Her flight home to New York wasn’t until that afternoon. Hopefully, he’d do both. She wet her lips and sank in the possibilities.
Brinton slipped his University of Tennessee T-shirt over her head, grabbed her phone, and bounded down the stairs. She wanted to be with him when she saw the headline for the first time.
Jamie was on the couch, his shirtless shoulders striped with the first beams of morning sun. Golden waves tousled and beautiful as ever.
She slowed her tempo, then slid next to him. “The article’s out. Shall we pull it up?”
He didn’t look up, but stared at his own phone in his hands.
“I saw it,” he said, voice more distant than she’d ever heard it.
When her fingertips brushed his shoulder, he finally looked at her. His eyes were cloudy, like he hadn’t slept. The corners of his lips lifted, but something drowned his attempt to commit.
“What’s wrong?”
“You should pull it up.”
She did. At the top ofLandmark’s website, in bold black letters, read:
Preview: Jamie Crawford Jr. and Brinton Shaw, everyone’s favorite Grammys couple, reunite for a groundbreaking confession.
Brinton blinked at her glowing phone screen to ensure it wasn’t a mirage. Yes, the headline was a little click-baity. It wasn’t what she had submitted to Rich, which focused on Jamie’s fresh start, nottheirinternet stardom. However, seeing the article, out in the world, meanteverything.
She finally had something to show for all the years she had languished in the margins.
“Holy shit, Jamie.” She kicked her feet and squealed. “We did it.”
His smile had collapsed and body remained rigid. “Scroll down to the comments.”
She did what he asked, reading in silence.
Gobbling D for another headline?
Stop trying to make them happen. That bitch is nasty. #NotMyCouple
Jamie would never date a n?—
Brinton stopped reading. Even at seven in the goddamnmorning, the bigots were gonna bigot. But she knew this was coming, and she’d deal with it. Eventually. She closed her eyes, and swallowed it down, because it didn’t matter.
It shouldn’t matter.
“Ouch,” she said lightly, hoping to make him smile that smile that lit up her entire world. “Good thing our website manager has a block button. He’ll clear out all those comments and?—”
Jamie turned to her, took her hands. “Brinton, honey. I?—”
His voice cracked with emotion, like it pained him to keep going. Why wasn’t he happy?
He exhaled, shoulders slumping from the force. “We can’t do this.”
She squeezed his hands tighter,her sincerity a pickax to his heart. “I don’t—Jamie, what’s going on?”
“Sweetheart, we can’t be together,” he continued, still unsure if he was in a nightmare.
But he had to do this.
“I can’t let you be villainized again for my benefit. Look at that headline, look at those disgusting comments. Every amazing, beautiful thing you’ll do in your career will be poisoned by me. They’ll chew you up and spit you out. You don’t deserve that.”
His phone buzzed, but he ignored it.
