“This is seriously big news,” Toby said. “It’s what you hope for. It’s like hitting the lottery.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “A kid’s movie?”

“Dude, do you know how much money pours in after that movie hits? Come Get You was a big hit for you, but this will catapult it into the stratosphere. You don’t even have to do any work! The song’s already recorded. There’s a big dance number at the end of the movie, your song plays, then every time that movie is shown on the big screen, every time it gets picked up for a streaming deal, every DVD...the royalties, Ransom. You’re not going to believe the money. This is why I insist on you getting songwriting and production credit on all your work.”

“And all because I got engaged.”

“Well, it did build a lot of buzz around you.”

It should have made me happy. This was the kind of deal that cemented a pop career.

Toby was practically electric with excitement. He’d fought hard for me to be included in the soundtrack. He’d been talking to people for months about it. We’d beaten out some incredible singers, some songs that really deserved it.

So why did I feel like it was the end of the world? I walked out onto the balcony. Giselle stubbed out her cigarette as soon as she saw me.

“I see we’re back to the Moody Ransom,” she said. No bitterness in her voice this time.

I leaned against the rail of the balcony. In the distance, the ocean was twisted and chopped by the oncoming wind.

“A bunch of fucking forest animals is going to sing Come Get You at the end of a movie. Deer and rabbits and shit. How’s that for artistic integrity? A song that’s about loss and heartbreak, and a bunch of fucking six-year-olds are going to be singing along to it.”

“You have to admit, it has a catchy chorus.”

“Yeah, but--”

“Oh no, Ransom.”

I turned to her. “What?”

“I know that look on your face. You’re about to compare what’s happening to your song, to what’s happening with you and Cave.”

“I mean, the connections are pretty fucking clear, don’t you think?”

She groaned. “Look, as your fake fiancée, I have to tell you, this is not how I expected you to react to all this. I figured you would be happy. We got through the announcement...aren’t you free now?”

“Free? How am I free?”

“You can hang out with Cave with impunity now. You can see him all the time.”

I glanced back into the suite. Toby was pacing around talking sharply into his cell. Ordering people around, in his element.

“Can I really, though? I mean, I know I can see him. But am I going to hear a lecture from Toby every time I try?”

“Does that matter? Seriously, we have gone through a lot of trouble to smooth your path to Cave, darling. Have you even spoken to him since the announcement?”

I rubbed my temples. “I left him a voicemail. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Giselle.”

It’s true, I had no idea why I was so hesitant to talk to Cave right now. I felt like I was in trouble. Like I’d done something terrible to him, and I didn’t want to face it.

Still, she was right. Talking to him would make me feel better. It always did. He was my boyfriend, wasn’t he? Wasn’t coming to him while I was all in my feelings part of the package deal?

* * *

Oceanside was swollen with fans. They had descended early, ready to swarm the streets for the parade. Hotels were filling up. Sidewalks were crowded in a way that reminded me of tourist seasons back in my youth. Now I was doing the opposite of people-watching; I was preventing them from watching me.

Switching cars was now more difficult, with so many fans hunting for a glimpse of me. Now it was a two-stage process, with Giselle taking one of the limos so everyone would follow her, while I sat in the back of a nondescript SUV, its windows tinted just enough to make me hard to see, but not enough to scream Celebrity Inside!

We’d picked the boardwalk. Cave was uncomfortable with the crowds outside his house, understandably...and more uncomfortable with Toby at my suite. The boardwalk had the advantage of having only one real entrance, and that could be guarded by my staff. Of course, its real advantage was that nobody came down here anymore.

For the second time in my adult life, I walked down the creaky boards, amazed by how Oceanside had allowed all these stands to decay. Didn’t anyone else have fond memories of the boardwalk? Didn’t it bother them that they’d let it all go to hell? Off towards the end, a few bulldozers and other equipment sat, waiting to destroy it all. Ashes to ashes, beach sand to beach sand.

Cave was waiting for me by the old photo booth, leaning against it, staring at the ocean.

Something about that set off an alarm in my mind. A troubling premonition.

