Page 22 of The Fake Divination Offense
Tell Roesia and Drach all this is moot because I’m not claiming Urzoth as my patron god anymore.
Tell Roesia I’ll happily figure out another way to improve my public image before the championship game.
TELL THEM.
Slowly, Alexo looks from the paper to me.
He swallows roughly, throat bobbing, and I’m stuck staring at that spot, remembering the sheen under the bar lights when he was on stage, the way his neck bent as he crooned about dreams and believing andfeeling.
All those emotions he spouted last night are radiating from him now. All the hope he emitted like light beams, and there I was, photosynthesizing each and every one of them.
Before he can speak, I ask him, “Do you want this? If you don’t, we can walk out that door.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Drach tries, but he’s nothing. The only thing that matters is Alexo.
Who’s looking at me the way he did last night, studying me, and I wonder what he’s seeing play across my face. I’m not doing a very good job of hiding myself from him, but instead of running for the hills, he smiles.
There they are. Those dimples.
“Yeah?” he says. It’s a question. “Yeah. I think I do. This is crazy, though. Right?”
It is. Certifiable. Downright demented.
I am inallkinds of trouble.
“If he’s in,” I tell Roesia, “so am I.”
Alexo and I sign our lives away. It certainly feels like that; the moment we verbally agree, Roesia calls in a few people from legal, who begin going over the NDA and contracts. When someone from HR hands us each a list of PDA options and gently asks us to circle which acts we’d be comfortable doing for cameras, I swear to all the gods that a blood vessel pops in my brain.
The list is…extensive. From handholding all the way to things no one should do for cameras unless they’re signing upfor a whole other type of financial endeavor, and I stare at the list, stupefied.
Alexo doesn’t hesitate. He circles three things and declares, “Handholding, hugging, and kissing, no tongue,” with a tone that brooksnoroom for arguing.
He follows that up by looking at me, a challenge burning the side of my face before I can peel my focus away from the sheet of PDA options.
My gods, does that really saydry humping?
I nod at him. “Yeah. That’s fine. Sure.” I think I repeat that a second time.Yeah. Fine. Sure.
You’re going to let me touch you?
Kissing, no tongue.
There go a few more blood vessels.
Alexo’s brows pop up. Surprise, again. I seem to keep surprising him, but I have no extra mental space to unpick that knot. Not when I woke up this morning intending to separate from my patron god and ended up his poster boy for heroic deeds andalsotied to a fake relationship with a guy who’d been more fantasy than reality just hours ago.
Am I still asleep? Maybe I didn’t wake up this morning. Maybe this is what happens when you self-medicate with champagne.
More signatures, a few legalese speeches I only half hear. Roesia assures me my agent will get copies of everything I’m signing—yeah, that’s fine, sure, my motto right now—and Alexo and I are both sent links to a calendar of events throughout the season.
“We’ll get started today, to ride the interest from last night,” a publicist says. The room’s swelled to about a dozen people, and they all stand now, so I guess we’re done—
Wait.
“Today?” I manage, feeling like I’m emerging from underwater. No, water would be easy to get out from. I’m emerging from under honey, sticky and tacky, and it’s all over my nose and eyes, can’t really breathe or see.
“Today with your first date,” the publicist clarifies and nods atmy phone. “It’s on the calendar. We’re starting you simple, a coffee in the café downstairs. We’ll get a few shots of you two together, no video or sound recordings, so feel free to talk about whatever you’d like. It’s all for show, remember; make it look good.”
