Dax leans close enough to murmur, “You two are going to make this season unwatchably watchable.”
“Die quietly,” Tilda says without looking at him.
He raises both brows. “Right. Sorry.”
Sonya, more practical, nods toward the floor markers. “They’re not going to let you skip it.”
Tilda inhales through her nose.
“I know.”
We start walking because what else is there to do? Refusal is an option in theory, but not one either of us can afford in practice. The cameras move with us. Of course they do. A floating panel nearby flashes our names again with a stylized montage frame already waiting to be filled.
I keep a careful half-step of distance this time.
When we reach our assigned marker, Tilda stops dead center on it and folds one arm across her middle. A photographer waves at us.
“Closer together, please!”
“No,” Tilda says.
The photographer blinks. “For the shot?—”
“No.”
I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to stay expressionless.
The photographer tries again, more diplomatic. “A little angle, then? Toward each other?”
Tilda turns her head just enough to look at him. “You may take the angle you get.”
Sonya, two markers down with a man who looks like he regrets all his ancestors, mutters, “I adore her.”
I probably shouldn’t hear that. I do.
The photographer looks at me, desperate. “Can you help?”
I spread my hands. “Friend, I’m doing brilliantly by remaining vertical.”
That gets a few laughs from the room and a tiny murderous glance from Tilda that somehow makes my pulse jump instead of my survival instincts. Troubling.
The camera flashes anyway.
One shot. Two. Three.
On the giant review monitor nearby, the images appear in sequence: other couples faking ease, hiding hatred, manufacturing intrigue. Then us—Tilda carved from ice, me standing beside her with my hands carefully to myself, the distance between our bodies bright as a wound.
The crowd loves it.
I can feel that too. The audience senses, even before the official metrics roll in. We’re not sweet. We’re not reconciled. We’re tension with cheekbones. Producers dine out on tension.
Captain Photonic’s voice pours over the hall again, ecstatic. “Nowthatis emotional voltage!”
Tilda mutters, “I hope he steps on a rake.”
My mouth betrays me with the ghost of a smile. “There you are.”
She hears it.
