Page 54

Kat

“Ms. Kelly! How does Frasier Pierce feel about you coming out?”

Kat put on a polite smile. “I’m not sure,” she said into the microphone in front of her. “You’d have to ask him.”

“So, you and Frasier don’t keep in touch?” The journalist followed up eagerly.

The conference room was crowded. Kat and her costars were sitting behind a long table on a small stage at the front of the room, facing rows of folding chairs, but the reporters had quickly abandoned their seats in favor of crowding up toward the table.

The crush of people made Kat feel claustrophobic.

“Only one question at a time please,” Anya Oliviera, the director of Rom-Con, said, smoothly sweeping in. Kat sent her a grateful glance. The press conference was supposed to be about the movie, but so far nearly every question had been for Kat.

“Another question for Ms. Kelly,” the next reporter said. “What made you decide to go from big-budget films to independent?”

Kat sat up straight. “This movie is special. I loved it from the moment I read the script. As I move into the next phase of my career, I’m looking for projects that I feel passionate about.

To me, it’s not about the paycheck or the names attached but the quality.

That’s how I intend to determine which projects I take, going forward. ”

The man nodded, lowering his notebook, and Kat’s shoulders relaxed.

She’d been dreading that question, but answering it made it feel like not that big a deal.

And her answer had actually been true, too.

After talking to Madelyn, she had realized how much she wanted to be part of a project she genuinely believedin.

So she’d taken the role. Without calculating what it would do for her career or thinking about how it fit into her ten-year plan. Instead, she’d focused on what was right in front of her.

The door to the conference room opened, and Kat heard whispered commotion as a latecomer tried to push their way to the front and was rebuffed. She couldn’t see them over the crowd, but she could see the turned heads and disapproving frowns of the reporters closer to the door.

Anya called on the next journalist, and Kat forced herself to pay attention again.

“Ned Edwards from the New York Host, ” the man said pompously. He was wearing a tie with little golf balls and clubs on it. “Ms. Kelly, are you still involved with the individual that you were seen kissing in the street several weeks ago?”

Kat thanked fifteen years of acting for keeping her from immediately bursting into tears. She wanted to snap at Ned Edwards that he’d ruined her life enough for one year. But the movie deserved better than that.

And what was the point of hiding the truth? Jude had made it very clear that she would never forgive Kat for what she’d done, and Kat couldn’t blame her.

“No, I’m not,” Kat said.

Another reported eagerly waved his notebook, and Anya reluctantly pointed to him. “What happened between you two?” he asked breathlessly. Anya sent her a glance, making it clear that she didn’t have to answer. But hadn’t Kat wanted the chance to be more authentic with her fans?

“Dating while being in the public eye has unique challenges,” she said.

“Challenges that my partners might not be ready to face, but in this case, challenges that I wasn’t ready to face.

Growing up as a professional actor, I’ve struggled to get to know who I really am when I’m not in the spotlight.

It’s so easy to fall into people-pleasing and thinking about what you should do instead of what you really want.

I’m trying to get better at paying attention to who I am when I let go of others’ expectations. ”

Kat felt a little rush of adrenaline. She’d never spoken that honestly at a press conference before. She’d never given a messy answer that implied she wasn’t 100 percent put-together and perfect all the time. It felt good to not just recite a memorized answer.

There was a disturbance at the back of the crowd. Heads turned to glare, and Kat saw a few people stumble as if they were being pushed. Anya was in the process of pointing to the next reporter when a head popped up above the crowd and shouted, “I have a question!”

Kat’s breath caught in her throat. Was she so sad from her breakup that she was hallucinating? Or was that actually Jude, standing precariously on a folding chair so she could be seen above the rest of the crowd?

Jude caught her balance. “My question is: that individual you were seen kissing a few weeks ago. If she fought for you the way she should have and begged to have you back, would you take her?”

The reporters all leaned their heads together, asking one another what the hell was going on. But Kat could no longer hear them. All she could focus on was the hopeful face of the woman she thought she’d never see again. The woman she loved.

