Chapter Twenty

Katie had made a lot of good entrances. She'd stunt-rolled out of a moving car, she'd dropped through a ceiling, and one time she even did a cartwheel, but she didn't think she'd ever enjoyed an entrance more than this one, walking into Wil's open arms.

"Hi there," Wil said. She wrapped herself around Katie's body.

Katie pushed the tip of her nose into Wil's. She didn't have a microphone, but it didn't matter. This wasn't a speaking role. She took Wil's face in her hands, then smoothed her fingers over Wil's ears and down her neck to wrap her hands around her nape. Wil's hands found Katie's waist and pulled her closer until their legs touched.

The audience had collectively lost their minds.

A little bit, so had Katie. She'd missed this. Missed Wil.

She'd been on so many stages and so many sets, she was used to thinking about a hundred things at once. How she needed to position her body for the cameras. What the director had asked her to convey, what the script said, what her goals were for the piece, what the character needed from her, and of course the other actors—what they needed, how they felt to her, what their faces and bodies projected and how she received them, took their energy, changed it and gave it back.

But never like this. Katie had never done anything like this.

She'd never been in love and watched the woman she loved go on live television and be so sexy and charismatically commanding. Katie should have expected it, because she'd seen the videos, a year's worth of kissing videos on Wil's TikTok, but she hadn't, still. She couldn't have imagined Wil would be like this. She hadn't known Wil would hold the audience and the host herself in the palm of her hand.

Katie felt Wil's thumbs brush under her eyes, across her cheekbones, which was how she knew she must be crying. She smiled at Wil. "I love you," she said.

It was so easy to say. It was the truest thing, the easiest thing, the most beautiful thing she'd ever had.

She loved Wil Greene. She always would.

"I love you, too, Katie Kat."

Wil didn't say the words aloud. She mouthed them, because she'd been miked, and these words were only for Katie. They landed against her beating heart with a soft thud just at the same moment that Wil kissed her.

Wil's mouth was soft, her fingers tangling into Katie's hair. Katie dropped her hands to rest against Wil's chest where she could feel Wil's heart beating hard beneath her fingers, and she forgot to keep track of anything but how right it felt to kiss Wil, how glad she was that she'd had to wait so long and go through so many things, because it meant she could feel that. The rightness. The goodness of it, of the two of them together. The rush that was always, always the same but just kept getting bigger.

She closed her eyes, and Wil angled her head and kissed her jawline and her neck, and Katie thought of how Wil had looked at the buffet table at the holiday party, walking right up to her, smiling and saying, Guess what?

Like time didn't matter. Like the past hadn't happened.

Like nothing mattered but Wil and Katie, forever.

They pulled apart at the same time, the audience roaring, and laughed.

"You are doing Los Angeles so incredibly well," Katie said. "You are Los Angeles."

Wil just smiled.

Busy approached them, laughing and crying, and they both turned and gave her a three-way hug. A producer ran onto the stage and miked Katie, and then they all sat on the sofa.

Producers were working the audience to get to a place of calm, and Katie waved at them and held Wil's hand.

She'd told Madelynn the plan a few minutes before she saw that Wil was going to execute it. Madelynn had been delighted. She was completely unconcerned that Wil or Katie would fuck it up. I've been waiting for this moment ever since I met you. No. I've been waiting for this moment my entire career as a publicist. This is it, Katie. Let them interview you after, and speak from your joy. Speak from your big, expansive heart. She'd taken Katie's hands in hers. Show them who you are, Katie Price.

The truth was, Katie had always known who she was. She would never lose track of who she was ever again. She would live her one wild and precious life, and she would tell her own story, no matter how messy.

"Katie!" Busy squealed. "Katie, Katie, Katie!"

"Busy, Busy, Busy!" Katie bounced and clapped her hands. "I crashed your show!"

"You did!" Busy mock-pouted. "I didn't even know you were coming. I was kept out of the loop."

"But you loved it," Katie said, "so you can't complain."

Busy shook her head. "I'm speechless. It's not my usual condition." She waved her blue index cards in front of her face. "There's nothing on here for this eventuality. Okay. Katie. You are here with Wil. That was a kiss to end all the kisses. What have you got to say for yourself, girl?"

Katie looked at Wil, who reached over and took her hand. She looked back at Busy. "I mean, you've seen her. She's always been like this." She waved her hand to indicate Wil's entire selfness. "In high school, everybody was just out of their minds about her. I'm only human, Busy. I was always at play practice, but when I finally slowed down a minute and we took a class together, that was it. I attached myself to her. She couldn't get rid of me if she tried."

