Spoiler Alert (Spoiler Alert #1)(14)

It was more or less the same advice April had received for more than thirty years: If people are cruel, make yourself smaller and smaller, until you’re so inconsequential no one can target you.

But April was done cringing and hiding. The opinion of fatphobic randos on Twitter didn’t matter, and she wouldn’t make herself small just to avoid their notice. “I like showing everyone the costumes I’ve put together.”

JoAnn responded carefully, worry and good intentions in every syllable. “That dress . . .” She hesitated. “It didn’t show your figure to its best advantage. Maybe you can make one that doesn’t cling to—”

It could be anything. April’s arms. Her back. Her stomach. Her ass. Her thighs.

“I’m good,” she repeated, her tone more curt than she’d intended.

Another long silence.

When JoAnn spoke again, her voice quavered slightly. “You said you were picking out what to wear tonight?”

April had hurt her mother’s feelings, and a flush of shame crawled up her neck.

“Yes. I brought a few options, and I’m trying to decide between them.” Her hands were clenched into fists, and she knew, she just knew—

“I imagine people will take pictures of you during your dinner tonight.” JoAnn’s faux-cheer lodged under April’s skin like splinters. “A black dress is always in style, you know. And the color disguises so many sins, especially if you find a design that doesn’t fit too tightly.”

Black to disappear. Extra fabric to disguise.

As always, fatness was a sin, most likely mortal rather than venial.

Bowing her head, April didn’t respond for fear of what she might say.

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone about the date,” JoAnn continued. “Other than your father, of course. But I’m sure he won’t spread the—”

Okay, they were done. “I’d better go. I need to take a shower now so I have enough time to get ready for dinner.”

“All right. Have fun tonight, honey,” JoAnn said, although she didn’t sound as if she expected fun to be had by anyone involved. “I love you.”

Her mother meant it. April had never questioned that.

“Thanks, Mom.” Her nails were biting into her palms so hard, she was surprised she hadn’t broken the skin. “I love you too.”

And that was the hell of it. She did.

FRESH FROM THE shower, clad in a loose nightgown, April stood in front of her tiny hotel room closet and dithered.

As she’d told her mother, she’d brought plenty of date-outfit options from her half-packed home in Sacramento. Good ones. And under normal circumstances, she wasn’t prone to indecision—but these were far from normal circumstances. Whatever she chose to wear for her dinner with Marcus Caster-Rupp later that night, it had to make two simultaneous statements.

First: I’m confident and sexy, but not trying too hard. Because, yes, he might be vapid and vain, but he was also a famous actor and fucking hot, and she had her pride. Like her mother, she also anticipated more than a few candid shots of the dinner ending up online before she finished her last bite of dessert. She intended to look good in those photos, as well as in the pics she and Marcus would post on their own social media accounts.

To make that kind of statement required a formfitting dress. Not one in black, either. It required heels, loath as she was to torture her feet. It required dangling earrings.

But that was all her standard big-date garb, despite her mother’s advice. Nothing too complicated.

No, it was the second statement, one directed toward Marcus alone, that was proving tricky: You should share confidential details about the final season of your show, despite the legal and professional consequences you’d suffer upon doing so.

And making that kind of statement—well, she wasn’t entirely sure what kind of outfit would suffice. It should probably involve a hypnotist’s watch. You’re getting sleepy, very sleepy, and also very prone to telling me whether you and Lavinia finally fuck, and whether it’s awesome, and is there any full-frontal male nudity?

Absent such a watch, her best bet was cleavage. Last year, the mere sight of her dress’s plunging neckline had caused a date to stride confidently into a lamppost outside the Fairmont. Later, when she’d bent over to retrieve a dropped napkin during dinner, he’d stabbed himself in the cheek with his fork and yelped loudly enough to summon a nearby waiter.

Before that ill-fated evening, Blake had spent hours bragging about the intensity and thoroughness of his long-ago special forces training. Apparently, however, SEALs didn’t prepare for Advanced Mammary Warfare Tactics back in the early 2000s, and neither did present-day internet security experts.

When she’d teased him about that oversight, he’d scowled petulantly at her. Right before spilling half a glass of white wine over his suit jacket when she fiddled with the pendant hanging just above her breasts.

She’d snickered then, and she snickered again at the memory. Sucker.

Okay. A wrap dress, then. Cleavage Central.

She flipped through the hangers in the closet, contemplating her two main options. That colorful medallion print or the gorgeous seafoam green?

The green dress slipped to the floor, and she could barely put it back on the padded hanger.

Shit. Her hands were shaking.