The first time I see Evan Kade up close, he’s yelling.
From my corner of the control room, half-hidden behind a stack of cable coils, his voice slices through the air like someone’s hit a wrong note in a live performance.
“No.” The word lands hard, sharp enough that even the interns stop pretending not to listen. “I’m not doing that twist. We agreed the finale was locked.”
On the wall of screens, a dozen camera feeds show him from different angles—jaw set, shoulders tight in the fitted black shirt wardrobe picked to telegraph “brooding romantic hero.” In person, though, he’s less polished and more…real. His hair’s still damp from a quick rinse, curling at the nape of his neck, and there’s a tiny smear of eyeliner under one eye where makeup missed a spot.
I shouldn’t be noticing that.
I shouldn’t be here at all.
“Lia,” Harper hisses at my elbow, nudging me with a pen. “You dropped the call sheet. Again. If Marla sees you standing still, she’ll sacrifice you to the ratings gods.”
I bend quickly, scooping up the papers I’d scattered in my not-so-graceful attempt to ghost through the room. The control room hums around us, the air frigid from overworked AC and the scent of burnt coffee and hairspray mixing into something uniquely, nauseatingly television.
On the main monitor, Evan faces Marla Quinn, our executive producer, in the wings of the soundstage. She’s in her usual armor: tailored white blazer, sleek ponytail, smile that could cut glass.
“Relax,” she coos, patting his arm like he’s a skittish show horse. “It’s not that big a change. Think of it as…a final test. The audience will eat it up.”
“That’s not what my contract says,” he fires back.
I almost drop the papers again. No one says that to Marla. Not on camera. Not off.
Beside me, Harper makes a low appreciative sound. “Our golden boy’s grown teeth.”
“Harper,” I whisper, even though she’s not wrong.
I’m just a production assistant. Background furniture. The girl who brings coffee, resets water bottles, and knows which contestants cry quietly in bathroom stalls so I can pretend not to see them. My job is to be invisible, and I’m good at it.
But I’m close enough to the monitors that I can see the micro-twitch in Marla’s jaw before she leans in, her hand still on Evan’s arm, her voice lowering.
“Your contract says you trust us,” she murmurs, the audio feed catching every syllable. “We made you, Evan. Don’t challenge the people who know how to keep you on top.”
A tech glances at me, eyebrows raised. I look away. I do not react. That’s the first rule of surviving in a place like this: see everything, show nothing.
Evan’s eyes flick to the cameras briefly, as if he feels them on him the way I feel the AC on my bare arms. “What’s the twist?” he asks.
And just like that, the air in the control room seems to thin. Even the director, usually barking countdowns, goes quiet, waiting. For a moment, all twenty screens feel like windows into the same breathless pause.
Marla’s smile widens. “We’re bringing in a civilian,” she says. “Someone with no agenda, no media training. Completely random. You pick her, you prove you’re here for real love, not just the spotlight. The viewers will swoon. Twitter will implode. It’s genius.”
A civilian.
I feel it before I understand it: a shiver at the base of my neck, like the universe has just turned its head.
From my peripheral vision, I see Harper straighten. “They’re doing it,” she murmurs. “The ‘random girl’ concept. I thought legal killed that months ago.”
“Random?” I echo, throat dry.
She snorts. “As random as a casting couch.” Her eyes flick to the screens. “Look at Marla. She’s been waiting to drop this.”
On the monitor, Evan’s hands curl into fists. “So you want me to humiliate one of the finalists on live TV by choosing some stranger instead?”
“No,” Marla says, with that tone she uses in pitch meetings. Like everything is champagne and inevitability. “We want you to show the world that you follow your heart. That you can’t be boxed in. You’ll be a legend, Evan. The guy who broke the format for love.”
The phrase lands with a thud in my stomach. Broke the format.
I shouldn’t care. It’s all scripted, anyway. That’s the unspoken second rule here: nothing is real except the contracts.
Harper nudges me again. “Stop staring and help me pull the archived civilian B-roll,” she mutters. “If they’re reviving this twist, she’ll want options yesterday.”
“Right,” I say, forcing my legs to move, my sneakers almost silent on the scuffed floor.
I make it three steps before the door flies open and a PA with a headset two sizes too big nearly crashes into me.
“Rowan!” he yelps.
I jump. “Lia. It’s just Lia.”
“Marla wants you,” he pants. “Now. Stage left. With the contestant gift bags.”
My stomach drops. “The—gift bags? That’s merch. That’s not—”
“Do you want to tell her no?” he asks, wild-eyed.
I don’t. I really, really don’t.
“Go,” Harper says under her breath. “I’ll cover your coffee run. Try not to die.”
