[EMY]
"It's none of your business, Emy."
Lance's tone landed colder than I expected. It felt like a small door closing between us, the kind that makes the hallway suddenly louder and the world feel a size too big for me.
When we'd been rehearsing in my living room, we'd joked, bumped shoulders, shared fries—I'd thought there'd been an easy closeness.
Now his dismissal felt like a reminder that maybe I'd been the only one calling it friendship.
Okay. Breathe.
This was not the first time disappointment had shown up to my life like it owned the place—been there, defeated it, had tea about it. Child's play. I could handle this. I could absolutely handle this.
But I wasn't built for passive acceptance. I wasn't going to watch him walk away with some vague, random excuse and let whatever was happening at that hotel swallow him.
I stepped forward, heart a drumline and spine suddenly heroic. I grabbed his hand before he could pull away—firm, not begging.
"Hold it right there," I said, way too loudly for my own good, like a heroine in a romcom who'd forgotten to be subtle. "You are not walking into some weird meeting without telling me what's going on. Not on my watch."
Lance froze. The lobby hummed around us—phones, footsteps, an elevator dinging life's tiny alarms—but for a beat, it was just his hand in mine and the stupidly loud soundtrack of my own breathing.
He looked at me, something unreadable flickering across his face: surprise, then annoyance, then maybe . . . concern? "Emy," he started, but the word had no weight behind it.
I tightened my grip, channeling every ridiculous, stubborn thing I'd ever been into that one loud sentence. "No, Lance. You tell me now. Who is he? What is this meeting about? If it's a scandal, I'll fight it. If it's a business trap, I'll burn the contract. If it's dinner, then I order takeout and sit with you. But you are not going alone in there."
He searched my face like he was trying to decode a lyric. For a fraction of a second his features softened, and I almost believed we were back in my living room, arguing over pineapple on pizza.
Then his jaw set, and the distance slid back into place.
"Emy," he said again—firmer this time. "The music video won't happen if I don't do this."
His words landed like a fist. My mouth went dry. "What do you mean, 'do this'?" I asked, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice.
"If I don't—if I don't play along—AUREA will be buried," he said, voice breaking into something raw and close to desperation.
Heads turned for a beat and then slid away like they didn't want to be dragged into our mess.
"Are you going to meet an investor? Is that what this is—so the video gets funded?" The question came out steadier than I felt.
Lance didn't answer with words. He didn't have to. His face did—red, hollow around the eyes, the kind of desperation I'd only ever seen in backstage photos with bad lighting.
He looked younger and older at once, like someone carrying debt he hadn't earned.
I'd spent a decade as a fangirl and then another lifetime studying the industry to protect them. I knew the trade-offs, the euphemisms, the ugly "options" whispering in dressing rooms.
I wasn't naive. I wasn't stunned by the mechanics—only by the way it felt seeing it in someone I cared about.
"Enough, Emy," he snapped, pulling his arm back. "Stop. Don't be a busybody. If I pull this off and the MV goes through, you'll benefit just as much as we will. So stop pretending like you care." His words were sharp because he was scared; they were cruel because fear makes people cruel.
But pretending?
The word hit me like a slap. He was walking away—slowly at first, then faster—pulling into the crowd like he could disappear into other people's lives.
Did he really think I was pretending?
That I marched snacks across the city and opened my home to them and rehearsed harmonies because I liked being useful?
Did he think my worry was an act?
Something inside me snapped loud enough to annoy the nearby potted plants.
"Wait!" I shouted.
I grabbed his hand. Hard.
He froze.
For a second, his eyes widened—surprise, anger, alarm—then the panic folded into something else: worry for being seen. People were watching now. Phones lifted like an accusing jury.
"Don't do this, Lance!" I started, voice wobbling.
Then, because dramatic desperation is an idiot's best tactic, and because nothing about this situation was normal, I went full theater.
"I'm pregnant with your child!" I blurted. The lobby went quiet in that special way public places do when a soap-opera moment happens in real life.
Lance's face did everything at once—blank, then panic, then the very human, 'What in the actual—' expression.
"What the—Emy, what are you doing?!" He sounded half-terrified, half-embarrassed, and absolutely aware of the audience we'd gathered.
I didn't care who watched. "Are you meeting another woman behind my back? Are you cheating on me now that I'm pregnant?" I practically screamed. "I will not give you up! Never!"
He was wearing a hoodie, a wig, a mask—practical camouflage for someone not yet famous so I was confident that he wouldn't be implicated in a scandal.
And if by some miracle Lance did get famous, what if someone dug up this video a year from now just to ruin him?
Who would believe his side of the story? Honestly—who in their right mind would believe that Lance, the golden boy of AUREA, got a chubby, awkward, borderline gremlin-looking woman like me pregnant?
But still, he was Lance. My Lance. The one who'd practiced harmonies in my living room and once ate my instant noodles after midnight like it was a sacred ritual.
I didn't care about my reputation as long as it could save his.
"Stop that—stop this!" he hissed, panic bleeding into anger.
People edged away. A concierge cleared his throat. Someone's toddler started screaming the cleanest high note I'd ever heard in a hotel lobby.
I didn't stop.
If a lie would yank him back from the cliff, then fine.
Call me a villain for one scene. Call me dramatic. Call me everything but I would never let my boys suffer in this lifetime.