Page 85 of Fan Favorite

Edie looked from Peter’s intense face to Charlie’s merry one as he marched in circles in his band uniform. From a distance, he looked like the sweet boy she remembered. A breeze rustled the trees and leaves swirled across the sidewalk. Everything smelled crisp, like fall, and all at once she could see them there, senior year, playing their instruments at halftime, and then later on the bus, their first kiss. It was a lifetime ago. But also like some fundamental part of her that she should honor and protect. Maybe Charlie Bennett wasn’t her One True Love, but what she understood about him, didn’t she understand it because they were the same? A couple of insecure dreamers wanting something so badly they’d risk anything to get it?

Edie wiped her eyes. “I don’t want to hurt Charlie,” she told Peter. “I don’t want to embarrass him.”

His eyes went wide. “Are you serious right now? That’s where you’re at? You can’t possibly have actual feelings for him, do you? Edie?”

“Peter, so glad you could join us,” Carole Steele called.

“Edie,” Peter said, sharp. “I get that so far this hasn’t been great, but doesn’t anything I said last night matter to you?”

“I don’t know what it means, Peter,” she said, shaking her head. “It feels like you’re not sure. Like you want me on this sinking ship with you, but like maybe you’re also gonna leave me there.”

“Edie, I would never—”

“And this must be our little Midwestern firecracker, Edie Pepper,” Carole said, so close now Edie could smell her expensive perfume. “Trying her best to blow up my show.”

“Edie, if you feel any love for me at all, you will do this,” Peter said, a little frantic. “There’s no other way. Go, now.” He gave her a little push toward the street before turning to face Carole himself. “We’re all ready to go, Carole. And I think you’re going to like what you see.”

The sun was blinding as Edie stepped off the curb and into the sort of romcom fantasy she’d dreamed of her entire life. Except now Edie understood that sweeping romantic gestures—the over-the-top fantasy dates, the trumpets, the tubas, the Goo Goo Dolls, the perfect Hollywood kiss—they were all just smoke and mirrors, like small, unsatisfying orgasms that barely delayed the inevitable plunge back to reality. Moments that lasted were sharing the truth of yourself in the back of a darkened plane, or laughing over Nachos Bell Grande, or the kind of sex where you came twice, long and hard, or even just, simply, the desire to work things out after a fight. Edie looked over at Peter, his hand on Carole’s back, guiding her across the lawn, out of the cameras’ line of sight, his head tilted toward her, working her the same way Edie had seen him work countless people before, and she understood that when he’d accused her of being caught up in a fantasy, he hadn’t been wrong. But for so long, all she’d wanted was to get married, and, really, any man would do.

But not anymore.

31

After almost twenty years of freedom, Bennett Charles was right back where he started: bound by the shackles of a high school band uniform. He stared at the pageantry in the mirror, first at the red and white jacket with the epaulets at the shoulders and the gold buttons running down the chest that should’ve been too tight, but when he’d windmilled his arms, stretched his chest, and then his triceps, bending and pulling his elbow behind his head, not one seam protested—just another reminder that every second he remained on this show, he was losing inchesandgains. Conversely, the red polyester bibbers were too tight against his anxious stomach, and the subsequent flatulence was just another lure to the ghost of Charlie Bennett, who he could feel hovering—a shadow, a specter, a body-snatcher, ever present when Bennett was vulnerable or weak.

A PA knocked on the bathroom door.

Reluctantly, Bennett slid on his white gloves and placed the pièce de resistance—the white shako with its towering red plume—upon his head.

And there he was.

Charlie Bennett.

First thing this morning, they’d sequestered Bennett in a hotel conference room.

Something was wrong. No one would tell him anything. He knew it was bad. Still, it couldn’t bethatbad.

But then Carole Steele walked in.

She was the same as Bennett remembered—tight dress, towering heels, that particular air of derision—and any confidence Bennett might have left evaporated as she sat down.

“Edie’s gone,” Carole announced.

It took him a second to process. Edie was gone? Bennett frantically racked his brain, scrolling through a whirlwind of dates and time zones to the last time he’d seen her. Okay, it was on the boat in Scotland. She’d been drunk. And, sure, a little crazy. But all the girls were, like,a lotright now. Managing their feelings was a full-time job. Wasn’t that what was so special about Edie? Once they’d gotten used to each other again, their relationship felt like it had when they were kids. Uncomplicated and steady. So, why would she have left?

Wasn’t Edie his North Star in a sea of starlets?

“Uh, where did she go?” Bennett started to feel sick. Chicago was the place he felt the most insecure. He did not want to be here without her. He looked at his watch. “We’re supposed to start filming the lock-in in an hour.”

“If we knew where she was, it would make things simpler.” Carole crossed her arms over her chest. “But as it stands now, it looks like you and me, we’ve got a big problem on our hands.”

Bennett wasn’t sure he could deal with any more problems. The past two months had almost killed him. At the beginning,The Keywas like this epic party where he was living every man’s dream, with twenty gorgeous women panting for him day and night. But then Edie showed up and all at once it was no longer just silly dates and making out with hotties—every single thing he said or did became some commentary on who he was, Bennett Charles or Charlie Bennett. Still, despite all the machinations, Bennett had believed he could make it out of here intact. And maybe even in love.

But then, like some cosmic wake-up call, that volleyball had smacked him right in the fucking face. He’d broken his nose (again), and this part of himself, the Charlie Bennett of it all, crept closer. He hadn’t wanted to take Edie to the prom, but then spending time with her had felt warm and something like home. He’d been easily swept up in the music, the dancing, the kissing, the nostalgia. The way Jessa hopped around and enthusiastically hugged him on breaks, so excited that Bennett and Edie were connecting, just like she knew they would, because they had all this history between them. It had felt great, hadn’t it? To not only find in Edie something that felt like love, but also to stop fighting, to give everyone what they wanted?

But after the prom, production had him going out with two to three girlsa day, cycling through encounters so quickly it made his head spin. He had no emotional clarity at all. When he was with Edie, he loved Edie. When he was with Bailey, he loved Bailey. When he was with Zo, he loved Zo. Or at leastwantedher. No one understood the pressure. At cocktail parties, the women would argue about who got to talk to him—literally pulling him by the arms like Stretch Armstrong. On the nights beforeKeyceremonies, he couldn’t sleep, and his stomach would be in knots. The tears, the hate,the physical assaulthe had to bear as he let them go, one by one.

But,finally, a light at the end of the tunnel—the lock-ins.

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