Try hard, p.30
Try Hard, page 30
She sucked in a breath, visibly pushing against more tears. “You really don’t have to put out a statement—”
“For both of us, I absolutely do. My priority is your happiness, your safety, and our privacy. And I will do whatever it takes to ensure that.”
“Your fans—”
“The real ones will get it. The rest are not people I want to be around. I love you with my whole heart, and nothing and nobody is changing that.”
“I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”
“You didn’t have to do anything,” I said, knowing desperately how much she needed to hear it. Love had been so coached, so punishing in her past relationships. She needed to know she could be happy in it. “Just being you is enough. It always has been.”
“The first day I met you,” she murmured against my lips, “back when your hair was longer, you had it tied in a bun, but you’d been playing rugby, I imagine, so half of it was sleek and perfectly presented. The other half was wild and unkempt and beautiful.”
“Yours had been braided down your back. Art class. And, even then, you were more beautiful than any of the pieces we studied.” It was close to a physical compliment, I realised as I said it, ready to apologise if I made her uncomfortable, but Ophelia simply closed the distance between us, her lips finding me like they’d been searching for me since that very first moment.
“So were you,” she said into the kiss, and maybe they had been doing exactly that.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Fia
Sophie watched me through narrowed eyes as she and Marnie prepared to leave after dinner. Marnie was still chatting to my parents, while Jeremy was making tea and coffee. He was apparently staying a while longer, so he and Dad could watch YouTube videos from other plane enthusiasts.
The intensity of Sophie’s gaze was emphasised by the dramatic winged eyeliner, but it wasn’t the first time I’d been on the receiving end of her considering stare, so I was happy to ride it out. Eventually, she sighed and said, “Even if this whole thing is kind of shit, I’m happy for you.”
I frowned. “Thank you?”
“I’m contractually obliged to give Eve a hard time, as her only sibling—especially when she’s more than used to having people tell her how special she is—but, you know, she’s all right. You could do worse, I suppose.”
“I’m sure Eve will be so warmed by your enthusiastic praise.”
“Ugh.” She pulled me into a hug. “She really cares about you. You really care about her. And if that’s obvious in the middle of this shitstorm, then I think you’ll be happy together.”
I nodded, a small smile playing across my lips as she pulled back. “Well, thank you for that.”
“I still think you could have given me a shot.”
I shook my head. “I thought you had someone else you were giving a shot to?”
“Ah, you know.” She looked away, a blush playing across her pale skin.
“I could if you told me about it.”
“You’re just as bad as Eve,” she deadpanned. “No wonder you ended up with her.”
Despite all of the emotions of the day, of worrying that I was wrecking Eve’s life, I couldn’t help smiling. Sure, Sophie said I was ending up with Eve like she thought that was a bad thing, but I knew she didn’t mean it, and I loved the notion. I still wasn’t sure I was the best influence in Eve’s life—and it felt like worse was to come with her impending statement—but she’d told me she loved me and that was the best thing anyone had ever said to me. I knew I’d go through anything for her, including all the online comments. Even the cruel ones, the ones that commented I was too fat or too ugly for Eve, that poked at old wounds and insecurities, were worth it to be with her. Not that they were remotely okay, but the way she looked at me, held me, and carried me around like she was barely breaking a sweat all made the healthier parts of my brain think the comments were nonsense. It was an unpleasant battle, but Eve so clearly didn’t believe them that I was trying to hold onto that part. The part where she thought I was worth being with and, in the end, her opinion was the only one that mattered.
I still wished the online discourse wasn’t happening, though. Relationships were complicated enough without thousands of other people inserting themselves in the middle of one that didn’t concern them.
“I’m happy where I’ve ended up,” I said quietly.
“Despite the bullshit?”
“Yes.”
She smiled genuinely, nodding her head. “Well… I think I might have fucked up a bit, but I’m hoping we can figure it out.”
I tilted my head, watching her closely. “Fucked up how?”
“Oh, you know. Turns out people don’t actually like it when the person they’re into is hung up on their sister’s girlfriend.”
“Right.” I winced. “Sorry.”
Sophie shook her head, glancing around to check nobody else was listening. “Not your fault. Maybe it would have gone more smoothly if I’d—well, if I hadn’t been so insistent on complaining about you being with Eve and continuing to flirt with you.”
“Maybe.”
“But, you know, if you and they were a little more similar, maybe it would have been okay?”
I laughed, sympathetic and surprised. “I don’t think sitting around a table with both of you dating versions of me would have been less weird.”
She grimaced. “Okay, yeah, fair point. I just mean… maybe they’d have been more ready to believe I was actually into them if you were more alike.”
Something soft and sweet took root in my chest. If Sophie’s person was upset about that, it meant they were interested. She probably hadn’t screwed it up irrevocably.
I put a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve always been very good at conveying how you feel about people. I’m sure you will be with them too.”
“You think?”
“I really do. Just don’t worry about playing it cool. That’s nonsense. If you like someone, play it completely uncool. Let them see how much you care, tell them, bask in it. Even if it ends, while you’re in it, be in it.”
