Page 102 of The True Love Experiment

I hum in acknowledgment and make a mental note to tease him about it, then remember he probably doesn’t want me to tell him anything. And now I’m sad again.

“My dad says if you want something, it doesn’t matter how scared you are, you have to try.”

I stare at her, wondering for the one hundredth time where this child came from. “Your dad said that, eh?”

Juno nods. “He said my mom scared him at first. But then hewas more scared of not seeing her again.” She smiles at me. “So, if that’s how you feel about Mr. Prince or… what was his name?”

I stare at her. Juno doesn’t forget anything. This sneaky faker is too smart for her own good. “Isaac?”

“Right,” she says slyly. She’s becoming more like her mother every day. “If that’s how you feel about Isaac, then don’t let being scared get in the way.”

Three sharp knocks land on the front door, not a moment too soon. With one more wry grin at Juno, I push back and stand, walking to the living room.

“You couldn’t have arrived three minutes earlier and saved me the Spanish Inquisition?” I ask.

River laughs out a breath. “Oh boy. Better you than me.”

“You know once they start outsmarting me, I charge forty-five dollars an hour to babysit.”

With her backpack slung onto her shoulder, Juno joins her dad at the door. “Thanks for dinner, Auntie Fizzy.”

“Yeah, yeah, I love you, get out of here.”

She giggles, leaning into my embrace, and I watch them turn to leave.

But River stops at the edge of the porch. “Hey,” he says, uncharacteristically unsure. “I wanted to ask something.”

“This sounds ominous.” It becomes more so when he bends to Juno, murmuring for her to go wait for him at the curb.

“Is everything with the show okay? With Connor,” he clarifies.

“What do you mean?”

“With that other North Star show going up in flames last weekend for the doping scandal, and the producer being fired and—”

“Sorry, wait. What other show?”

He frowns. “I don’t watch it, but apparently they have another show that’s got all kinds of physical challenges in arenas.”

I have a vague memory of Connor mentioning another program they were doing to bring in a younger, male demographic. “Oh, right.Big MouthorSmash Faceor something.”

“Smash Course,” he says. “I guess the producers were giving a lead contestant performance-enhancing drugs. One of the producers was apparently sleeping with him on the road, too, and it blew up online.”

“Oh shit.”

“Yeah. The show is being canceled.” River reaches up to scratch his neck, adorably uncomfortable putting his nose in anyone else’s business. “With everything that happened between you and Connor, I just wanted to make sure he was okay.”

It’s like a fog has cleared as everything since my confession on Connor’s couch suddenly comes into crystalline focus. If North Star has lost one of its two cash cows due to scandal, they’d definitely turn the pressure up on Connor to make sure he’s running a tight ship. If word got out that we’d been together, basically making the show a sham, it wouldn’t just end his career, it could take down the entire company.

And Connor would be blamed for it all.

forty-fiveCONNOR

The penultimate episode ofThe True Love Experimentrakes in the highest prime-time rating for any reality show in nearly a decade. At an early meeting with the entire crew, it’s clear that the numbers defy comprehension. If we had champagne in the office at nine in the morning, it would be popping.

As we walk back to my office, Brenna jogs behind me, excitedly telling me about the TikTok trends, the viral edits and reels—and she sends me a few, but I think by now she knows that seeing evidence of the true hysteria online will make the pressure to execute this live finale too intense. It doesn’t help that the furor overSmash Coursehasn’t died down. Today’s twenty-four-hour news cycle means the public’s memory is often short for these sorts of things, but it seems every day a new detail emerges to get people riled up again. It all hits close enough to the situation with Fizzy that one might think it would reassure me that I’m doing the right thing, and make being away from her easier to bear. One would be wrong.

When he arrives just after ten, Blaine is an overstimulated hound, circling continually, making laps around the offices. He’scrowing about the little guys showing Hollywood how it’s done, about knowing he chose wisely putting me on this and how I should trust him next time. The adulation is bittersweet: Of course I’m thrilled that Fizzy and I managed to create something that has resonated with so many viewers, but the obvious conflict of falling for her is a shadow that lurks behind my celebratory mood. My failed marriage would have been the easiest relationship to maintain—without passion, but convenient and amiable—and yet building something with the one woman I’m truly lost for has proven to be impossible.

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