The True Love Experiment

The door closes behind him and I peer down at the paper.

I knew it was coming—frankly it would be stupid of us to not green-light a second season—but seeing it in black and white stuns me silent for a moment anyway. I am sure, with the structure we’ve built, the crew and I could do it again with another Heroine or Hero at the center, and even if it’s half as successful as this first season has been, it would be a financial success for the company. And for me.

I just can’t imagine doing it with anyone but Fizzy beside me. Not to mention another season keeps me in the public eye and pushes a possible relationship between us even further out of reach.

“Can I think about it?” I ask.

“Think about it?” Blaine pokes the third paragraph with an insistent finger, pressing a bunch of buttons underneath it. “Kid, do you see what we’re offering you? We’re talking more money, more time, more staff, and a bigger production budget.”

I do see. What they’re offering me is part of the reason I want to consider this carefully.

Gingerly, I guide his hand away and swivel in my seat to face him. “I see the financial incentive, and I know we could do the show again quite easily. But, for as crazy as this might sound—because I know we are absolutely the biggest thing on television right now—money is not the only thing I care about. I enjoyed what I was doing before. I’m not sure I’m ready to abandon the documentary world quite yet.”

He waves this off. “Fine. We’ll give you the $40K for your ocean thing. You can do one of those and one of these a year. Is that what it will take for you to sign?”

“This wasn’t our agreement, Blaine.”

“I’m offering you a huge opportunity. You’re a natural in this space.”

“I just need a moment,” I tell him. “It’s not a no or a yes, it’s a ‘let’s talk about this after the final episode.’?”

Blaine lets out a short laugh and narrows his eyes at me. “I see. Okay. You’re angling for more, and I respect that.”

“It isn’t that. I—”

He winks and slaps my shoulder. “I’ll see what I can do.”



* * *



It takes active focus to shove the thoughts of money and pressure and Blaine and my career and my family and—most of all—Fizzy out of my mind and simply focus on the task in front of me. Between the various cameras, there are over two hundred hours of footage to go through for all the clips and retrospectives we’ll need for the finale. It’s pretty much an all-hands-on-deck situation. We want to share moments of each Hero being unguarded, unfiltered, and as appealing as each of them is in real life. I feel like we’ve captured the essence of a handful of truly amazing people—without irony or mockery in our tone—and that feels monumental. Maybe it’s this element that has resonated with so many people, the authenticity of it all. I want this last, full episode to be emotional and funny, genuine and inspiring.

But given that we’re editing clips of Fizzy or about Fizzy, there’s no escape from her. Worse, in front of me are hours and hours of unfiltered proof that she meant what she said: she doesn’t want any of these other men. By now I know her smiles, and she gives them ones that are bright and sincere but ultimately platonic. I know her laughs and those, too, are genuine, but the Heroes don’t get the one that comes from the depths of her, the round, joyful belly laugh of Fizzy being absolutely lost in the moment. I know her touch, too—fuck, do I know her touch—and while she gives them friendly affection, never is there heat in her fingertips or her gaze. There is nothing overtly sexual about any of it.

We need to edit this reel together, but shit, all I can see is her falling for me. Her eyes flicker to the cameras constantly—looking for my reaction, anticipating some quiet inside joke, or seemingly of their own volition as if when her mind wanders, it wanders to me. But that’s only what I want to see.

I can’t help with this. I’m not objective anymore.

Pulling my headphones off, I toss them down to the mixing board just as Rory steps in.

“All good here?”

I scrub my hands over my face and then nod. “I’ve lost all fucking objectivity. We’ve edited the Arjun, Jude, Tex, Colby, and Dax segments for the retrospective. Those are fine. But I’m stalling out on Nick, Isaac, and Evan. Honestly, Ror, I’m having a hard time imagining how we pull this off at the end. Fizzy is great, but am I insane? There’s no actual love story here.”

Rory stares down at me for a long beat. “You’re not seeing it?”

“No.”

She looks past me to the frozen image of Isaac laughing on-screen. “Don’t worry, bro, it’s all there.”

“I just don’t want to arse it right at the end.”

She laughs. “There is no fucking way.”

“I’m glad you’re so confident.”

“I think right now you’re just too close to it.”

Well, Rory, no shit.





forty-six FIZZY




Tuesday afternoon, the bell chimes over the door at Twiggs, and everything about it—the force of the chime, the footsteps that follow, the jostling of keys latched to a purse—is so familiar that I know without even looking up who it is.

“Fizzy?” Jess asks.

I don’t blame her for the bright surprise in her voice; I’m surprised, too.

I type the end of the sentence and then look up at her, reaching for my latte. “Hello, bestie.”

“Hi. What am I seeing? A laptop? Notebooks with frantic scribbling?” Her eyebrows inch up. “Are you… writing?”

“I had an idea this morning.” In fact, I woke up with a scorching sex scene in my head and thought… maybe I’d try to write it down. If I’m being honest, it’s a filthy fantasy about Connor’s mouth, but the inspiration hit me the way it used to, in this sort of fevered excitement, and I didn’t want to let the moment pass me by.

I packed up my laptop, came here, and of course what was clear and perfect in my head on the drive over is a mess of words on the page, but I’m forcing myself to remember that it’s okay for a draft to be awful. It’s better than nothing, and I’ve had enough nothing to last a lifetime. Terrible can be edited.

Jess sits down across from me. “That’s fantastic.”

“No, it’s garbage,” I say, “but I’m just happy to be typing words that aren’t hate mail to myself.” I shrug before remembering something. “Oh my God, I eavesdropped on the best conversation today.”

She leans in. “Hit me, I’ve missed gossip.”

“These two women were sitting at the front table with the wobbly leg—”

“I hate that table.”

“—and one of them said her husband fired the nanny after recognizing her on an escort site.”

“Wait,” Jess says. “Why was he cruising an escort site?”

“Exactly! Wouldn’t that make a great opening for a book? Scumbag husband sees familiar face on an escort site and is too stupid to realize he shouldn’t tell his wife? Wife leaves him and falls for the handyman who comes to fix the toilet her ex never got to.” I tap my chin, turning the idea around in my head. “Scratch that, make it the roof so he can be shirtless.”

I reach over to jot it in my notebook before I forget.

Satisfied, I turn back to Jess. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“Working.” She winces. “I’m bored at home. River is planning a new start-up with Sanjeev and… I miss it. The idea of not working anymore is sort of depressing to me. I didn’t get into math for money, I got into it because it’s fun.”

“Maybe we’re getting our mojo back?”

She grins. “Fuck, I hope so.” The moment lingers, our gazes hugging, and slowly, Jess’s smile straightens as, I presume, she reads the shadow in my eyes. “Hey.” She reaches across the table and takes my hand. “I’m sorry that things with Connor fell apart. That really sucks about the other show tanking.”

I nod. I’ve got nothing useful to add. It does suck.