Busy leaned forward. "Did anything… you know, happen?"

"Almost," Katie said, with the perfect amount of coy in her smile. "But I won't say more, and I'm not sure I would've known what to do if it had. You remember what it was like back then. We didn't have Instagram or TikTok to teach us all the important stuff, we just had MySpace and, like, Tumblr."

"Oh my God, Tumblr," Wil said. "I had a Tumblr."

"You did?!" Katie turned to see Wil blushing. "What was on your Tumblr?"

"I can't talk about that on national television." Wil Greene had never looked cooler. She was impenetrably, impossibly cool, confessing the existence of her secret, probably sexy Tumblr on live TV.

Katie would ferret out this Tumblr. She would assign a PA to the task. But that was for later.

"Wow." She turned to Busy. "See, this is what happens when you go off-book. You learn things. But my point is, I didn't know what I was feeling. I didn't understand it, I didn't have a way to understand it. I only figured out much later that Wil Greene was the first person I ever loved."

Katie was careful to use the same language Ben had always used. I was the first person Katie Price ever loved.

She made sure that she slowed down when she told the world her version. Her story. Her truth.

Wil squeezed her knee.

Busy leaned around Katie to make big eyes at Wil. "Do you have anything to add, Ms. Greene?"

Wil laughed. "Yeah. Same."

"And now?" Busy asked.

"Now,"Katie said, "we are kissing on your show, and that's all you're getting. The rest I will tell you on my patio with a lemonade, because, if Wil gave me a retirement kiss, this interview retires any national discussion of what is now my very amazing love life."

"But I have questions!" Busy said. "So many questions."

"You can ask two," Katie said, and laughed at her own imperiousness. She'd probably give Busy almost anything she wanted. Busy was genuine and adorable and always had been. There was a reason Katie had come on her show a dozen times.

"I only get two?!"

"Look at your poor producers! We've made everything chaos, and we might go over time, and they probably still have Barbie Dreamhouses and cat trees to put together when they get home tonight!"

Busy and Wil both laughed, along with the audience. Katie loved this. It had been a long time since she'd had this much fun on TV. She'd worn a red dress with a white collar and tall black boots, just in case her plan with Wil worked out. She liked a theme, and Busy did, too. Santa was a solid theme, always. Now she crossed her legs and grinned at Busy, ready for the first question.

"Wil told me the part of the story she said was hers to tell," Busy said. "What about you?"

Katie took a deep breath. She'd known this might be coming. She thought about what she'd prepared to say, what she and Wil had talked about. Scripted. Safe.

But then she remembered that Madelynn had asked her to speak from her big, expansive heart.

Her story belonged to her.

"You know, Busy, it's Christmas," Katie said. "So I'm going to level with you. It's been nine years since I had a relationship with Ben Adelsward or said a single word in public about him, and just this morning, I saw one of those split pictures with my head on one side and his head on the other, and I'm just, like, really?" Katie cocked her own head to one side, her expression blending bewilderment with irritation. "We're still doing this? Why are we doing this? Who wants to look at their head next to their ex's head forever?"

The audience had gone completely silent, but they were listening, and their listening felt generous. They were leaning into her anger.

She hadn't really let herself feel it. She'd needed more, something bigger, to contain it.

"Mm-hmm, mm-hmm." Busy spun her finger at Katie. "Tell me more about that."

Katie looked out at the audience. "I feel like you guys get me. I know I'm not the only person who sees these articles and this story just going and going and thinks, Come on! You guys have thought about this, right? Why someone may not want to talk about her ex who started ‘dating' her"—Katie made air quotes—"when she was eighteen and he was thirty years old? How there are probably some legitimate reasons. Private reasons. Personal reasons. Real big reasons. But the most likely explanation probably isn't that she's jealous and immature and sabotaging? Because is that any kind of explanation? Ever?"

"If we're talking about immature," Busy said wryly, "I'd point out that his girlfriends aren't getting any older."

The audience bottomed out in applause and hoots and delighted screams.

Katie put her head down, but she smiled. "There can be a way where, if one person is telling a story, it feels true. It feels like the story. But the minute I got behind the camera on Wil's channel, you could see, right? That there was a completely different story that Wil hadn't been telling on her channel. Hers. Her story. All it took to see it, and to understand it, was someone else looking at it. My story isn't Ben's. It never has been. You know who I'd love to be centered in my story, Busy?"

"Tell me."

