Page 148 of Reel Love

“I do enjoy her work—especially the trilogy with Rex. My mom is a huge fan.”

“And have you met his mom yet?” Sharla asks Alana.

“Not yet.”

“Okay, well, we have some viewer questions coming in. Are you three open to answering some spontaneous questions from your fans?”

“Sure,” Alana says, placing her hand on my knee.

I cover her hand with mine.

“I just have to say,” Sharla says, “You two are too cute together. I think America is going to love you, Stevens. This is sort of a reverse Cinderella story, isn’t it?”

Alana answers before I can. “Not exactly. Stevens wasn’t sweeping chimneys for his evil stepmother. If anything, he’s my Prince Charming.”

“Awww. A real life Prince Charming. I love that.” Sharla turns to the teleprompter and reads the viewer's question. “Julie in Kettering, Ohio wants to know if you’re single, Rex.”

“I am single.” Rex smiles at Sharla and then the camera.

Sharla makes a show of fanning herself and then she says, “You heard that ladies! Rex is officially single.”

Sharla looks back at the teleprompter. “Okay. Dana from Rochester, New York wants to know if you have any brothers as handsome as you, Stevens.”

“I do have a brother, and a sister.”

“And … ?” Sharla raises her eyebrows.

“I guess my brother and I look a bit alike.”

“Good to know!”

“Susan from Scottsdale, Arizona wants to know if you have plans for the future, Alana and Stevens.”

Alana looks at me, and then she says, “Just spending as much time together as we can. We both have unconventional work schedules, so we’re going to have to figure out how tomake room for one another between all the shoots and his trips up and down the coast. But we’ll make it work.”

We’ll make it work. That’s all I needed to hear from her. I squeeze her hand gently and she smiles over at me.

Sharla continues taking questions from the teleprompter and then we wrap up the show. I’m ready for a long nap, and more importantly, time alone with Alana, but a group of reporters enters the room and once we’ve had a chance to drink some water and take a short break, we return to the couch so the press can ask us a barrage of questions.

When it’s all over, Alana and I have our first moment where we’re almost alone. Rex is on his phone to our left, but he’s barely aware of us or anything right now. Alana and I are holding hands and I’m about to say something to her when Caroline approaches us.

“You did great! I think that should do it. We’ve set the tone, rewritten the narrative. The story is out there now from the mouths of the three people involved. I think America is going to eat this up. Rex, I think your car is here. You’re free to go.”

Rex hugs Alana and shakes my hand. We thank him for showing up, and then he’s out the door.

Caroline looks at me after Rex leaves. “Be prepared. There will be haters. But, I’m guessing you’ll have ten to one in your favor. America is going to love you. Just be careful on your social media, Stevens.”

“He doesn’t have social media and he’s not a follower of gossip sites,” Alana says.

“You’re kidding me. Wow. What a Renaissance man.”

The way she says it, I can’t tell if it’s a compliment or not.

“Well, as I was saying, there will be haters. But we can’t help that. Overall, I think we accomplished what we set out to do. Now we’ll just take some photos.”

Alana and I pose for the photographers who stayed around just to get pictures of us. I guess those will be published somewhere.

When the reporters and photographers have cleared out, I’m standing with Alana in a spot offstage, waiting for Ken to come escort us to our car.

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