Spoiler Alert (Spoiler Alert #1)(107)
Then, as planned, they had ten minutes left for questions and answers.
One of the con volunteers picked an audience member, someone April vaguely remembered joining the session moments after she’d introduced Summer.
The tall, generously rounded girl, who couldn’t have been much older than twenty, smiled shyly as she looked at April. “Hi. I’m Leila, and I was hoping to ask a question.”
April smiled back, as encouragingly as she could. “Hi, Leila. Go ahead. Summer would be delighted to answer any question you might have.”
The girl’s brow crinkled. “No, I mean I was hoping to ask you a question.”
Oh.
Oh, shit.
In her peripheral vision, she could see Summer taking out a cell phone and feverishly thumbing away, which seemed odd and sort of rude under the circumstances, but April supposed no one in the audience was paying attention to the actor right now anyway.
No, they were all looking at her, and they all knew what this young woman wanted to ask about. Marcus. Of course, Marcus.
The con organizer was waving at her from the side of the stage, mouthing something. It’s up to you, if she was interpreting the man’s exaggerated lip movements correctly.
Her privacy was at stake here, but so was her pride.
So was her heart.
Marcus would eventually see this, she knew. At the very least, he’d hear about it, from Summer or someone else. And maybe she hadn’t thought the convention was the right place to have this conversation, and maybe she hadn’t intended to expose her heart to a hall full of strangers before speaking to him directly, but she wasn’t going to evade the question, whatever it was.
He loved her. He loved her, and Marcus had already loved too many people who’d failed him. Who’d ignored his needs. Who’d refused to acknowledge him publicly.
She was proud of him and for him, and whatever happened between them next, he needed to know that.
After a shuddering breath, she mentally hiked up her big-girl panties and answered the young woman. “Sure. What’s your question?”
“At the cast panel—” Leila gestured vaguely toward the door. “You know, the one that happened right before this session?”
April tipped her head in acknowledgment.
The girl continued, “Anyway, at that panel, Marcus Caster-Rupp said he wasn’t with you as a publicity stunt.”
“Our relationship has nothing to do with publicity.” The words were firm. Definitive. “The first time we met, the attraction was immediate and mutual.”
And that remained true whether she meant their first online meeting or their first date.
“Oh. Good.” Leila’s brief smile was beautiful, wide enough to plump her cheeks adorably. “Are you two still dating? Because it . . .” The microphone picked up the little catch in her throat. “It meant a lot to me to see you two t-together.”
When April met the girl’s eyes, she saw pain and need there. The same pain and need that had clawed at her for decades, and the same pain and need that had drawn her inexorably into the Lavineas fandom.
Please tell me people who look like us can be loved.
Please tell me people who look like us can be desired.
Please tell me people who look like us can have happy endings.
She bit her lip. Dropped her chin to her chest. Considered what to tell the girl. Dammit, she hadn’t intended to say any of this, but—
“Not to sound like a social media status update, but it’s complicated.” The audience chuckled, and she huffed out a small sound of amusement too. “Let me make one thing absolutely clear, though: If we do break up, it won’t be because our relationship was fake, or because he doesn’t like how I look. He wants me exactly as I am. Believe me”—she slanted the audience a smile dripping with smug confidence—“I know.”
Leila giggled at that, and April laughed with her and reached for a well-deserved sip of water. Only to see, when she turned away from the audience, someone standing at the far edge of the stage, blocked from the sight of session attendees by a curtain.
Not the con organizer. Not a volunteer.
Marcus.
His chest was heaving, as if he’d run through the hotel to reach her. He was clutching his cell, and April suddenly knew exactly whom Summer had been texting earlier and why.
He was staring at her, face pinched into a concerned frown. It was easy enough to read his lips, to interpret the sweep of his arm toward the unseen audience. I’m sorry.
When she smiled at him, his gaze turned soft. Still worried, but gentle and affectionate.
“Leila, you didn’t ask me this, but I want to make something else clear.” She spoke into her microphone, but she was looking at him. Always, always at him. “If Marcus and I break up, it won’t be because I want to, and it won’t be because I don’t love him.”
He’d gone very, very still, his face grave.
“I do love him. Of course I love him. How could I not love him?” It was an impossibility, really. An inevitability, from that first direct message on the Lavineas server. “He’s such a talented man. Incredibly knowledgeable and smart and so curious about everything.”
At his sides, his hands twitched and curled in on themselves, but he didn’t glance away. Not once.
“There’s so much more to him than what he’s shown the world, and all of it is even more impressive than the person you see on your television and movie screens.” A vast understatement. She hoped he understood that someday. “He isn’t perfect, just like I’m not perfect. He makes mistakes, because of course he makes mistakes. He isn’t an actual demigod.”