"Diana Price. My mom. She's such a good mom! Because she drove me to all those acting lessons and voice lessons and dance lessons. It made her a little nervous. She worried I wouldn't have a real childhood, and she wanted me to have a good life. But she believed in me when she might have kept me safer in Saturday soccer and Girl Scout camp. She sat through my auditions, and held me when I cried when I didn't get the part, and when she probably would have rather I quit than put myself through all that, she told me that it had to be someone. Why not me? She was why I came to this town, and I made a movie, and I got nominated for an Oscar when I was nineteen years old. Diana Price. My acceptance speech, in case I won that first Oscar, was all about her. I didn't get to give it, but I just gave part of it now."

Katie looked out to the audience where she knew her mom was sitting. "I love you, Mom!" she called. She could just make out her mother's pale hair and Beanie next to her, waving one arm so that Katie could spot them through the lights. Katie beamed in her mom's direction. "You're a good mom!"

The audience cheered, and Katie smiled, her heart so full. When it quieted down, she said, "So that's part of my story no one has ever heard, and Wil told you the other part." Katie looked at Busy, then out at the audience again. "Put it together." She let her voice get firm, building slowly toward a crescendo so the audience would know to pay attention. "My first love, ever, was Wil Greene. My mom gave me my career. And there are good goddamned reasons why a twenty-one-year-old who moves out of their boyfriend's house in the middle of the night—keep in mind, those are Ben's words, not mine—doesn't say anything about it, and it's not because she's sabotaging or jealous. It's because she's scared." Katie looked at Busy. "Right?"

"Right!" Busy nodded. "A hundred percent."

"And I'm not the only one with that story. We all have to remember to look at every part of a story, and if we don't have the ability to because someone is quiet, or focused on something else, or may be hurting, I don't know, maybe we shut our mouths?"

Busy got up from the sofa and pounced on Katie to give her a hug, and Katie hugged her back, laughing.

After the audience finished calming down, Busy sat on the sofa again. "I get another question!"

"Oh, yikes." Katie laughed. "Two feels like so many questions now."

"This is a good one. Tell us what you're doing next! We're dying! And we need to know how your cats are handling these changes in your life. I'm worried about how Phil is coping with your new romance."

Katie clapped her hands. "My babies are good! They have a button for Wil, and Almond Butter has taken her rightful place as their wise and experienced elder."

The audience exploded again, this time with hoots and laughter.

"I feed them breakfast," Wil said. "They've figured out I'm a softer touch than Katie. This morning, Phil looked at Almond Butter eating her special geriatric cat food, and then he looked at Sue—"

"—who is the spokescat," Busy interrupted. "Right?"

Wil leaned back against the sofa cushion, utterly at ease, and draped her arm along the back behind Katie in a way that casually claimed her as Wil's own.

Honestly. Wil Greene was a miracle.

"Right," Wil said. "The next thing I know, Sue goes up on the buttons and says, Wil. Breakfast. Cats. Want. Yes? So what am I going to do? That's brilliant, right? That is some genius cat behavior. I had no choice. Everybody got some of Almond Butter's food."

"No one told me," Katie said. "I was otherwise occupied, or I would have intervened. But to answer your question, Busy, what I'm doing next is starting my own production company with my former agent, now founding co-partner, April Feinstein. It's called Talking Cat Pictures—"

Someone in the audience whooped, and Katie waved, laughing.

"—under the Cineline Carnegie Howell parent company. I've written an adaptation of the worldwide bestseller Obstructed View, which I'll also direct, and Marisol Gonzales has committed her biopic of the artist Emma Tenayuca with us. And that's just the beginning."

After that, there was a lot of pandemonium, a few more hugs and smiles, and Katie put her finger through Wil's belt loop and dragged her off the stage, mostly for the audience's enjoyment, although Wil's outfit was a lot, and Katie couldn't really help herself.

Also, she couldn't help pulling Wil into a corner and kissing her again, just the two of them in a dim, comparatively cool spot, Katie's back against the wall, Wil's hips pressing into hers, her mouth hungry, her hands roaming over Katie's back, her hips, her waist. When Katie pulled away, she was panting, her heart racing, every pulse point hot and aching. "I want to go home," she said.

"Yes. Hard agree."

They had to find Madelynn and April in the greenroom first, because Madelynn had arranged their transportation, and then Madelynn told them to wait a few minutes for their mothers, who were coming to the greenroom to talk to them.

"That was the best Christmas present anyone's ever given me," Madelynn told Katie. "I can take down my dartboard now. Nothing will compare to the utter annihilation of that interview."