She shot me a look, clearly taking the advice to heart but trying to cover it with her usual snark. “You’re such a sap when you’re with Eve.”
I scowled back. “Maybe I was always a sap and just covered it well.”
“Oh, I totally believe you’ve been a sap for her the whole time you’ve known each other. Your taste is clearly that terrible.”
I laughed. “I look forward to meeting your person.”
“Oh, god,” she said, eyes wide. “Be nice to them if you ever meet.”
“Like you’re being nice to me?”
“That’s different.”
“What is?” Marnie asked, joining us by the door.
“Nothing,” Sophie said quickly.
I took pity on her and looked at Marnie. “This whole publicity thing is quite different for me.”
“Ah.” Marnie looked at me just like my own mother did, except she knew how the media circus went. She’d been through it before. “Don’t take the opinions of those you wouldn’t ask for help. That’s gotten us through the years—and the things people have felt entitled to express about Eve.”
“It’s good advice. Thank you.”
“Any time, dear.” She turned to look at Eve, who was happily chatting with my dad, before pulling me into a hug. They were a generous family. “We’ll see you soon.”
I found myself glad of that.
As Sophie and Marnie left, and my parents settled into the living room for the evening, I found myself wishing I could leave too. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be there exactly, more that, with everything, I needed somewhere quieter, someplace familiar and comforting to this adult version of me who felt stressed and unsure. I usually travelled too frequently for things like this to catch me up.
Eve’s arms circled around me from behind, not touching me, and she held there, waiting for permission. She was comfortable, familiar. Safe.
I nodded as I leaned back into her chest, her arms encircling me, and she felt like coming home, like I’d spent the last twenty years building up who I was just for her.
She pressed a kiss to my shoulder. “Let’s get out of here?”
Some frustrating part of my brain wanted to brush her off, pretend I was okay and could stay—and I could have, but I wanted that breather. And Eve knew it. I didn’t want to cause her further problems, but she knew I needed out.
To be seen, understood—to be known—was a new and unusual experience. It made me want to cry, but in a way that felt okay. I knew her too, knew she wouldn’t get annoyed by strong emotions or tears, by my need for space. She knew that space included her, that my personal bubble had expanded to cover both of us, just as I knew hers had expanded to fit me.
I nodded, swallowing hard.
She didn’t need words from me, simply holding me and pressing another kiss against my shoulder.
Was that how love was supposed to feel? Impossible and wondrous?
“Don’t wait up,” she called to my parents and her dad as we grabbed our coats. Her tone was playful, amused, like nothing in the world was wrong. It was as if we were simply running out to the shop or the pub, nothing that invited worry. Without seeming to think about it, Eve was protecting me from attention I didn’t want.
Ironic, really, that in dating the most famous person I’d ever met, I was with the person most dedicated to my privacy. Maybe it wasn’t all that unusual, actually. Eve knew better than most what that invasion felt like. Perhaps it made perfect sense that she was attuned to it.
She held the passenger door for me before jumping into the driver’s seat, and, once she took off driving, a wave of exhaustion overtook me. I wasn’t paying any attention to where she was going. It didn’t matter whether there was a destination. What mattered was her and me, and nobody else.
“I think I have to quit my job,” I said eventually, my voice loud in the quiet car.
Eve didn’t seem surprised. “How are you feeling about that?”
“I haven’t quite figured that out.”
“That’s fair.” The silence was loud in her pause, but not in a way that scared me. “I’m sorry I’m costing you your job.”
“It’s not your fault. They’d have tried for this angle regardless of who I was dating.”
“Yeah, but they might not have been so insistent about having you on camera. And they wouldn’t have been trying to cash in on your sudden celebrity.”
“Not a celebrity,” I said quickly. “They’re cashing in on your fame, but it doesn’t really matter. I think we’ve just come to the end of the road together.”
It hurt more than it should. I’d loved my job for so long. It had been perfect. But I’d made a promise to myself when I’d broken up with my ex that I wouldn’t stay in situations where I wasn’t valued or respected. And work no longer felt respectful.
“I know you love your job,” Eve said quietly as she joined the motorway and reached to take my hand briefly, setting it down on her thigh as she drove. She was so generous, so open. She was everything I’d ever thought she would be and so much more.
“But I don’t love where it’s going. And I don’t love how my comfort is so unimportant to them. Sure, your boss isn’t there to coddle you, and it’s unreasonable to think everyone can just leave a job when their boss makes a decision they don’t like, but… I’ve been there long enough that I should be getting some say in whether they’re allowed to monetise my private life. When they start messing with your personal life and insisting it’s now part of your job, it’s not a safe workplace anymore.”
She dropped one hand from the wheel again to squeeze my hand softly. “What do you think you’ll do instead?”
I let out a confused laugh. “No idea. I guess I’ve built enough of a name for myself that I can apply for other writing jobs. We’ll see. I mean, falling into this was kind of an accident to begin with.”
“It was?”
“Yeah. I thought I’d write for a more scientific magazine—anthropology, history, geography. But then I got that job and it was amazing.” I huffed. “Seems churlish to be complaining about a job that sends me all over the world reviewing places most people dream of visiting.”
