Chapter 3: The Morning After
The first thing he noticed was the absence of her weight. The second was the sound of water running behind the closed bathroom door. Nev opened his eyes to the pink canopy, the vanilla-lavender scent of her sheets now mingled with the musk of their sweat and sex. The space beside him was empty, the pillow still indented from her head. He pushed himself up on his elbows, the memories of the previous night flooding back with visceral clarity—the fight, the arrest that wasn’t, the way she’d shattered beneath him, the way she’d held him after.
And the phone. Kamie’s unanswered calls.
A knot of dread tightened in his gut. He swung his legs out of bed, the fluffy rug soft under his feet. He found his boxers and pulled them on, then located his phone, screen-down on the floor near his discarded jeans. Thirteen missed calls from Kamie. Fourteen texts. The most recent, sent an hour ago, read: ANSWER YOUR PHONE. IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK.
He tapped her name. It rang twice.
“You’re alive.” Kamie’s voice was flat, stripped of its usual wry humor. “I was thirty seconds from calling building security for a welfare check.”
“Kamie, listen, I can explain—”
“Stop. Don’t explain. Not to me. Not now.” She took an audible breath. “The raw footage from the park aired last night. The network ran it uncut.”
Nev’s heart stopped. He saw it: his fist connecting, Leo dropping, the pure rage on his own face. His career, over. The show, finished. “Oh, god.”
“No. Listen.” Kamie’s tone shifted, becoming almost analytical. “It’s not bad. It’s… the opposite. The edit they ran shows the whole lead-up. It shows Leo sneering. It shows him calling her a ‘dumb, pretty hole.’ It shows you standing there, taking it, until that last line. The footage makes it look like you took a beat, like you were trying to control it, and then snap—you protected her. The narrative online isn’t that you’re a violent loose cannon. It’s that you’re a man who finally reached his limit defending a sweet girl from a predator.”
He blinked, trying to process. The dread loosened, replaced by a dizzying, unstable relief. “What?”
“The press is eating it up. ‘Host’s Chivalrous Rage.’ ‘Catfish King Protects His Queen.’ There’s even a hashtag: #NevDidItForLove. People are specating you have feelings for her. They’re rooting for it.”
A strange, cold laugh bubbled in his throat. They were rooting for the truth they’d concocted from a lie. They’d turned his darkest impulse into a romance novel moment.
“So here’s the play,” Kamie continued, her business voice firmly in place. “We do a press release today. You and Elena. A joint statement. We lean into it. You apologize for the violence, of course, but you frame it as an unprecedented moment of passion, of protective instinct. You say your focus was entirely on Elena’s well-being. You sell the story that in getting to know her through this process, your feelings… deepened. You went from show host to Prince Charming. It’s clean. It’s palatable. It saves the show and your reputation.”
Nev stared at the pink wall, at the dented beauty pageant trophy on the shelf. Prince Charming. He thought of the feel of her cheek under his palm, the sting of the slap, the way she’d knelt. The narrative was a gilded cage, but it was one he could live inside. “Okay.”
“Okay? That’s it? No argument?”
“It’s easy,” he said, the words feeling dangerously true. “I can do that.”
“I’ll call you after I talk to her,” he said. He ended the call.
The shower shut off. A few minutes later, the bathroom door opened, and steam curled out into the bedroom. Elena emerged wrapped in a cloud of floral-scented vapor and a pale lilac workout set—a cropped zip-up jacket and high-waisted shorts that hugged the dramatic curve of her hips. Her blonde hair, a cascade of damp ringlets, fell over her shoulders and down the length of her back. Her face was scrubbed clean, pink and dewy, but her eyes were shadowed, avoiding his.
“Hey,” he said, his voice softer than he intended.
She jumped slightly, as if she hadn’t seen him standing there. Her eyes flicked to him, then away, focusing on picking up his discarded shirt from the floor. “Your phone was buzzing all morning.”