“Comforting,” I mutter, but my pulse is already tripping over itself as I weave between chairs and equipment, file folders clutched to my chest like a shield.
The hallway beyond the control room is a tunnel of noise—crew shouting, makeup artists dragging rolling cases, the echo of someone’s high heels clacking like gunshots. The closer I get to the stage, the brighter it gets, the overhead lights bleaching everything into hyperreality.
Stage left is chaos. Contestants in sequined gowns cluster around ring lights, laughing too loudly, eyes too wide. A stylist waves a curling iron dangerously close to someone’s face. A camera operator backs up straight into me.
“Sorry,” I blurt, twisting sideways, and smack my elbow into a metal cart.
“Lia!” Marla’s voice knifes through the whirl.
She strides toward me, and every instinct I have tells me to shrink. Even in flats, she seems tall, the kind of woman who occupies whatever space she wants without asking permission.
“Where are the bags?” she demands.
“I—no one told me—” I start, and stop when her gaze cuts through me.
“Never mind,” she says. “You’re here. That’s enough. Come with me.”
“Shouldn’t I—”
“Now, Lia.”
There’s something in her tone that makes the hairs on my arms lift. I follow.
She leads me down a narrower corridor, away from the contestants’ glitter and nerves. The sound mutes as we turn a corner, replaced by the distant roar of the audience on the other side of the wall. My skin prickles; I can feel the energy of thousands of people vibrating through the concrete.
“Stand here,” Marla says abruptly, ushering me into a wedge of shadow near a service door.
“Here?” I echo.
She’s already digging in her leather folio. “Sign this.”
My breath stutters. The pages she thrusts at me are thick, dense with text. A pen appears in my hand like a magic trick.
“What is it?” I ask, even though I know. The header is familiar in the worst way: NON-DISCLOSURE AND CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT.
“Standard NDA,” Marla says lightly. “We’re expanding your access tonight. You’ll be near talent. It’s for your protection as much as ours.”
My fingers tighten on the pen. “I thought PAs sign all this on hiring.”
“This is an addendum,” she says, too quickly. “It’s boilerplate, Lia. We don’t have time for you to read every line. We’re live in eight minutes.”
Eight minutes.
I swallow. My throat feels like sandpaper. I’ve signed things like this before—dense, unread, because that’s what you do if you want to work in TV and not as someone’s drama anecdote.
Still, the words blur and sharpen on the page: perpetuity, likeness, derivative works, emotional distress.
“Do I have a choice?” I ask.
Marla pauses.
For the first time since I’ve known her, she looks almost…soft. Human. “The choice is whether you want to keep this job,” she says quietly. “You do good work. Don’t overthink it.”
The compliment lands like a trick. But my rent is due, and my resume is thin, and I’m so tired of starting over in new industries where I don’t know the rules.
I sign.
The pen scrapes my name onto the line—Lia Rowan—and something in my chest pricks, a faint echo of monitors beeping and nurses whispering and my mother’s hand crushing mine once upon a time.
I blink the memory away. This is not a hospital. This is not then.
“Good girl,” Marla says, snapping the folio closed.
I flinch at the phrase.
Before I can resent it properly, she’s guiding me out of the shadows and through a side door.
The sound hits first—a wave of screams and cheers that slam into my body, stealing my breath. The stage is a universe of its own, flooded with white and gold light, the show’s shimmering logo spinning on massive LED panels. Warmth blasts my face from overhead rigs. Confetti cannons glitter in wait.
“Just stay here,” Marla murmurs, tucking me near a column half-swallowed by curtain. “If anyone asks, you’re dealing with a prop malfunction. Don’t step fully into the light. Don’t talk to camera unless I say.”
“Talk to—what?”
But she’s gone, striding toward the center where the host, Tristan Vale, works the crowd into a frenzy. His teeth flash neon-white.
“And tonight,” he bellows, “we find out if Evan Kade will walk away with his perfect match!”
The audience explodes again. My heart pounds in time with the bass line vibrating up through the stage flooring.
On my left, a side door opens, and Evan steps into the wings.
Up close, he doesn’t look like a poster. He looks like a man holding a storm inside his ribcage.
His gaze sweeps the stage, sharp and assessing, then drifts, unfocused, like he’s somewhere else entirely. He smells like cologne and leftover adrenaline—clean, sharp, with a trace of sweat that makes him suddenly, oddly human.
I press my back against the curtain, willing myself smaller. Invisible. He won’t see me. No one sees me.
His eyes catch mine.
For a heartbeat, everything narrows to that line of sight. Blue-gray, I register stupidly. Clear even in the pulsing lights, framed by dark lashes that would be wasted on someone less aware of cameras.
He looks…surprised.