Eve shook her head. “People can want that and you can give it up when it’s no longer what you need. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Hm. I can already imagine the comments.”
“Screw the comments,” she said, and I was surprised to hear she got more American on that one rather than more British in her emotion. “They don’t know your life. They don’t know what you need.”
Her conviction was like a safety blanket wrapping around me. She’d always had so much certitude. It was a gift to be one of the things she believed in without doubt.
I stroked her thigh, marvelling both at being able to and at the muscles underneath flexing as she drove. “You do, though,” I whispered.
The smile that took over her face was radiant, like all her smiles. “Paying attention to you is not a hardship.”
I was already so emotional that unexpected tears prickled in my eyes. Those who had come before her sure made it feel like it was.
She glanced my way, seeming to understand exactly what I was thinking. “You made your mark on me when we were kids and every day since then that I’ve got to spend in your orbit has been breathtaking.”
I breathed a laugh, wiping at my face. “I think you’ll find you’re the breathtaking one.”
“Nope. It’s you. And, believe me, I’ve been paying enough attention to know.”
“I’ve had an easier time paying attention to you over the last few years, I think you’ll find.”
She smiled that smile again, the one that looked like she was winning an Olympic medal. I couldn’t help remembering the way she’d looked on that podium—blissfully happy, overwhelmed, content in a way nobody could ever take from her. Ridiculous, really, that being around me could elicit the same response.
“I’m not gonna lie,” she said smugly, “I’m absolutely delighted you’ve been paying attention to me. The most incredible woman I’ve ever met watching me, cheering for me, and believing in me? That’s the dream right there.”
I laughed. “I feel like I’m supposed to say something about dreams coming true right here… but that’s so… cliché.”
“It’s good to be a little cliché. Most especially in love.”
Eve Archer loved me.
Loving her was so easy, but being loved by her? Well, that made everything feel like it would be okay. Even quitting my job with no idea of where I was going.
For years now, I hadn’t been a fan of changing big things in my life. I kept everything steady and tidy and manageable. There was no managing being in love with Eve, or being loved by her. It was completely encompassing and I already knew it was going to change everything. Maybe my job was just another thing to go with that.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Fia
“You really don’t have to… go so hard,” I said quietly after reading Eve’s proposed statement.
She’d brought us to her apartment in London. It was late and the place was beautiful. Smaller than you might expect, but perfect for her—for one person. Or two. Plus, there was no beating the unbelievably epic view over the Thames and the city from the wall of windows in her living area.
Now, though, we were standing in the small second bedroom that she’d turned into an office—lush, deep colours, stunning accents, comfortable but perfectly appointed. I’d seen Eve’s work as an interior designer and never doubted how good she was, but seeing it unleashed in her own home was another level entirely.
She looked up at me speculatively. “When have I ever not gone hard, Ophelia?”
Despite the stress of the situation, something curled in my stomach with the way she said my name.
I felt ridiculously safe here, in her seventeenth-floor apartment, away from the rest of the world with her. Part of me, a few years ago, had spent time trying to believe that, as we aged, we shouldn’t need to feel safe in the same way we had when we were children. That the need to run and hide and have a secret spot away from the world was a childish behaviour I needed to outgrow. Now, I knew that wasn’t true. Sure, the world tried to make you feel like that, but it wasn’t real. Of all the things humans needed, safety was paramount.
Eve was safety. Always had been.
I breathed a laugh and stepped into the space between her legs as she sat in her office chair. It was beginning to feel like I belonged there, like that spot was mine. Eve gave it to me readily, wanted me there, made me feel as though it had always been mine. Just like being in her arms was a place I’d always belonged.
“Fair point,” I said as I leaned to press my face into her hair. It was so thick. Even short, it was thick and beautiful and had that picture perfect lock that cascaded over her forehead as I disturbed it. “But you know what I mean. I’ll be okay if you want to go for something more measured, or if you want to pretend we’re just friends for public purposes.”
She held me close as she rested her chin against me and looked up to meet my gaze. “I do not want that. My dearest Ophelia, I don’t think you and I have ever just been friends, and, now we get to know that, I have no interest in pretending we are.”
I nodded and looked back at her proposed statement. The people who’d already been saying terrible things weren’t going to like it. They’d blame me, probably insinuate that I was controlling her, that it was some weird PR relationship to boost my career, or suggest she was just with me for pity, that it wasn’t going to end well. I wanted so badly to be okay with it all, to brush it off like it didn’t matter, but it stung. More than I liked.
Eve wasn’t leaving any wiggle room. This was it, a statement of our relationship, of how she felt about me, and how she felt about some of the attention she got. She so deserved to finally state how those things affected her. It was amazing that she was doing it, and I hoped her comments would make the tiniest bit of difference to how people treated her and others in the public eye. Parasocial relationships were too integrated into society. All of those things weren’t going away in a day, but every little bit helped. And, if Eve could call out how she and the people in her life were treated, maybe that would one day lead to even one less person being in this situation.