"It was super fun," Katie said. "Would do again."

"I hope so," Madelynn said. "But go home and rest. Take the holiday for your family, and then let's make some time for all of us before the New Year." She kissed Katie's cheek and shook Wil's hand before one of her phones rang, and she walked away, already talking.

April held her arms out to Katie. "Come here, you incomparable creature." April hugged her once, hard, lifting Katie to her tiptoes. "You just did that. I can hardly believe it. How do you feel? Are you dead? Did it kill you?"

"It didn't!" Katie watched April—her business partner, her friend—wind her red curls around themselves into a self-adhering springy bun on the top of her head. "It felt really good."

"Are you scared about what happens next? Because Madelynn's got this, and even if she didn't, I would. Marisol was watching with Diego. She's been texting me. She's happy. Honor's happy. But I want to make sure you're happy." She braced Katie by the shoulders, searching her face.

Katie shook her head, smiling, completely at a loss for words. Standing here in the greenroom with Wil by her side, with Madelynn and April, with her mom and Beanie on the way, the biggest thing she felt—the thing she noticed, because it was new, and because it was everything—was that she wasn't afraid.

She wasn't afraid.

She couldn't remember when she'd ever, ever felt so safe. Not because nothing bad could happen to her, but because she knew that whatever happened, she would be loved, and she would keep telling her story and living her life until she took her last breath.

"I'm so happy," she told April.

April reached out suddenly and took Katie's face in both of her hands. She looked into Katie's eyes, her own eyes brimming with tears. "Good," she said. "Finally. Katie. This is so good."

Then she stepped back, letting her hands drop. "Have the best Christmas. We'll talk in a few days. I'm lying. Probably tomorrow. Maybe tonight on group chat. Pretend I have boundaries."

Katie laughed.

There was a knock on the greenroom doorframe by a PA, and then Katie was wrapped in her mom's arms, the familiar smell of her Emeraude perfume like an aura of love and safety. "I'm so proud of you," Diana whispered.

Katie leaned back. "Yeah? Because that wasn't—"

Diana shook her head. "I can be a good mom and be wrong, especially about things that scare me when it comes to my kid. I can't wait to see and be a small part of everything that's coming your way, Katelyn. It's not going to be easy, but you know what? I think it's going to be a lot easier and a lot more fun than what you've been doing." Diana looked over at Wil, who was making Beanie laugh. "She won't let anything happen to you." Her mom's mouth got firm. "I can see that now. I like that. I should have seen it sooner. I know Beanie, after all, and she's terrifying."

Katie laughed. "Are you two meeting us at the house?"

Diana smiled in a way that made Katie's cheeks warm. She raised her eyebrows. "Is that what you want, sweetheart? For us moms to come to your house tonight and make tea and start a batch of cinnamon rolls for tomorrow morning, and talk to you two for hours and then sleep in the guest rooms in the same hallway as your bedroom?"

"Hmm," Katie said. "Hmm, hmm, hmm."

Diana laughed. "No. I'm going back to the hotel with Beanie so I can call your father, who's having the utterly silent and contemplative Christmas of his dreams, and is currently participating in an online Sotheby's auction for rare baseball cards. He'll fly here sometime soon. Beanie and I both have midnight massages booked, and Beanie already marked up everything she wants to order from the room service menu like it was a particularly messy brief, so after our five-hundred-dollar breakfast tomorrow, we'll come over for lunch and presents. If that's okay with you."

"Yes," Katie said, and hugged her mom again.

Katie and Wil were led to a back door of the studio to get in their car, but of course there were photographers. Instead of looking down, she looked at Wil, who was looking at her, and they laughed and then tumbled into the car, the shouts of the paparazzi muting as soon as the door closed.

Every stop in traffic felt like it might actually kill her. She could hardly look at Wil, because when she did, Wil was being outrageous, sitting in the leather backseat of the car with her extreme beauty and hotness. She hadn't changed out of her amazing clothes. Her skin glowed. Her tits were a crime. It was horribly rude and upsetting in every single way.

By some mutual recognition of the horny energy between them, as well as the lack of a divider between them and the driver, they were not talking or touching.

After almost a thousand years, they were going around the loop drive to Katie's back gate in order to avoid the cameras at the front. Katie had never been more glad that she had her phone managed, and that Wil had changed her number, so their phones weren't blowing up in their bags.

At least for a while, they could just have each other.