Jojo wasn’t with him. Somehow that made me even more afraid.

Still, when he saw me, and threw his arms around me and pulled me close, it was like all the worry melted away. His eyes seemed wet, but maybe it was just the ocean breeze making them water. I kissed him and said, “You looked so good on TV. You’re a natural.”

“Yeah, I’m sure everyone was staring at me, rather than the Dream Couple.” He kissed my chin. “It’s so weird how smooth you are. Are you going to let that stubble grow back in?”

“Maybe I’ll grow a goatee.”

“Please don’t do that,” I said. “Save that for when you’re trying to hide a double chin.”

“I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.” I ran my fingers over the collar of his shirt, further, onto his collarbones, following them to his shoulders, then pulled him back close to me.

“I’m having a really hard time with this,” he said.

“I know.”

“It’s so weird. So unnatural.”

“It won’t be for long. I promise.” My internal bullshit detector went off. What exactly was I promising? Life was always going to be weird for us. We were always going to have to have our relationship in a protected little bubble, far from the world outside.

It was worth it, just to feel him this close. Worth it to me, anyway.

He hesitated before saying, “I’m not asking for assurances right this second, though.”

I cocked my head to the side. “What are you asking for?”

“I don’t know. Some sign that this is as hard for you as it is for me. I’m so fucking jealous, Ransom.”

“Cave Mathis, did you just curse?”

“I know, I know. I’ve never felt like this before, though, Ransom. I can’t go five minutes without seeing pictures of you and Giselle together, and every time, even knowing it’s fake, even knowing you love me, I feel stabbed in the heart. Meanwhile, even though everyone in the outside world is happy, everyone in Oceanside is confused. Do you know how many people have asked me what’s going on? I’m not used to telling my friends no comment.”

“It’s just for a little while--”

“Is it? Is it? When does it stop, Ransom? When do I get to claim you as my boyfriend? When do I get to be who I actually am, instead of this weird role Toby has designed for me?”

“Maybe we need to get away again,” I said. “Get you away from Oceanside and all these questions. What about--”

“Oh god!” said Cave, turning away from me, his voice choked. “You really don’t get it, do you? I don’t need to get away, I need to be able to live my actual life!”

Silently I reached out for him, but he wasn’t after comfort right now. He had things he needed to get off his chest, clearly.

“I don’t like being jealous,” he said. “I don’t like being this mad. I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t like all the petty, selfish thoughts it makes me think.”

“I’m sure you’re not petty and selfish,” I said.

“I am, though. That’s what I’m becoming. Do you want to hear the most recent example? This morning I started getting angry that you haven’t had to sacrifice anything for this relationship. Who thinks that kind of thing, Ransom? Not me, and yet I’m standing there in my living room thinking that I’ve had to build this weird wall between me and my friends, the people I see every day, the people who have known me for years. I have to lie to everyone. But for you, it’s just another day! You’re so used to lying to everyone, that it doesn’t bother you!”

“I wouldn’t say it doesn’t bother me. I’ve said all along how much I admire your honesty, your integrity. I know how much they mean to you.”

He nodded, as though desperate for something positive he could agree with. “Deep down, you want that honesty. I know you do. But without it, I feel like an accessory in your life, another toy. Like you saw me and Jojo and thought, aha, an instant family, I’d like that.”

My voice was measured and calm, calmer than I actually felt. “Cave...that is unfair.”

“I know, that’s what I’m saying. I’m not used to being unfair, but it hurts so much that I have to ask myself, is what we have really worth all the pain, the twisting my life has taken since you came back to town? Then I feel like I must be the most ungrateful person on earth for thinking something like that.”

“You’re far more than an accessory. You and Jojo are the most real part of my life. I think about you constantly.”

“You know, if I was alone, this would have been a lot easier. I could just pick up, start my life over in your world. I look at the people around you. Do they have any roots? What does Toby have? What’s his personal life like?”

I was taken aback. What was Toby’s personal life like? Was he seeing anyone? What were his hobbies? Did he have anything in his life, other than his job?

