Page 123 of The Golden Scoop

“Martha leaked that headline on purpose, J. She called it ‘encouragement.’ Said the reason I’ve been stuck on The Scoop for years is because I have too many principles.”

Olivia slams her fist into her hand. “She’s forcing the narrative! We can’t allow that!”

I grab her face and plant a loud kiss on her forehead. “I’m proud to have raised such a perfect miniature me.”

“Okay… let’s say we go through with this,” Julia says, still wary. “What if no one sees it? That’s how the internet works. Then you’d be out of a job, accomplishing nothing.”

“Oh! What if we send Matt’s manager an email?” Olivia suggests, raising her hand. “I’m sure she’d want this out there.”

Matt’s career flashes through my mind. Three weeks we’ve spent together, and every moment he’s chosen honesty over image, even when it might cost him that part he was gunning for. I can’t let that get twisted into something ugly. Not by her, not by anyone.

“Could work,” I say.

“If you do this, you’re done here,” Julia repeats. “You’ll be cleaning up your desk tomorrow, sending out CVs by the end of the day.”

“I’m already done here, J.”

Something in my expression must do it, because she starts the car without another word and pulls into traffic.

“Straight to yours,” Julia says. “No time to waste. I’ll loop Harrison in when we get there, he might have some contacts we can use as well.”

For a second, I just look at them.

Blowing up my job over dinner is not your typical Monday night, and yet they’re here, without hesitation.

Matt never asked for anything in return. He never treated me like I was disposable, even when the rest of his industry and mine seem to make such a habit out of it. I have to prove that he was right to trust me.

“Okay,” I say more to myself than to them. “Let’s do it.”

We all shift into action, taking over the living room floor as our home base. Harrison stops by to drop Julia’s laptop off, and I have to be physically held back by Olivia to avoid dragging him into a full-blown interrogation.

“What about three questions?” I bargain. “Just three⁠—”

“Concentrate,” Olivia cuts in, blocking him from view. “Matt’s not going anywhere.”

And so I do. We all do.

Julia takes control of all the photos I snapped during the past three weeks. Some staged, most candid shots that really show the man behind the mask. They look real, and her master editing skills don’t change them. It sharpens them. They’re addicting to look at.

“It’s not just me, right?” I say, peeking over her shoulder at a portrait of Matt on the boat, sunlight catching his hair. “He’s, like… objectively handsome.”

“Not just you, babe.” Julia snorts.

Olivia doesn’t look up from her screen, just gives us the slowest, most judgmental Gen Z eye roll I’ve ever seen.

She’s been neck deep cleaning up my blog, tearing it apart and rebuilding it to make it look less like Blogger from twenty years ago, and more like a professional website.

“It needs to be a serious platform,” Liv mutters. “You’re publishing something serious. People need to take one look and know it matters.”

She updates my profile picture for one Julia took last summer.

“Emma Miller isn’t anonymous anymore,” she adds. “She’s a brand now.”

The idea doesn’t necessarily have me bouncing of the walls. I never wanted to be a brand, just write about things that matter. But if this is what it takes to get heard, then put me right in the center of the public eye.

While they each take care of their respective portion, I open my draft and rewrite. I lean into honesty, but this time not just about Matt—about my job, about how press in Hollywood treats celebrities, the lack of integrity and truth.

The words come faster than I can type them. It’s not the cleanest version I could do, but it finally feels like mine.