“No,” I say, voice firm.
A smile edges his mouth, but we both fixate on Jane.
She cups a mug between two hands. “I told my brothers and Sulli that you and I don’t want our friendship to change, but inherently, the media and paparazzi will put pressure on us to split apart. And how do we stay the same, Moffy?”
I gesture to the door like the paparazzi are on the other side. They’re not. But somewhere in Philadelphia, they wait like desperate vultures. Hungry for our carcasses. “We ignore them, Janie.”
“Can we?” She sips her coffee. “Every time we’re together, they’ll be in our faces. I don’t care what they think, but they’re gnats and we’ll both crave to swat them away. To do that, all we have to do is add distance, stop being seen out together, don’t look at each other—”
“No, fuck no.” I shake my head.
Janie starts smiling.
Realization sinks in. “You have a plan?”
“This is insane,” I mutter, still staring at the binder. Now crammed full of notes, some of which are lyrics to a Semisonic song. Farrow apparently shelves notes with rules in the “fuck it” category.
He leans against the island. Eating his eggs slowly. “You agreed to this insane plan.”
“It took me thirty fucking minutes.” I glance at the doorway, but Jane left to tell Charlie, Beckett, and Sulli that I agreed.
“All five of us are going on tour,” I say aloud. Letting this reality sink in.
No, it’s still a-hundred-million-percent bizarre. All five of us together. Sleeping on a tour bus with our six bodyguards. A total of eleven people on one bus. Driving across America.
How’d I agree to this fucking mayhem? I skim my notes.
The plan: book meet-and-greets at various cities. People will pay to take photos with us and get autographs. Television actors do convention circuits all the time. I even jotted down short Q&A panels. The whole FanCon will be run by H.M.C. Philanthropies. All proceeds go to charity.
I’ll be working, but that’s not exactly why I agreed.
Farrow swigs a glass of water. “You’ll be out of Philly for a while.”
I nod. I was never planning on isolating myself at the lake house forever. Eventually we’d have to deal with paparazzi in Philly, but it’ll be easier dealing with cameramen on the road. Not all of them will want to follow us.
Our parents still live in Philly.
Our parents are still more famous than us. Many cameramen will choose to stay in the city with them.
People always say, just leave if you hate the media that much. I always reply, my family and my work are here, and I don’t hate the paparazzi. We coexist.
Since I was born, I’ve dealt with their sometimes friendly and sometimes frustrating presence. I don’t even know what it’s like for cameramen not to trail me.
I take a bigger breath. It’s still sinking in.
I flip a page in the binder and then glance at Farrow. “From an outsider’s perspective, do you think the tour will help with the rumors?”
Farrow considers this for a second. “All five of you haven’t been publicly together in years. That tour will be front-page news and bury any other shit.” He scrapes a spoonful of eggs. “I’d take the risk, but my laces aren’t triple-knotted like yours.”
I blink. “Thank you for that last-second, unneeded addition.”
He smiles into his bite of eggs. “You’re welcome.”
I flip another page. His presence is like a magnet that says look at me and then I veer off track. I’ll relax too much, and I need to think.
“I can’t let him fucking do this,” I say aloud, reading a sentence I underlined five times: Beckett has taken a temporary leave from the ballet company. As a principal dancer, that’s a big deal.
Farrow barely skims the page. “You forgot to write the tour is his idea.”
Yeah, I still can’t believe Beckett Cobalt concocted this plan. To help Janie, his sister, most of all. It’s why his twin brother Charlie agreed. Heaven and Earth and every air particle knows Charlie didn’t signup for a 4-month tour just for me.
He may be at the lake house out of support, but the seeds of our relationship are still rotted. They have been since that night on the yacht. Nothing good can grow overnight.
And Jane said that Sulli talked about the moments where I’d been there for her. Like the time when she thought she broke her foot on a desert hike. I carried her in a piggyback for eight miles, and I kept trying to calm her. Saying she was a kickass human being and strong. I gave her my canteen early on, and her tears soaked my shirt. She kept telling me her swim career was over, and for Sulli, swim was synonymous with life.
Even at twelve.
I was fifteen, and I remember how when we reached the end of the primitive trail, her parents found us. Uncle Ryke and Aunt Daisy immediately drove their daughter to the ER, and I felt responsible for Sulli getting hurt.
For eight miles, I wished that’d been my foot.
I keep shaking my head, and I grip the counter. “Everything I’ve ever done,” I tell Farrow, “it wasn’t to cash in for a favor later. I never thought I’d be in a position where my younger cousins feel obligated to put their careers and lives on hold.” For Jane.
For me.
Fuck. “We’re the ones who’ve protected them,” I explain to him. “We even used to take their phones and block numbers of porn producers who had called us. Just so they wouldn’t be able to fucking reach them.”
Farrow shuts the binder. “Look at me.”
I can barely rotate my taut shoulders. I want to open the fucking binder and reread everything. Again.
“Maximoff—”
“I get it. I’m overthinking.” I’m white-knuckling the counter, and finally, I look at my boyfriend.
His eyes carry complete understanding. And somehow he still looks like he’d love to undo my tight-laces. “I’d be irritated, too, if my younger cousins decided to pay it forward when I didn’t want to be paid. But it’s happening, and you have to deal.”
I nod, my neck stiff. I want to be the kind of guy who can thank them, but I’m not there yet. I recognize the power in family, in that willingness and sacrifice, but just having this conversation, I feel like I failed Sulli and Beckett and even Charlie.
I reopen the binder. I circled the date December 14th a billion times. The start date. It’s soon.
“What are you thinking?” Farrow asks.
“None of us will be here for Christmas.” My family normally stays at the lake house for Christmas—a pretty secure place—and our personal bodyguards are allowed to leave and spend the holiday with their families. “I’m thinking about how you and the rest of SFO will feel—”
“We don’t care,” Farrow cuts me off.
I frown. “You sure?”
He smiles. “Man, most of us are in our late twenties. No kids, no spouses, no other obligations. We’re fine to spend holidays where our work takes us.” He lifts his spoon to his mouth. “We know what we signed up for.”
I nod again. My little brother turns fifteen on Christmas day. I’ll miss his birthday, and I don’t want to hurt him. I think it might.