Kat didn’t understand. Jude had been so insistent that she could never trust Kat again. Where had those concerns gone? Did she actually think they could make a relationship work? Or would she change her mind and shatter Kat’s heart yet again?

It didn’t matter, Kat realized. She would have to take that risk. There was only one answer she could possibly give.

She leaned forward into the microphone. “Absolutely, I would.”

The room erupted. Reporters waved their hands desperately. Ned Edwards actually shoved the person next to him to make his way toward Jude.

Jude jumped down off her chair. Journalists swarmed her, asking for comments, but she pushed her way resolutely through the crowd until she reached the front.

Kat went to the edge of the stage and held out her hand. Jude took it and clambered up. Several cameras flashed, but Kat didn’t stop to pose. This moment was just for her.

She pulled Jude back behind the step-and-repeat, down the stairs at the back of the stage, and through the door to the empty greenroom. Behind her, she could hear Anya telling the reporters to settle down. She kept going, tugging Jude out another door into an empty carpeted hallway.

Once the door closed behind them, Kat stopped.

She looked at Jude, trying to drink her in, trying to savor every detail of this person she’d been missing.

The person she had wanted to call every single day for the last two weeks.

The person who, between calls for Rom-Con and appointments with her new therapist, had left Kat gasping with sobs at unexpected moments.

Jude’s blond hair was disheveled and her cheeks were red and her gray-green eyes searched Kat’s face insistently.

As if she, too, needed to catalog every last detail of the woman in front of her in order to believe that this was really happening.

“I thought you could never trust me again.” Kat’s voice came out as a whisper.

Jude took one of Kat’s hands. She lifted it to her mouth and pressed her lips against it, then held on to it while she spoke.

“Three years ago, my entire world fell apart. And ever since, I’ve been waiting for that to happen again. Anytime something good happened, I kept expecting something to come and take it away. I didn’t trust the world not to keep hurting me.

“When I found out that our relationship started as a lie, I thought, Of course. Here it is, that bad thing you always expected would happen,” Jude continued.

Kat looked away. She hated that she’d made Jude feel that way. She’d been so selfish.

Jude reached up and tilted Kat’s gaze back toward her.

“I don’t want to live that way anymore, Kat.

Always waiting for something bad to happen.

Not trusting anyone, because then they can’t let me down.

Not letting myself be fully happy, just in case things go wrong, so at least the world doesn’t get to tell me, ‘I told you so.’?”

Tears started to build in Kat’s eyes. One spilled out, and Jude smiled softly as she wiped it away with a gentle thumb.

“I can’t control the world. I can’t control whether good things happen. I can’t control whether we stay together for the rest of our lives, or even how long we live,” Jude said. “But trust isn’t something you do or don’t have. It’s a choice. A choice I want to start making.”

Kat’s heart fluttered with hope.

“I’m choosing to trust that I know who you really are, underneath all the lies. I’m choosing to trust how you make me feel. I’m choosing to trust you, and believe that everyone makes mistakes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get better.”

Jude’s eyes started to shine now, too. “Most of all, I’m choosing to trust myself. I trust that if something bad happens, I’ll survive it, the way I always have. Because loving you is worth the risk.”

Kat inhaled sharply. Jude cupped Kat’s cheeks with both of her hands and nodded.

“I love you, Kat Kelly,” she said. “And I want to keep loving you, for as long as you’ll let me. Until you love yourself just as much as I love you and I love myself just as much as you love me.”

“Jude,” Kat whispered. It was all she could manage.

Jude pressed her forehead against Kat’s. “Do you love me, too?”

“I love you,” Kat said.

“Say it again.”

“I love you, Jude.”

Jude kissed her, all the longing and pain and happiness that Kat felt in herself reflected in the pressure of her lips, the grasping of her hands. Kat kissed back, breathless with disbelief that she got to kiss this beautiful person when she’d thought she would never kiss Jude again.

“I never want to let you go,” Jude whispered in her ear when they finally broke apart.

Kat closed her eyes. She wrapped her arms around Jude and pulled her in as tightly as she could.

“You never have to,” she said back.