Spoiler Alert (Spoiler Alert #1)(75)

There was no judgment in her voice. No impatience. No disdain, at his weakness or his ingratitude or his tendency to feel more than was comfortable sometimes.

He hadn’t known. How could he have? Nothing in his past, amid all his successes and ill-fated relationships, could have predicted the dizzying relief of laying his heart before her, unshielded, only to discover—

Only to discover that she’d protect it for him.

So he could talk. Finally, he wanted to talk about it. Wanted to listen.

He took a shuddering breath against her throat. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I think . . .” Still tunneling her fingers gently through his hair, she paused before continuing. “I don’t think forgiveness is something that can be owed.”

Against his face, he could hear her labored swallow. He could feel it.

“Especially if that forgiveness hasn’t been earned. Even if the person who hurt you is also someone who—who loves you.” Her fingers stilled, her warm palm cradling his skull. “You can choose to offer it. But you don’t owe it to anyone. Not even your parents.”

She was cupping his face, lifting it from her shoulder. Meeting his eyes, her own suddenly fierce. She spoke faster now, with more certainty.

“If you don’t want to see them, don’t see them. If you don’t want to talk to them, don’t talk to them. If you can’t forgive them or don’t want to, then don’t fucking forgive them.” She nodded, either in emphasis or to herself, he wasn’t sure which. “If you do want to forgive them, that’s okay too. If you want to talk to them or visit them, I’ll support you however I can. There’s no right or wrong answer here, Marcus. Just whatever answer would make you happiest.”

That had never been the point, not with his parents.

For decades, the three of them had been bound by expectations and obligations, rather than any particular regard for something as inconsequential as his happiness, or even theirs. But if he shed those strangling tethers, if their bond became something he could choose or not choose, as he desired . . .

He didn’t know what that would feel like. Whether his anger and hurt would fade into insignificance, finally. Whether forgiveness would come more easily, or whether he’d find himself confident in his decision not to offer it.

“I’ve never—” He pinched his mouth shut and thought back. Scrolled through decades, searching, but his instinctive claim was correct. “I’ve never talked to them about how they made me feel back then. How they make me feel now. Instead, I just pretended to be someone else. It seems . . . wrong not to forgive them for things I never said hurt me.”

She was back to picking her words with care. “Do you want to talk to them about it?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” he finally said.

Shit, so much unguarded emotion was exhausting. Head muddled by fatigue and uncertainty, he was resting on her shoulder again, curled against her side, her body a bulwark in a gale. Her fingers were playing with the hair at the nape of his neck now, her other arm warm around his back.

When it came to his parents, he truly had no idea how to proceed.

All he knew: None of his characters, none of his artifice had ever offered him this kind of shelter, this kind of comfort. Only April.

Despite the dread and shame curling in his gut, then, he wasn’t telling her about Book!AeneasWouldNever. He wasn’t confessing his lie of omission.

This circumscribed openness might not be everything he wanted. She might never know all of his story. But what lay between them was more than he’d ever had before, more than he’d ever dreamed he could grasp, and he wasn’t risking it.

No, he wasn’t risking it.

He was squeezing tighter.





Lavineas Server DMs, Seven Months Ago

Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Are you going to next year’s Con of the Gates?

Book!AeneasWouldNever: Attending events as a fan isn’t really my thing.

Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Because you don’t like crowds, or . . . ?

Book!AeneasWouldNever: Something like that.

Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Okay Book!AeneasWouldNever: It’s just Book!AeneasWouldNever: Meeting my online friends in person doesn’t seem like a great idea to me.

Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: You’re shy?

Book!AeneasWouldNever: Sometimes?

Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Because please know: you don’t have to be nervous around me. I don’t care what you look like, or whether you’re awkward face-to-face, or—whatever. We’ve been friends for a long time now, and I’d love to meet you in person.

Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: for coffee Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: or dinner? Just the two of us?

Book!AeneasWouldNever: I wish I could. Please, please believe that.





21


AFTER A DAY FULL OF DOCUMENTS, APRIL CAME HOME TO yet more documents.

Not lab results from soil samples this time, or reports from consultants in which they misinterpreted data or used the wrong screening levels to draw their conclusions, but television and movie scripts. Actual Hollywood scripts, each containing a role Marcus’s agent thought he might like, or a role already offered to him before he even caught his first glimpse of the story.

Some he’d have to audition for, others he wouldn’t. Some would offer a substantial paycheck, others not much above scale. Some boasted big names as costars or producers or directors, and others counted on the story itself as the main draw.