Page 24 of Flipping the Script
"Quinn."
"I know it complicates things. I know we have professional obligations and this whole thirty-day timeline, but I need you to know that whatever I felt last night was real. Even if I don't understand it yet."
Solen reached across the table, covering Quinn's hand with her own. Quinn's fingers were warm and slightly trembling, and she didn't pull away.
"I felt it too," Solen said quietly. "And it scared the hell out of me, because I'm very good at performing attraction, but I'm apparently terrible at recognizing when it stops being an act."
Quinn turned her hand palm-up, threading their fingers together. "So what do we do?"
"I have no idea." Solen smiled, surprised by how liberating the admission felt. "But maybe that's okay. Maybe the best improvisations happen when both people stop trying to control the scene."
Quinn's phone rang again—Iris, probably with more opportunities and strategic considerations. But neither woman moved to answer it, too caught up in the strange intimacy of sitting in Quinn's kitchen in borrowed pajamas, holding hands over a table scattered with laptop cables and breakfast crumbs.
"We should probably take that call," Quinn said eventually.
"Probably."
But they stayed exactly where they were, fingers intertwined, morning light casting everything in soft focus through the windows. Outside, photographers waited for a story worth telling. Inside, something entirely unscripted was beginning to unfold, and for once, Quinn wasn't reaching for her notebook to document every beat.
The performance was becoming real, and neither of them was quite ready to examine what that meant for their carefully constructed thirty-day timeline.
11
THE LINES BLUR
Solen sat cross-legged on Quinn's pristine hardwood floor, laptop balanced on her knees, watching their mentions multiply faster than she could read them. Quinn paced behind her like a caged academic, clutching her phone with white knuckles, both of them still wearing the borrowed pajamas from their impromptu sleepover that had somehow become the most comfortable night either had experienced in months.
"Listen to this one," Quinn's voice carried a note of bewilderment as she read aloud. "'Quinn and Solen are literally relationship goals. You can see how much they adore each other just in the way they look at each other. Most authentic couple in Hollywood right now.'" She paused her pacing. "Authentic. They're calling us authentic."
Solen's fingers stilled on the keyboard. The irony tasted bitter on her tongue. "Here's another gem: 'The way Solen touches Quinn's hand during interviews—that's not acting, that's real love.' Forty-three thousand likes and counting."
"'Their chemistry is so natural it makes other celebrity couples look rehearsed,'" Quinn continued, her voice growing more strained with each compliment. "'You can tell Quinn'snever been happier. Look at how she glows when Solen talks about her writing.'"
The praise felt like a gift wrapped in barbed wire. Solen scrolled through comment after comment celebrating their "obvious genuine connection" and "the way they've healed each other" while her stomach twisted tighter with each enthusiastic observation. These strangers were seeing something real in moments that were supposed to be performance, and she wasn't sure anymore which terrified her more—that they might be right, or that they might find out the truth.
Her finger froze over a new Instagram story notification. The username made her blood run cold: @TashaMoonOfficial.
The image loaded slowly, revealing Solen's own vintage compass necklace—or one exactly like it—arranged artfully against white silk. The caption made her mouth go dry: "Some people always find their way back to the truth #WatchThisSpace #KnowingWhatIKnow."
Posted twenty minutes ago.
Solen's hand moved unconsciously to her throat, fingers finding the familiar weight of her actual compass necklace still resting against her collarbone. The relief lasted exactly two seconds before the implications crashed over her.
"What's wrong?" Quinn's voice came from directly beside her, and Solen realized she'd gone completely still. Quinn knelt on the floor, her green eyes sharp with concern. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Worse." Solen turned the laptop screen toward Quinn. "I've seen Tasha."
Quinn's expression shifted from concern to calculation as she read the caption twice. "Cryptic threats via social media. How very... contemporary villain of her." She studied Solen's face. "This means something specific, doesn't it?"
Solen touched her compass necklace again, a nervous habit Tasha had always found endearing until she'd started using it against her. "She does this. Builds anticipation with vague posts, gets people speculating, then drops just enough truth to destroy everything without technically lying about anything." Her voice caught. "She's really good at it."
Quinn sank fully onto the floor beside her, the careful distance they'd been maintaining all morning disappearing. "What does she know that would be worth teasing?"
"That we're fake." The words came out smaller than Solen intended. "She knows how publicity relationships work because she's been trying to manufacture one for herself for years. And she knows me well enough to spot when I'm performing versus when I'm..." She gestured vaguely between them. "Whatever this is."
Quinn's phone buzzed against the hardwood with an incoming call. She glanced at the screen and winced. "Iris. This can't be good news." She swiped to answer, putting it on speaker. "Please tell me you're calling to congratulate us on our successful media debut."
"I was, until twenty minutes ago." Iris's voice carried the crisp efficiency of crisis management mode. "We have three entertainment outlets requesting statements about Tasha Caldwell's implied revelations, and someone managed to photograph you two through your kitchen window this morning. The photos are already circulating with captions about 'intimate domestic moments' and 'authentic morning-after glow.'"
