“My dad wasn’t always so bad,” Rhys says, “In fact, I remember him being a lot of fun when I was younger. My mother has always been the peacekeeper, and she still is to this day. We meet once a month or so for lunch so she can catch up with me, a.k.a. keep tabs on me and make sure I’m behaving myself.” I chuckle, mostly to myself as I sip some more from my glass.

We’re in bed, still naked of course, drinking the champagne and eating tiny eclairs, brownies, and other small deserts he ordered from room service. Rhys is up against the headboard and I’m lying down on my stomach across the center of the bed. I like the way he stares at my ass, sometimes with subtle glances, sometimes with blatant ogling.

“Do you ever think you and your father will get back to where you once were?”

“I suppose I could join him on the campaign trail for this congressional race he’s got coming up in a few years. On the other hand, if he finds out about Mr. XO and Sex on the Line…” He brings his fingers to his temple then quickly splays them as he blows out his mouth in an imitation of his brain exploding.

I laugh. “What about this?” I ask, nodding back toward the windows.

He does the same imitation with his hands and mouth, this time using the other temple, which makes me laugh again.

“Enough about my dysfunctional family. I want to hear all about the Flanders Flock. What would they do if they learned all about what their little chick does at the Sexton Hotel?”

I can feel my stomach turn at the thought and I put the mini cheesecake in my hand back down on the platter. “They wouldn’t last long enough for their heads to explode.”

I flip over to stare at the ceiling—Rhys doesn’t even bother to hide the fact that his eyes are drinking up the sight—and sigh. “I mean, I was always the ‘bad one’,” I use air quotes to emphasize the point, “so my moving to New York is probably no surprise. But this? This would be too much.”

“Why did you leave in the first place?”

I turn my head to look at him, then follow with the rest of my body so I’m lying on my side. I stare down at the bedspread and trace circles into it as I remember my life back in Rutherford. “Growing up in a family like that is…different. Even before the TV show came into the picture, when it was just us and other families like us in our little town, I knew we weren’t like most other people.”

Rhys coughs out a small laugh of agreement and I roll my eyes up to him with a small smile.

“It wasn’t bad, and all those weird and disgusting things people say go on didn’t happen. Online anonymity encourages cruelty. The crazy thing is, I devoured every online comment, every bit of hate mail, every tweet, YouTube video, gossip news site. It was…awful. Not all of it—we certainly had our fans—but it was enough to upset me. But…I was still excited by it, if that makes any sense?”

“It actually does,” he says. “In exhibitionism there’s something enticing about the idea that people are focusing on you, even if it’s in a completely negative way, sometimes even because it’s negative. The fact that the things you do are being observed, studied, critiqued, analyzed, devoured, thought about, discussed, despised, enjoyed, loved—anything really, there’s a certain thrill to that.”

I ponder that and realize he’s right. As much as the negative comments about me specifically bruised my feelings, I did get a certain thrill knowing that the person behind those comments took time out of their lives to actually make them.

“Anyway, there was also the other side of it, probably the real reason I left home, if I’m being honest. Where I’m from, there’s this huge focus on family, which is a good thing, a great thing, but…I never really got the chance to just be me. I felt like a cog in the machine, just one piece that made the whole. We weren’t individuals, we were a unit, a team, the Flanders Flock. I was just Faith Flanders, player number five followed twelve minutes later by player number six.” I laugh and sit up, crawling over to the headboard next to Rhys and lean on my side facing him. I look off to the side in thought.

“I knew early on that I wanted to go to college, mostly as a way to experience something else. It’s not uncommon for women to go, but it gave people pause. I was ultimately supposed to get married and have babies. But I used to read a lot and there was so much out there in the world that I wanted to experience. There were only a handful of schools my parents would approve of, and back then I wasn’t quite as independent as I am now. I was happy to just get out. Tucker College and then Bluett University might as well have been Paris or Tokyo as far as I was concerned.” I laugh again, softer this time.

“It was when I refused to sign the release, the one allowing the TV crew to film me and be part of the show. That’s when it became real for everyone. When I went so far as to want to change my name and my appearance, so no one would recognize me, that’s when my family took it personally.”

I pause before continuing. “Then, something happened. I was at Tucker College first, which isn’t much different from Bluett. I was going by the name Jenny Flanders. I thought that was good enough to disguise myself. No one recognized me with the blonde hair, it was a darker shade than I have now, and blue eyes. I was still keeping in touch with my family via email and phones so it wasn’t like I’d completely lost touch. But someone found me that way. He hacked both my parents’ emails and my sister’s phone. He probably knew that she was the one I kept in touch with more than anyone.”

“There was a lot of hate toward me online for leaving the show. Some of it to a terrifying degree. Fortunately, this man just had some weird obsession and didn’t do more than send me flowers and cards. Still, it was scary to think that it could be that easy for someone worse to find me, especially now that I didn’t have the protection of my family and the TV production company surrounding me. I internalized it. I was a silly eighteen-year-old and I blamed my family. The one time I had anything of my own and it was still ruined by them and that stupid TV show.

“When I transferred to Bluett to escape, yet again, we all agreed that even the phones and email had to go. Actually, I was the one to insist on it and they agreed. I was officially ousted from the flock as Prynne Dawson. It was scary for a while…then I loved it. The anonymity of being just another student. No annoying questions or prejudices. Just a blank slate. I had one friend who knew the truth, Danielle Fairchild? Her father is that televangelist, and he was one of the founders of the school so she kind of understood where I was coming from. I even stayed with their family during the holidays and breaks since I couldn’t go home to Rutherford.”

“My parents assumed I would come back when I graduated and when I moved to New York instead, their heads might as well have exploded. I still remember the fight. I said some things that were…well, I wish I could take them back. But so did they, I’m sure.”