“You think I’m asking you to be like Toby?” I said. The thought was chilling. Was I trying to uproot him from his life, put him in the little Ransom Pope greenhouse where he’d be cut off from everything else? “That makes me sound pretty selfish.”

“I wasn’t going to use that word. It sounds too much like an accusation, selfish. But this is hurting me, Ransom, and I don’t think, deep down, you even understand how.”

“I know it’s complicated--”

“That’s just it, I don’t think you do know that it’s complicated. I mean, on the surface, sure, you get it. But here’s what I worry about: What if you’re so used to everyone working out your problems for you, you don’t see that this one goes deep, all the way to the bone? You just assume this will all work out because Toby solves everything for you. But this isn’t a problem with the label, Ransom, it’s not a song lyric you can’t find a rhyme for. This is about all the things this relationship is trying to take away from me, and I don’t think you get it. You never had to learn what it means to sacrifice. You never had to give anything up.”

His hand flew to his mouth, as though he’d just said something unforgivable. I wanted to comfort him, I wanted to convince him we could fix everything, but he had to understand that he had me all wrong.

“It’s not true, what you said about sacrifice,” I said. “I gave up everything. I gave up my home, my parents. When the fame hit, I gave up any hope of having a normal life, ever. Cave, I understand sacrifice. Honestly, I can’t name anything I haven’t given up. I feel like a shadow--a fucking ghost.”

It came out louder than I meant it, and my voice carried across the boardwalk. The security team at the end stiffened and looked our way.

Cave’s eyes were wet. “If you’re a ghost right now, it’s because you gave up the wrong things. Don’t you remember, you wanted to sing because it was a way to make everything real. To tell the world, I exist, I’m important, you have to listen. But now the world is listening, and you won’t let us tell the truth.”

There’s this point at which fear and anger are the same thing. Where fight and flight mix together in a sick combination deep inside your belly, where you don’t know what to do because things hurt so much that your rational mind checks out, leaving your animal nature to take care of things.

“I’m scared, Cave. I’m scared that if I tell anyone, I’ll be throwing my entire life away. And then what? Come to live in Oceanside? Never do anything with myself ever again?”

“I stayed,” he said. “I made something of myself. I’m a father.”

“Come on, anyone can do that. Straight guys do it all the time.” It wasn’t until I saw the look on his face that I realized exactly what I’d just said, and the way I’d put down his whole life without meaning to. “Oh shit, Cave, I didn’t mean that, you know I didn’t.”

He stared at me for a long time, far longer than I was comfortable with. “I think some part of you did mean it, though. It’s that part of you that’s always going to be locked away from me. The part that would never let you have something as simple as a family.”

I could deny it all day, but I knew he was right. Something bad had happened to me. You’re a ghost because you gave up the wrong things.

I’d become someone who didn’t deserve the kind of love I wanted. Someone who couldn’t even handle that kind of love.

The words wouldn’t come out. My mind was working so fast, trying to find the things to say that would make this all right. The way to smooth it all over, to get him back to me, bring him close.

He was waiting for me to say something.

He’d been waiting fifteen years for me to say something.

Finally, though, he shook his head. “Nostalgia is dumb,” he said. “It blinds you to what’s right in front of you. This was a mistake. I let loneliness and memory talk me into a really bad decision. I love you so much, but I can’t let this turn me into someone else, someone angry and bitter. I don’t even care that it’s not fair to me, really, but Jojo deserves a father who isn’t twisted by jealousy. I’m sorry, Ransom. I’ve wasted your time. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Cave, wait--”

“No. I’m going back to my life, where my friends know who and what I am. The life where I can look Jojo in the eye and know that I’m teaching him to grow up to be honest and straightforward and good. If that means I don’t deserve the incredible emotions I’ve been feeling for you since I saw you again...that’ll have to be okay, I guess. But I can’t do this for one more minute.”

Fifteen years ago, I’d left Cave on this boardwalk, telling him goodbye as I walked out of his life.

Today, it was him leaving me behind. I watched his back as he walked away. He didn’t even give me a second look.

I should have called out for him. I should have run after him.

But I didn’t. I let him go.