Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 128211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
I didn’t trust a damn person here except Finn, of course.
“Welcome back to the Close Quarters reunion!” he said, his voice booming. “We’re here with the full Season 4 crew, now — welcome to Finn and Ember — and... we’ve got a lot to talk about.”
Cue the salacious grin from him, the laughter and mumbled agreement from the crowd, and the somersault of my gut.
Finn’s thumb traced a slow, steady rhythm against my knuckles. He was my grounding force — always.
Without wasting any time, Graham sat back in his chair, crossing one ankle over the opposite knee and tapping his notecards on the sole of his polished dress shoe.
“Ember. Finn.” He shook his head, laughing a little at the audience before he turned back to us. “Where do we even start?”
“How about from the part where my chief stew and roommate faked nice to my face before BLEEP my boyfriend behind my back?”
That from Gisella, who was now smiling victoriously as she got the reaction she wanted from the crowd. I was sure the production crew advised her to really play into the dramatics, and she looked all-too pleased to oblige.
I opened my mouth to say… something, though I wasn’t sure what. But Finn beat me to the punch.
“I wasn’t your boyfriend,” he said — calmly, no bite in his tone whatsoever. “You know that, whether or not the production crew chose to show it or not.”
And they hadn’t.
When the last few episodes had aired, I’d been physically ill. They’d edited out all the footage of Finn breaking up with Gisella, Finn telling me he’d broken up with Gisella, and of course, the final dinner with the crew when everything hit the fan.
Instead, they’d chopped it up to look like we left when Captain Gary did. They then showed a few clips of the crew taking shots and cheersing their drinks and laughing it up that I knew was filmed before dinner.
It didn’t make sense to me. If anything, I thought the whole story made for better TV. But I guessed the production team had their story mapped out, and our truth was too innocent for their liking.
There were murmurs from the crowd at Finn’s words, but Graham didn’t play into them. He pointed the attention right back at us. “You were both fan favorites early on. But by mid-season, the narrative shifted. Viewers were shocked. Hurt. Some called it betrayal. Others, true love. How did it feel watching it back?”
Finn’s jaw tightened along with his grip on me. “Hard.”
That one word carried so much weight.
“We knew we’d face backlash,” I added. “But we didn’t know how far the producers would go to make us the villains.”
“Make you,” Gisella spat. “I’m pretty sure you did that yourselves.”
I noted the way Palmer’s nostrils flared and he shook his head, and I wondered if he’d been told to keep his mouth shut about it all.
Bernard, on the other hand, was grinning like the Cheshire cat, watching me like he knew something I didn’t.
That scared me more than Gisella.
“I think we knew going into it that it wouldn’t be pretty, but we hoped there would be more truth than what there was. Still, we watched every episode together,” Finn continued, voice steady as he dutifully ignored Gisella. “And we talked through it all. Laughed at the edits, cringed at some things, sure. But we never let it change how we saw each other.”
“Did you ever consider breaking up?”
“Not for a second,” Finn said instantly. “We already wasted too much time apart because we were young and stubborn, full of pride.” He looked at me then. “Once we made our way back to each other?” A shrug. “There was no tearing us apart, no matter how the world has tried to.”
Graham tried to drive the wedge deeper. “Finn, do you regret it? What happened with Gisella, the crew tension, the fallout?”
“I regret hurting people,” he said, and then his eyes found mine. “But I’ll never regret loving her.”
The room fell quiet, the audience was waiting for the big, dramatic moment while Graham tried to create it. But we weren’t biting.
Then, Graham shocked us all when he said, “Well, that’s very sweet. But it’s quite a shortened version of the speech you gave that last dinner out with the crew, isn’t it?”
The crowd began to murmur. Gisella’s eyes popped wide. Cameron and Eli shared a look of annoyance while Palmer looked a bit smug holding back a grin.
“Let’s roll that footage!” Graham declared with a smile.
And they did.
Finally, after months of hell, the truth played out on a screen in the studio and on televisions all over the world. Emotion surged in my chest as I watched it play out, as I watched everyone react to it in real time. Gisella was throwing a fit, threatening to leave if they didn’t stop playing it. When the part played where Palmer called her out for her infidelity, she stormed off stage.