Breathe, I tell myself. It’s fine.
I pace back and forth behind the outside stage. No one has spotted me yet, but my skin’s crawling as if I’m being watched. It comes with the territory.
Now I know why Gail, my handler, told me to pop two Advil before the show. I’ve been to rock concerts (and, back in the day, convention panels), but this audience is ridiculous. Gail said they’ve been standing out here since four this morning. What person in their right mind would stand in line that early for me?
Beside me, Gail bounces on her well-worn sneakers. I don’t think she’s had the chance to unlace them since the second episode of Seaside Cove. She’s scrolling through her emails, nodding. “Everything’s set. We’ve got your flight booked for tonight, your ride to and from the airport, two assistants running interference for paparazzi…” Then she looks up at me and smiles. “We’re golden.”
She hands me a water bottle, and I put it against my neck. Her strawberry-blonde hair is pulled back into a too-tight frizzy bun, a sure sign she’s just as stressed as I am. “Just breathe. You’ll be fine. This is just the starter course for the media blitz. You can do it.”
“You could say I’m leveling up,” I joke.
She gives me a blank look.
“Like in video games? When you get enough experience points you—shutting up now.” I unscrew the bottle and take a swig. Through the gap in the backstage curtains, I watch my fans shift impatiently. I squint. “Is that girl wearing my face on her shirt?”
“Don’t pay too much attention,” she replies. Her phone beeps and she pulls it out again. She frowns.
I give her a side-eye. “Everything all right?”
She scrolls through her email.
“Earth to Gail?”
Nothing.
“Gail Morgan O’Sullivan.”
“What? Oh!” She shoves her phone into her back pocket. “Sorry, sorry. Do you ever feel like you’re forgetting something?”
“My underwear. All the time,” I say with dead seriousness. “Sometimes I give myself a wedgie just to make sure I have them on.”
Her worry cracks open into a small smile. “You do not.”
Gail is older—twenty-five or so—with a brushing of freckles on her cheeks that darken in the summer, and almost glow when she blushes. Aside from my signed copy of Batman: Year One, she’s the best friend I’ve got. When you’re me, real friends don’t come all that easy. Or at all. They used to, but I learned the hard way that things change. Especially when you’re famous.
A stagehand comes over to mic me. I thread it under my blazer and clip the receiver to the back of my jeans. “Two minutes,” he says, and rushes away.
“Oh-kay!” Gail says. “Remember to smile and just be the best you you can be.” She looks me over with an eagle eye, putting a lock of hair back in place and straightening the blazer over my T-shirt. It’s the most expensive thing I own—the blazer, not the T-shirt—as per my agent’s request. He wants me to look approachably geeky but still Burberry-wearing Seaside Cove material. Which, as far as I’m concerned, are two streams that you shouldn’t ever cross.
“Look to the stars. Aim. Ignite.” Gail chants. She hugs me tightly. “I’m so proud of you, Darien. Your dad is too.”
“Proud of the money,” I mumble.
Her mouth twitches. “I don’t think it’s just—”
The audience’s shrill cheer cuts through her words. Just shrill, all-hell-loose screams. I’m pretty sure my costar Jessica Stone—sweet, popular, with an indie-film track record that’s way more impressive than my Seaside Cove stint—gets a crowd that’s a lot…calmer. Her dude followers don’t draw I HEART JESS on T-shirts, they just…well, never mind. I don’t really want to think about the creepy Google searches of Jess Stone fans. Our crowds are different, end of story. The Starfield director, Amon Wilkins, of giant robot movie fame, probably figured she would bring in the coveted awards attention and accolades. But I guess I’ll find out soon enough, since we start filming tomorrow.
As for me? I apparently bring an army of monsters to a beloved cult fandom. My fans call themselves SeaCos—or maybe it’s Darienites. And today? This is a publicity stunt. This is my manager and PR team at their finest.
Scotty can beam me up anytime now.
That’s the thing too. I know I’m not the first young guy to take over a character that people already love. I’m sure Chris Pine had people who didn’t like him because he was Kirk 2.0. But I’m different. I’m eighteen. He was twenty-something. He had time to refine his No Fraks Given. I still worry about matching my socks and making sure no one uncovers my Star Wars boxers. Plus, right now, my hands are clammy and I think I’m starting to sweat, and sweating during a televised interview is the worst possible thing you can do.
Breathe in, breathe out. You can do this, Darien.
The stagehand rounds back and corrals me up the steps to the stage. He starts counting down with his fingers.
Five…four…
I smooth my blazer. Swallow my anxiety.
“And now let’s welcome our next guest to the stage,” one of the cohosts says, quieting the crowd, “the young actor better known as the king of Seaside Cove”—Holy Ego-Crusher, Batman, that knocks off all my street-cred—“and now picking up the mantle as our favorite royal from the stars, Federation Prince Carmindor…Darien Freeman!”
Breathe in. Breathe out. Put on a smile.
Like a superhero donning a mask, I step out of me and into Darien Freeman, swallowed up by the ravaging screams of five hundred teenage girls.
THE BEAUTIFUL FACE—ANNOYINGLY BEAUTIFUL, the kind you’ll remember because it’ll be plastered on every fragrance ad and billboard for the next ten years—of Darien Freeman stretches across the entirety of my stepmother’s 54-inch plasma TV, grinning in an easygoing sort of way. Brown skin, long eyelashes, curly hair. He might look the part, but his smile’s so bright it’s almost blinding. Not dour, brooding Federation Prince material. Not even cut from the same cloth.
Carmindor smiled only once in all fifty-four episodes. At Princess Amara in episode 53. The episode before—
No, no. No one thinks about that last episode, let alone talks about it. It never happened. I even blacklisted any mention of it from my blog.
Rockefeller Center is crowded with Starfield blue and silver. A gaggle of fangirls in the front row wave around STARCRUSH ME! and I WANT TO WABBA-WABBA WITH YOU signs like they’ve all watched the interstellar missions against the Nox firsthand. Which they haven’t.
Even I haven’t.
Dad, though…he was there from the beginning. The original fanboy. He even started a convention for it. ExcelsiCon. We went every year. I remember meeting the aging cast, getting my stargun signed. Hiding it in my book bag during school. Waking up every morning to Dad’s alarm clock playing the theme song. Eating Wabba-Wabba Flakes for breakfast (which were really Frosted Flakes, but six-year-old me didn’t know the difference). Stargazing in the summers and pretending to defeat the Nox in our backyard. Saving the galaxy from being sucked into the Black Nebula…