook him back and forth, trying to knock some sense into him. “Knock it off! I adore you, Charlie, I always have. But we’re friends! Don’t you want to choose Bailey?”