Chapter 76
"Ladies and gentlemen, it's your girl Ellen—of course you already knew that, because I basically own this place!"
The crowd went wild the second Joey, Henry Cavill, and Emma Watson walked out and settled onto the couch. After the usual hellos and light chit-chat, Ellen went full Ellen.
She fixed her eyes on Emma with that trademark devilish grin. "So, Emma, be honest: how often are you and Henry… you know… getting busy?"
Dead silence.
Emma's eyes went comically wide. Joey mentally wiped sweat off Emma's forehead for her.
Welcome to Hollywood: fake-date your co-star and still have to make up fake sex stories.
Henry jumped in like a pro. "Whoa, pump the brakes, Ellen. Emma's still a baby. That question's way too personal."
Ellen pivoted instantly, locking onto Joey like a heat-seeking missile. "Okay, fine. Joey. Spill. What's the hottest, most memorable sex you've ever had?"
Joey's face: 😟➡️😳➡️😐 (the full Black-person-asking-question meme in real time).
The audience leaned forward like they were waiting for the season finale cliffhanger.
Joey took a deep breath, stared straight at Ellen, and deadpanned, "Probably… on a desk."
The studio straight-up detonated.
"ON A DESK?!"
Ellen smelled blood in the water. "Ooh, everyone wants details now. Teach us, professor—how exactly does that work?"
Joey shot her the death glare. "Exactly the way you and Portia do it."
Crowd: loses their damn minds.
Ellen tried to recover. "Okay, but how long did it—"
"Oh my GOD, Ellen!"
The place erupted. People were crying laughing.
America is nosy as hell, and that episode shattered every ratings record in the show's history. The exact moment Ellen grilled Joey about desk sex? The live ratings spiked so hard the network thought the system glitched.
Twitter and the early Facebook comments were an absolute circus:
- "I'm a lesbian and I am OBSESSED with Joey Grant. Please, girl, one chance on that desk."
- "Joey's flustered face is my new sexuality."
- "Henry protecting Emma was so sweet I ascended."
- "I'm gay but Joey Grant could ruin my life and I'd thank her."
Joey had zero clue she'd accidentally become the number-one celebrity crush in half the lesbian bars from L.A. to New York. Something about the combo of talent, zero filter, and that girl-next-door vibe apparently hits the community like catnip.
Same night. Somewhere in a dark, cavernous mansion.
Tom Hanks killed the TV with one angry click of the remote.
The room went pitch black except for the glint of a whiskey glass catching the moonlight.
He'd sworn he was done obsessing over Joey Grant. Told himself he'd keep his distance.
Yet the second he heard she was doing Ellen, he Googled the air time and sat there in the dark like a teenager.
She was a comet. Every time he thought she'd peaked, she burned brighter.
He admired her so much it hurt. But he was terrified to reach for her.
Three very public divorces will do that to a guy. His heart had taken enough public beatings—he wasn't sure it could survive a fourth.
Especially not with someone as brilliant and complicated as Joey, someone whose "relationship" with Hughes stayed permanently undefined.
He leaned back on the couch and stared at the ceiling chandelier until his eyes burned.
Meanwhile, Twilight was still steam-rolling the box office, and something else started boiling over.
An old wound in the Asian-American community ripped wide open again.
A 17-year-old case that had been dormant for nearly two decades suddenly roared back to life: Asian-American students sued Harvard and UNC, claiming the schools imposed higher admission standards on Asians to make room for other groups.
Affirmative action debates exploded everywhere.
Everyone knew the stats cold: Asian kids routinely needed 140 points higher on the SAT than white applicants, and 400+ higher than Black applicants, just to have the same shot.
A 2005 Princeton study had already laid it bare: Asians needed an extra 50 points just to be equal; Black and Latino applicants got massive boosts.
The internet went nuclear. Asian-American activists flooded every platform, screaming that this wasn't diversity—it was straight-up discrimination dressed up as fairness.
And then someone dug up Joey's speech from earlier that year—the one she gave at the rally for Asian hate-crime victims.
That clip went viral all over again. Millions of views in days.
Because Joey had nailed it: talent and hard work should matter more than the color of your skin.
After everything she'd accomplished—Juno, Source Code, La La Land on Broadway, and now Twilight rewriting box-office history—the Asian-American community started treating her like their patron saint.
She wasn't just successful. She was proof that the system could be beaten.
In less than a week her speech racked up tens of millions of shares.
Joey saw it blowing up and didn't hesitate. She grabbed a whiteboard marker, wrote "JUSTICE" in huge black letters, snapped a selfie holding the sign, and posted it with the caption:
"I love this country because it's supposed to give EVERYONE justice."
Within hours, Asian-American senators, professors, students—thousands of them—started posting their own "JUSTICE" photos.
It became a full-blown movement.
And every time something anti-Asian flared up, there was Joey, front and center, speaking out—no fear, no filter.
America ate it up.
This wasn't just a director anymore. This was a young woman with insane talent, insane work ethic, who stayed humble, gave back, and actually stood for something.
In a country that worships the American Dream, Joey had become the walking, talking, desk-sex-story version of it.
Her likability with the general public? Off the charts.
The Department of Education took notice fast. When enough people make noise in America, someone in power eventually listens.
A week later, Joey got an envelope with the presidential seal.
Inside: an invitation to speak at the White House about affirmative action, racial equity in education, and the future of the American Dream.
They called her "a leading voice of her community."
She read the letter once, twice, then looked up and laughed—half stunned, half fired up.
From a random film-student short to the White House stage in under five years.
Only in America.
And only Joey Grant.
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