There must be something in my eyes or voice, since Rhys lifts his arm to place around my shoulders and pull me in, as he sets the champagne glass in his other hand back on the nightstand. I happily curl into his side and rest my head in that perfect fit between his shoulder, neck, and chest. He rests his chin on my hair as I continue.

“Again, here in New York it was great at first, scary but fun. So different from Bluett and definitely different from Rutherford. Still, the longer I’m here, the more I think about them. It’s just that every time I pick up the phone, I think of that one person just hiding in the shadows waiting for that signal to find me yet again, forcing me to start over somewhere else. A surprising number of people online are still rabid about my leaving. I can’t go back to Missouri, live that life I had growing up, I know that much. But…I sometimes think about taking the risk to get in touch. The problem is, even if I did call or text, I honestly don’t know what I’d say after all this time. How would they even react? I think that’s held me back more than anything.”

There’s a pause as I bring my finger up to trace circles on his chest now.

“I miss my sister most of all, my twin. I didn’t realize how much until…” I feel the first tears start to swell in my eyes “…until she actually sent me a text on my birthday. That’s when I found out she was pregnant. I can’t believe I’m missing all of this. I’m just so used to being Prynne and having my life here that…”

Now I’m actually shaking slightly as the first wave of emotion overtakes me. I try to smother the tears with his strong chest, but it’s no use. It’s finally hitting me that I’ve wasted too much time, gone too long without getting in touch. I’ve screwed everything up.

“I miss them so much, Rhys. I miss her.”

He squeezes me into his side as the sniffles turn into cries with sobs that even his strong arm can’t still. He doesn’t say a word, just strokes my hair until it eases.

When I’m all cried out, I pull away and wipe my face with the back of my hand, and try laughing. “That really took a depressing turn, sorry about that.”

Rhys reaches out to cup my cheek and turn my head back toward him. I’m sure my face must look like a splotchy, puffy, tear-streaked mess, but he looks at me like I’m the most beautiful woman on Earth.

“You don’t have to apologize for anything, Prynne,” he tells me, and I hear the sincerity in his voice. “You are always free to use me whenever you need to get something out.”

I give him a weak, but appreciative smile and nod. “Thank you.”

He twists to get his glass and the bottle of champagne and nods toward the one I left on my nightstand. I reach out to pick mine up and he fills both of them.

“To…continued beginnings,” he says, once they’re both filled. “Thank you for revealing yourself to me, Prynne.”

I feel a hint of a smile come to my face wondering if there’s a double entendre there, then decide I don’t really care. “To continued beginnings.”

We tap our glasses and both sip as the mood around us begins to lighten.

I watch his dark blue eyes over the edge of his glass as he sips. It makes me think of something, considering everything that’s happened tonight.

“One last thing!” I say after finishing my sip. I feel a rush of nervous anxiety as I twist to set my glass down on the nightstand on my side and slip off the bed to get my purse.

I feel Rhys watching me, probably wondering what crazy thing I’m going to do next. I pull something out and rush to the bathroom. It’s completely transparent behind the glass, and I can feel his eyes on my back as I go to work. When I’m done I walk out of the bathroom back toward the bed.

“In the spirit of showing you everything,” I say as I approach.

He scrutinizes me, and I can tell he notices something different, but can’t place it. “What am I missing here?”

“You really don’t see it?” I ask in surprise. I thought it would have been obvious. I lean down and crawl across the bed toward him like a cat, moving closer and closer until I see the realization in his eyes.

“Your eyes,” he says peering in closer.

“Yes,” I manage to get out, even though my breath is caught in my throat, waiting for his final reaction. The first day I met him, he remarked on my “pretty hazel eyes.”

Now, they are brown.

“If you’re waiting for me to tell you I’m disappointed, then I’m the one who’s going to have to disappoint you.”

I feel the relief instantly and smile. Once again, Rhys pulls me into his side. “It isn’t your eyes or your hair that I love about you Prynne, so get that outta your head right now. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I kind of like the idea of playing pretend. You know I love it when you change it up every now and then.” His eyes roll down to the point where my curled up legs meet my hips. “Maybe we can go wild and try for pink hair and green eyes next time.”

I slap him on the chest playfully and laugh. Then it hits me and I pull away to look at him. “Wait a second, did you just say love?”

“What?” he asks, his brow wrinkling with irritated embarrassment, which means he knows darn well what he said, “Well now—”

“No, you said love,” I tease, poking him in the chest with a laugh. “Rhys said loooove.”

I know the word wasn’t used in the real sense, the one that has significant meaning. So I’m surprised when his brow smooths over and he pulls me up closer to him. His blue eyes stare down at me with such transparent emotion that all teasing on my part stops cold. “So what if I did say love?”

“Did you mean it?” I whisper, not daring to hope.

I’m prepared for a million different smart-assed retorts that I’m sure are on the tip of his tongue in response, but one word fights its way to the finishing line.

“Yes.”

Before I can respond, he shuts me up again with a kiss. The mix of champagne, the dessert we’ve been eating and just a hint of salt from my earlier tears make both of us want to savor the moment. When he finally pulls away, leaving me perfectly breathless, he looks down at me again, this time more intensely than ever.

“What is it?” I finally ask.

“I just want to commit those brown eyes to memory so they replace the hazel ones in my dreams.”

I feel like maybe I’m going to cry again.

“Let’s go to bed, Prynne,” he says, leaning in to kiss my forehead before I can lose myself all over again.

After we clear away the dessert from the bed, turn out all the lights and settle comfortably into one another he kisses the top of my head again where it rests in that sweet spot at the top of his chest.

“Get a good night’s sleep. I have a surprise for you in the morning.”