The car stopped. They got out by the back gate and walked through the pool area. Quiet and still.

"Hey, Katie?"

"Yes." She looked at Wil.

"That was really something."

"It was."

"And it's Christmas Eve." Wil's voice was serious, but she sounded happy, as though she couldn't quite believe what they'd managed to pull off for themselves.

Katie couldn't believe it, either.

"It is. Tomorrow is Christmas." Katie pushed the door open and leaned against the jamb. "There's no staff. Just us." Katie grinned. "Until our moms descend on us earlier than they told us they would, and everyone starts calling me for ‘just one thing,' even though it's Christmas Day."

"Good." Wil slid her hand over Katie's neck in a slow and illegally erotic way with a smile Katie wasn't quite prepared for, and so she blushed, and instead of executing her devastating plan of stripping by the pool and diving naked into it, surfacing to crook her finger at Wil, she bustled into the house, snort-giggling.

Then Wil was right in front of her, all shadow and silver and glittery in the low light. So Katie said it, thinking about the thousands and thousands of times she would say it in the years ahead of them. "I love you. I never stopped."

Wil smiled. "I love you. In front of a live audience and also right here in your kitchen." She leaned forward, grabbing Katie's dress, and pulled her closer.

This kiss was different.

Wil wanted her. That's what this kiss meant. It meant Wil wanted her, and Katie really wanted Wil, and Katie felt like they should get a special present, because they had exploded Christmas into tinsel, into stars, into colored smoke.

She pulled away and looked at Wil from over her shoulder with the look she had imagined she'd give Wil by the pool. Wil followed her to her bedroom.

"Let's take off all our clothes," Katie said. "Then I want to do the thing I've been thinking about."

Wil toed off her boots and started wiggling herself out of pants that if she knew cost $1,500, she would die. No one in Wisconsin owned $1,500 pants. Well, no one but Cy Newhouse.

"What thing?" Wil asked.

Katie shucked off her dress so she could watch Wil look at her. But she had miscalculated, because Wil was wearing the most miniscule thong she had ever seen in her entire life, and she had seen a lot of small underwear.

"Wil." Katie pulled Wil to herself. "What the fuck is that thong?"

"It's my confidence thong." She turned around. The strings were like cobwebs. "Do you like it?"

"Fuck me, Wil."

"Okay." She laughed and pulled her shirt off, and her bra matched. It was black and see-through. Katie wondered what the fuck with this woman.

"No. I want to do my thing." Katie had been experiencing some intense fantasies lately. Something about watching all those videos for a year, thinking about Wil, feeling what happened when she touched Wil, filming Wil with Noel, had made Katie want to imprint herself onto her. She wanted to taste her and bite her and command her and overwhelm her. She wanted to have Wil's complete, utter, compulsory attention, because Wil was so powerful, so interesting, so everything.

It made Katie ache and her heart race every time she thought about it.

"Tell me what you want, Katie Kat."

Gah.

"Get on the bed." Katie meant to make it sound outrageously commanding, but in reality she whispered it. Still, she was glad to see that Wil's breasts went pink. She crawled onto Katie's bed, still in that terrible thong and bra, her hair extra messy from the studio styling. Then she lay back, holding herself up on her elbows.

"I don't know how to do what I want to do," Katie said. "But also, I feel like it can't be that hard."

Wil laughed. "I mean, it has a bad rap for being a high-level-of-difficulty activity, but its complexity is way overstated."

"It turns me on just to think about it." Naked now, on the bed, Katie licked Wil's knee, and Wil closed her eyes.

"That is such a good start, Katie. Go with that. If it helps, it's something I really, really like, and my delight in getting it tends to fill in where the technique could be better. I've never—oh fuck, fuck, fuck."

Katie had experimentally dug her hands into the insides of Wil's thighs to open them up, but then that looked so pretty, she did an experimental bite. Then Wil bucked and swore at her, so this was good.

Katie wasn't nervous anymore.

She curled herself up between Wil's legs and didn't bother to take off the confidence thong. It was tiny, and it was already wet, and it looked amazing. When Katie tasted Wil for the first time and Wil started making noises, moving like she was desperate, the entire world narrowed to one point, and Katie felt so strong and fierce and hot that her entire body unfurled, her hands between her own legs, her mouth on Wil, everything sliding and building and throbbing.

When they were both close, Wil wanted it hard, and that was so good. It was so good. The way it made Katie feel was so good, and so much locked into place about Wil inside Katie's heart. Inside her body.

This woman. For her.

It was such a great story.

The very best one.