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I do without hesitation. I’m pretty sure this theater has suddenly moved locations to the surface of the fucking sun.
“Is your dress too tight? Need me to loosen it?”
I laugh harshly. “This is the fat dress, Harrison. It’s already been loosened.”
He frowns. “I don’t know if you realize this, but you’re growing a baby, Rocky. He or she is getting bigger by the day, and they need space. That’s why you’re getting bigger. To give them space. Not because you’re getting fatter.”
I nod. I do know that. Really, I do.
Hollywood just doesn’t always make it entirely easy to accept. I’m already dreading the pace at which I’m going to have to work to “get my body back” in a timeline that won’t garner any extra attention or ridicule.
I can’t catch my breath as the consequences of everything that’s happened in the last five minutes flash before my eyes. I can feel the world and their questions closing in around me, and I grasp at my chest to try to claw away the skin and bone so I can get some air in.
“Rocky, breathe,” Harrison says reassuringly, rubbing a hand up and down my back. I jump away from it, unable to stand any contact at all at this point.
Oh God, am I having a panic attack? Is this what it feels like?
I scratch at my throat and gulp for air as Harrison walks around me, tilts my chin up with a finger, and holds my eyes directly. “Rocky, look at me. Look at me,” he commands. “Breathe. Nice and slow, a normal, shallow breath. Don’t try to suck in all the air in the room.”
I shake my head. I need it. I need all the air.
He steadies me with two hands on each side of my neck and holds my eyes with his own. “Breathe with me, okay?”
I watch his mouth as he inhales two short beats and exhales the same shortly after. I mimic his count and focus on doing exactly what he does.
After a full minute of doing nothing but breathing to his rhythm, I finally convince myself I’m not dying enough to calm down.
The door bursts open, and Ben comes charging toward us, frustration and anger clear on his face. Harrison reacts swiftly, gently but commandingly moving my body behind his and stepping up directly to Ben’s challenge.
Ben’s voice is rough and accusing as he points a disrespectful finger in Harrison’s face. “What the fuck was that? Get a sudden hankering for fifteen seconds of fame?”
Harrison doesn’t budge—doesn’t blink. Instead, he snorts derisively. He is twenty feet tall, so sure of himself, and I’m as small as a mouse. I hate to even admit it, but I can feel myself sinking into the carpet animatedly. Why is it that I feel any sort of shame or guilt or responsibility at all? It’s not as though I did anything other than trip.
“You’re kidding, right?” Harrison asks through an incredulous laugh. “You are accusing me of being a whore for fame? Your inability to look away from the camera for a goddamn second is the reason I had to step up in the first place. There wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to let Rocky fall and hurt herself because of your vanity,” Harrison challenges swiftly.
“Guys,” I interject meekly. Neither one acknowledges me, and I can’t even fault them for it. Where the hell is my voice?
“I should have you thrown out of here,” Ben threatens, and I have to roll my eyes. Dear God, that’s the best taunt he’s got? He might as well have told Harrison he was going to tell his mommy on him. Luca had stronger comebacks at nine years old, for Pete’s sake.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Harrison states firmly. “Not tonight, not in the next two weeks, not ever. If that’s too much for you, maybe you should just move on to pretending with someone else.”
“Fucking hell!” Ben throws his perfectly manicured hands up in the air. “I don’t need this shit!”
Heidi bursts through the doors next, making sure to secure them behind herself and pull me handily around the corner before saying a word.
Harrison notices the semi-rough nature of her hold on me and leaves Ben without a word.
Ben, the puppy dog at a loss for something better to do, follows too.
“I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but—”
“Heidi, stop!” I cut in, my voice suddenly emboldened in a way that’s been missing. “Just stop. I realize we’re going to have a lengthy discussion about many, many things, but can we please just get through the night first? I have to go in there. I have to present an award, and I’m nominated for another. I refuse to spend the next twenty minutes back here picking over an event I cannot change.”
