Ship It(62)

“Well”—Tess gives me the softest, smallest smile—“you have a friend now.” She looks a little nervous. “If you’ll have me.”

I let out a long, slow breath. I mean goddamn, who can resist something like that?

WHO IS THIS CHICK?

AND WHY DOES SHE LIKE ME?

I lower my voice. “If you think I’m weird, or awkward… I mean, I am those things, but also?” I say it before I can convince myself not to: “You make me nervous because I really want you to like me.”

She whispers back, “Me too.”

My heart is crashing in my chest from the way she’s looking at me. I decide to do a thing that terrifies me, but first I need to make sure of something.

“Don’t tell anyone what I’m about to do, okay? Not Forest, not my mom. Anyone.”

She nods okay.

I reach across the table and lace my fingers through hers as a smile spreads across her face. Her hands are warm, and she gives me a little squeeze and she can’t stop smiling and I can’t stop smiling and we both must look like toothy, hand-holding idiots, but I don’t care. Or I’m trying not to, at least.


Tess hadn’t heard about the secret project yet, so I told her to check her dash before she went into the panel so she’d know the deal. We made plans to meet up after at the revolving sushi place across the street. I’ve never been to one, and she said they’re ridiculous but fun, and it’s the only good place to get dinner in this part of town, unless I wanted to go to the Cheesecake Factory. (I’ve also never been to a Cheesecake Factory, but she scoffed like that was out of the question, so I suppose they’re uncool, although a factory that churns out cheesecake sounds kind of like a fantasy land to me.)

I walk her to the door of the room where the panel is taking place and watch her go in. I think she wants to maybe kiss me good-bye, but she doesn’t try, and I’m grateful for that. Holding hands is a lot already.


Today, there’s no one else in the wings with me. I haven’t seen Caty around, so she must be in the audience somewhere, taking photos or doing whatever it is she does. The Tumblr post about our plan is up to 3,000 notes, and word has spread across Twitter and the Facebook fandom groups, too. I wonder what Caty thinks of it. Is it enough of a scene? Will it work?

Onstage, the moderator kicks off the panel by reminding everyone that they’ll be screening the finale of Demon Heart live tomorrow night at nine p.m. in Teatree Park, followed by a marathon of the best episodes from season one that will last well into the night. It sounds amazing. With everything that’s happened I almost forgot that the finale is tomorrow night!

It’s kind of unreal. Before this trip, I would never have spaced about the finale; I would have been counting down the days, then the hours until it aired. But now I have all these other things to worry about, like whether it will get good ratings, what the media reaction will be, whether the show will be picked up for a second season, and whether my plan will be enough to force Jamie to do SmokeHeart next year. I almost miss the days when I could just relax and watch the show. When I could just be a fan.

My phone buzzes with a text from Tess: Wanna watch the finale together? I smile to myself and text: Definitely. Bring a blanket. Her text back comes almost immediately: Why, are we going to snuggle under it? The thought makes my heart skip a beat. I just type her the winking emoji. She writes back with the hearts emoji, and I bite my lip smiling.

As the panel goes on, Rico is charming, Jamie stammers through his answers with as few actual details as possible, and Forest is… well, Forest is being weird. For instance, when the moderator asks him how he feels about shooting the show so far from his home in LA—a question I’ve heard him answer two times already—his response today is very different. Usually he says, “North Carolina has leeches, but Los Angeles just has agents,” a joke that I’m sure is funny to a very specific group of people in California but never quite plays with the convention crowd. This time, he says, “You know, North Carolina is a beautiful and welcoming place, and I love being able to travel for a role. It helps me get into the head of my character.” I mean, whaaaat. Why is he being professional and diplomatic all of a sudden? Who’s he trying to impress?

We’ll see how professional he’ll be once the Q&A starts.

Finally, the moderator asks his last question: “Forest, you recently joined Twitter. So what’s next for you, Snapchat?” A groaner—we all know he hates social media, and he barely even uses the account he’s on. There’s no way this guy is learning Snapchat. But instead of shrugging it off, Forest says, “If the right reason came along.”

What does that mean?

The moderator turns to the audience. “At this time, we’d like to take some questions from the audience. Please line up behind the microphones in the aisles.”

And here’s where I hold my breath.

Normally, there’s a mad scramble to the microphones as fans try to be one of the first in line. Today, there’s a lot of murmuring and chair rustling and craning of necks, but no movement except one woman toward the back of the crowd and another toward the middle who stand up. The other fans around them whisper urgently until they sit back down. Both fans look older—possibly Star Command fans who aren’t on social media.

I can’t believe it, but I think it’s actually working.