Page 226 of The Hopelessly Bromantic Duet

Those are some words to live by.

I’ll start with the shirt.

On Friday morning, Slade whisks me to the Savoy Hotel for an early Q and A. Reporters fire off questions about the movie, the Oscars,Unfinished Business.

But also . . . TJ.

You were supposed to be on this tour with him. Everything okay?

What’s the latest with you and the author?

You were inseparable for a while, and now you’re separable?

His work on the script is under wraps, so I keep my answers vague but truthful. “Everything’s great with TJ.”

“Rumor is you’ve broken up. Care to comment?” one man asks.

Before I can reply, another reporter shouts, “Yeah, what’s the real reason he’s not here?”

I haven’t been this anxious in ages. I steal a glance at Slade in the front row. He pastes on a big grin.Smile and wave.

But I don’t smile. I tackle the obnoxious question head-on.

“I assure you we didn’t break up. Everything is fantastic. In fact, it’s never been better,” I say, fueled by the memories of Vegas and my dreams for this coming weekend. “He has a deadline and needed to work on his book. He’s incredibly supportive of me. So, I wanted to be supportive of him.”

There. All completely true.

Slade stares sternly at me,shut upwritten all over his face. But I wanted to answer honestly, and I don’t regret what I said.

Another reporter presses on. “But he’s been seen in Los Angeles. He lives in New York. William and Christian live in LA.”

It’s a slap in the face. That’s where honesty gets me.

Behind the podium, I clench and unclench my fists. “The great thing is he can write from anywhere,” I say, injecting cheer into my tone.

“Why not here, then? With you?” the reporter continues.

Why do they care so much? It’s like I’m naked on stage, the way they pick apart every word.

Slade strides to the front of the room, cups his mouth, and booms in his big voice, “One more question is all we have time for, folks.”

“But Jude didn’t answer the last one,” the reporter unhelpfully reminds the room.

“He did,” Slade says. “TJ has business to tend to as well. They can’t always travel side by side. But they’ll be seeing each other when they both return to New York this weekend. Thank you again. That was the last question.”

I’m so wrung out. I’ve no problem letting Slade shepherd me out the back door of the briefing room. It’s exhausting defending what feels like a lie, even though it’s true.

But reality and farce are spilling over into each other. It’s too much, this balancing act between actual and pretend boyfriends.All I want is to be in New York, where I can talk to TJ and figure out how to live fully in thereal usland.

“You and TJ need a public date this weekend,” Slade murmurs out of the corner of his mouth.

I groan privately. I don’t want to perform a date. I want tohavea date with my boyfriend and only my boyfriend.

When I return to the hotel room to finish packing for my flight in a few hours, I’m desperate to connect with TJ. He’s the only one I want to talk to about anything.

But it’s the middle of the night in New York. Time zones can fuck off. I text him instead.

Jude: This weekend, can we please figure out what to tell our agents? I want to put this whole fake boyfriend thing behind us and just be real.