Page 77 of Saving Pookie

"For what?" she smiles, all the while her lips remain pressed together. It's not the smile of a show-off. It's warm and cozy. "If you're apologizing for..." she chooses her words carefully, "this thing that you are. This thing I've always known, don't. An apology for that will only make me angry because you should know better than to believe I'd ever stop loving you."

I pat my knuckles over my eyes, wiping away tears.

She laughs quietly, "Now, if you're apologizing about the drugs? We can talk about that later."

I chuckle through the sniffles. "I don't know what you're talking about."

She nods, amused. "I'm sure you don't."

After production hightailed it out of the bar with their tails tucked between their legs, the crowd quickly followed suit. The people who knew our secret didn't say much. Gunnar offered his apologies and promised if he ever sees Talon on the streets, he'll handle him. Tamra joked that she no longer has a storyline for next season because of my forced outing. Not a funny joke, and yet I still laughed.

Dixon was reasonably upset that I never told him, while also claiming he always knew. We're best friends, and I kept this huge secret from him. Fear has no rhyme or reason. In hindsight, I wish I would have told the whole world on my terms. That's been stolen from me, though. All I can do is move forward.

As for the rest of them, yep, you guessed it—they all claim to have known. How could it have been that obvious when I didn't even know myself a year ago? In the quiet that follows everyone else leaving Pookie and me alone at the bar, I wonder what it'll feel like to film next season as my authentic self.

The only hitch? At this point, there probably won't even be a second season. This reunion will go down as one of the most infamous reality TV moments in history. A battle between the cast and the crew that ended with one of the head producers getting choked out. On second thought, there's no way the higher-ups aren't clamoring for a second go-around.

Mr. Pink is somewhere in the back, hiding from the world. He says it's better that way, that there's this inner rage he keeps bottled up that becomes almost impossible to trap back in the bottle once it's unleashed. Pookie and I agree that after tonight, he's the father neither of us really had: present and ready to go to war for us.

Tomorrow night will mark a momentous celebration—Pookie and I's first ever date, during which my mother will be tagging along to meet the boy that made me realize the thing she swears she knew all along. Something about dancing to a Shania Twain song when I was a toddler, and all the posters of Ariana Grande that adorned my walls as a teenager. Somehow, my mom knew…

I kick my feet off the edge of the bar, swaying in tandem with Pookie's. There's a certain look on his face, a quiet war waging inside his pretty little head. "What's on your mind?"

He squishes his mouth around in contemplation. "I don't want what happened to me to define me."

"It won't," I assure him. "People aren't going to remember the Cameron shit. They're going to remember the strong man who conquered his fears."

"How can you say that?" He breathes heavily. "I mean, would we even be anything if it wasn't for my past?"

I glare at him, an uneasy feeling in my stomach. Please tell me this isn't a breakup anthem. I don't think Ariana has enough music to get me through one of those right now.

He turns to me, eyes heavy. "If you didn't feel this need to protect me from it? From Cameron?"

I grab him by the back of the head and pull him close enough to kiss him, but I don't. I still myself there. "I feel these things I feel because of everything else. Not the other way around."

He swallows a nervous gasp. "The day I moved into your apartment, you protected me from the cameras then. That was before you knew the whole truth. Before this thing between us started." He trembles, a quiet quake of emotion rustling in the back of his throat. "If I wasn't this lost puppy, would you still... Would you still⁠—"

"Hey," I breathe. "I've spent the better part of these last nine months denying this thing we both know to be true." I lift him by his chin, and his eyes are different than ever before. They're still puppyish in nature, but I don't feel like I have to protect him anymore. I feel something else. Something stronger. "This thing," I whisper, "that I can't pretend I don't feel anymore."

His eyes grow, hopeful and longing.

"I love you, Pookie Pookster Pook."

His eyes strain at the corners, and a silent whimper passes over his lips. Somehow he manages to snicker through it all. "You know I have a last name, right?"

"I know," I nod with a grin. "I have no idea what it is, but I know you have one."

"It's Carpenter." He lets out a throaty laugh and wipes the tears from his cheeks. "Honestly, I don't know yours either."

We laugh together like two idiots in love. Two idiots who somehow never bothered to learn enough about each other to know each other's surnames. "I'm Braxton Fields."

"Well, Braxton Fields, it's nice to meet you." He shakes my hand and then pulls me in close, tucking our hands to the side. "And I love you too."

And then he's kissing me, his tear-stained cheeks wetting my own.

But those tears aren't of sorrow; rather, they're born of a freedom we both now feel.

To be together.