“I never was.” I hit the wall harder.
“Right,” he said.
“Can we talk?” Emma asked.
“I’m not going,” I said. I wiped my forehead with my forearm.
“I’m having déjà vu,” Emma said. “We aren’t even here to talk about the premiere.”
“Well, we aren’t going, if you aren’t. It’s the three amigos or not at all,” Harrison said.
I flicked a disbelieving glance to him.
“Why do we even need a premiere for an anniversary special?” he added.
“The whole thing is a waste anyway,” Emma said. “The cost of the theatre, the clothes and hair and makeup. It’s all a lot.”
I looked between them suspiciously.
“We really aren’t here for that. We are here for you,” she said seriously.
“We’re worried about you, mate,” Harrison said. “I know you’ve been hurting.”
My chest constricted. So often, I worried that they only contacted me out of obligation or because of work. But these were my best friends. No matter what I did, they continued to show up. More people to whom I wasn’t worthy of their devotion.
I shrugged and smacked the wall one last time but it didn’t even make a dent. I sniffed.
“Cuppa?” I asked.
They nodded, and Agata yelled that she was already on it from the kitchen.
“I take it from this display of testosterone that you still haven’t talked with Kate?” she asked.
“Nope.” I set down the sledgehammer and gestured to the covered chairs in the next room.
“Have you checked in with her?” Harrison asked.
I stared blankly at him. “Obviously not.”
“Why not just talk?” she asked.
“There’s nothing to say.” I sat down and wiped the dust from my forehead. “She said she didn’t care about the rumors or the fame stuff and yet at the first sign of trouble she ran.”
Emma and Harrison exchanged a look. “Well, that’s not exactly what happened,” Emma said.
Harrison remained awfully silent, studying his tapping foot.
It wasn’t fair. She was hurt because she didn’t think anybody would take her seriously. “I tried to tell her that Hollywood would do this,” I said. “I warned her repeatedly.”
“But it wasn’t Sally or Hollywood. It was you,” Harrison said. I shot him a look, but to his credit, he didn’t back down. “Look, mate. You wanted to see her, I get that. But all she ever wanted was for you to just be honest with her. She thought you finally had been truthful about everything, only to learn you had a hand in getting her there. She didn’t feel like she deserved to be there.”
“She absolutely did. More than I bloody did. I told her that,” I defended.
“Possibly. But your actions spoke louder,” Emma said. “She felt manipulated.”
“She said I controlled situations out of fear,” I mumbled. “What bullocks.”
“Yeah, you do,” Emma agreed.