“It was Kamie. It’s… it’s going to be okay. The footage. Public opinion. It’s good.”
She nodded, not looking at him, folding his shirt with meticulous, nervous care. “That’s good. For you.”
He moved toward her, intending to pull her into his arms, to kiss the worry from her brow, to claim the relief with her. He reached for her waist.
She flinched.
It was a small, instinctive recoil, a tightening of her shoulders, a slight shift back on her heels. But it was a chasm. His hand hung in the air between them. He slowly lowered it.
Elena cleared her throat, placing the neatly folded shirt on the vanity stool. She still wouldn’t look at him. “You should probably go. Now that you know it’s… not a disaster.” She forced the words out, each one brittle. “It’s for the best.”
“What are you talking about?” The relief he’d felt began to curdle, a slick unease coating his insides.
“For your career. For… saving face.” She finally met his eyes, hers a turbulent blue. “You can leave now. We can both just… pretend last night didn’t happen. A moment of weakness. It’s cleaner that way. For you.”
A cold fury ignited in his chest, sharp and sudden. “I’m not fucking doing that.”
“Nev, please.” Her voice broke, pleading. “Think. Really think. You had a crazy day. You got in a fight. The adrenaline was high. I was there, and I was… willing. You slept with me. It happens. But you don’t actually want this. You don’t want me. Not really. Not like this.” She gestured vaguely between them, at the messy bed, at the implicit disorder of their connection.
“Shut your fucking mouth.”
The words cracked through the room, harsh and final. She took a physical step back, her eyes wide. He advanced, the space between them closing.
“You don’t get to tell me what I want,” he said, his voice a low, controlled burn. “I tell you what you want. You want me. You belong to me. You gave yourself to me last night. That isn’t a transaction you get to void because you’re scared.”
Tears welled in her eyes, but a spark of defiance lit within them. “I’m trying to protect you!”
“I don’t need your protection!” he roared, the control snapping. He grabbed her upper arms, his grip firm, not hurting but unyielding. “I need your obedience. I need you to stop running from the one thing you’ve always wanted!”
She struggled then, a genuine, panicked fight. She pushed against his chest, trying to wrench her arms free. “Let me go! You’re going to ruin everything!”
“The only thing being ruined is my patience!” He wrestled with her, their movement a clumsy, desperate dance. Her back hit the wall near the vanity, rattling the perfume bottles. She was strong, fueled by a frantic energy, but he was stronger, his body a wall of resolve. He caught both her wrists in one of his hands, pinning them above her head against the wall. She gasped, her chest heaving, her body arching away from him.
He leaned in, his face inches from hers. “You listen to me. Kamie wants us to do a press release. A love story. The host who fell for the subject. You know how easy that will be for me?” He pressed closer, his body aligning with hers, feeling her tremble. “It will be the easiest thing I’ve ever done. Because it’s the truth. I am in love with you. This insane, fucking desperate love that makes me want to break the world for you. So you are not sending me away to ‘save my career.’ My career is you now. Do you understand? You are not a mistake. You are the only real thing that’s happened to me in years.”
The fight drained out of her slowly, leaving her pliant against the wall. Her struggles ceased. The tears fell, silent and hot. She stared at him, searching his face, looking for the lie, the hesitation, the eventual regret. She found only the terrifying, absolute certainty she’d seen in the park.
“They’ll all be watching,” she whispered, a last, feeble resistance.
“Let them watch,” he murmured, his lips brushing hers. “Let them see how much you’re mine.” He released her wrists, but she didn’t move them. He slid his hands down to her waist, anchoring her to him. “Now, are you done?”
She closed her eyes, a final surrender. Her head bowed forward until her forehead rested against his collarbone. A single nod.
“Good.” He held her there, against the wall, feeling the frantic beat of her heart begin to slow and sync with his. The press release, the narrative, the world outside—it was all just noise. This, the silent surrender against the pink wall, was the only headline that mattered. He wasn’t letting her go.