I feel it too. Like the universe just hit a wrong chord that somehow sounds right.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says quietly, and his voice is different up close. Lower, rougher, missing the smoothed edges he uses in confessionals.
“I—props,” I stammer, gesturing at nothing. My hand shakes. “Malfunction. I’m—I’m nobody.”
Something flickers across his face. Not pity. Something sharper. “Nobody, huh?” he murmurs.
Tristan’s voice booms, “Evan, come join me!”
Evan looks toward the stage, then back at me, like he’s weighing something. His fingers tap twice against his thigh, restless.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
My brain short-circuits. “Lia,” I say. “Rowan. I mean—Lia.”
He repeats it under his breath, like he’s testing how it fits in his mouth. “Lia.”
Onstage, Tristan is counting down from five. The audience chants with him.
Evan steps closer, just enough that the curtain brushes my shoulder. Up this close, I can see the faint scar by his left eyebrow, the way one lock of hair refuses to lie flat.
“When they say it’s random,” he says so quietly I almost miss it over the noise, “it never is.”
I freeze.
“What?”
He holds my gaze for one impossible second. “If they pull you in, you say no,” he tells me. “Whatever they offer you. You walk away.”
My pulse spikes. “Why would they—”
“Evan!” Tristan calls again, sharper.
Evan straightens, the mask sliding back over his features so fast it makes my head spin. He flashes me the kind of half-smile that has probably been focus-grouped. But there’s a question in it now, or maybe a warning.
“Nice to meet you, Lia Rowan,” he says.
Then he’s gone, striding into the blaze of lights. The audience’s roar swells like a tidal wave.
The show unfurls in gleaming, choreographed beats. Evan stands center stage, the three remaining finalists in a curved arc before him, their dresses a waterfall of sequins and silk. Tristan milked the suspense in the rehearsal; now, he drowns in it.
“What a journey it’s been,” the host intones. “Three incredible women. One heart to give.”
My palms are sweating. The curtain sticks to my back.
On my side of the line between light and shadow, Marla appears again, breathless and electric. She clocks my expression in an instant.
“Don’t look like that,” she says softly. “This is the fun part.”
“For who?” I whisper.
Her smile doesn’t move, but her eyes cool. “For the world, Lia. Try to think bigger than yourself.”
Tristan turns to the cameras. “But tonight, viewers, we have a surprise.”
The audience noise pitches higher, a sharp edge of confusion and thrill.
Evan’s shoulders tense. Even without seeing his face, I feel it, like a string pulled taut between us.
Marla steps half into the light, staying just off camera. “Mark on the floor,” she murmurs into her headset. “Camera three, be ready to swing.”
“Evan,” Tristan says, smile a weapon. “You came here to find your perfect match. But love…isn’t always what we expect. Sometimes, it’s a lightning strike. A random moment.”
He stretches the word random, like it tastes delicious.
My breath lodges in my chest.
“Tonight,” Tristan continues, “we’re giving you one last choice. You can follow the path laid out for you—” he gestures to the finalists, who are doing admirable impressions of not panicking “—or you can follow your heart, wherever it leads.”
The crowd chants: “Follow your heart! Follow your heart!”
Evan doesn’t move.
I feel myself starting to, a sway like my body is trying to step back. But the curtain is at my spine, and Marla is at my side, and the universe is a series of boxes I’ve signed my name into.
“The world is watching, Evan,” Tristan croons. “Is your perfect match already in front of you…or is she out there?”
Silence, for half a second. It feels like standing at the edge of a rooftop.
Then Evan turns his head.
Not to the women in glittering gowns, not to the crowd, but toward me.
The cameras follow as if drawn. A spotlight swings, the edge of it catching my sneakers first, then my jeans, then my face as I flinch.
The light is blinding, hot, exposing. The audience gasps.
Marla’s fingers tighten briefly on my elbow, then fall away, leaving a phantom pressure.
“There,” Tristan breathes, joyfully ruthless. “Is that where your heart is pulling you, Evan?”
I can’t move. My world narrows to the sound of my own rushing blood and the distance between us, a dozen steps that feel like a chasm.
I see it then—on the big screen above us, my own face blown up for everyone to dissect. No makeup, flyaway hair, eyes wide. So much for invisible.
“Walk,” Marla whispers. “Smile. This is your moment.”
My legs refuse.
Evan takes the first step instead.
He walks toward me, slow enough that the cameras can feast on every angle, fast enough that I don’t have time to figure out an escape route. Up close, his eyes are unreadable, but there’s something in the tight line of his mouth that looks like defiance.
He stops just at the edge of the curtain’s shadow.
“Lia,” he says, his mic catching my name and sending it booming into the rafters.
Thirty million people now know who I am. The thought is absurd, a number without shape.
“Do you trust me?” he asks.
I’ve known him for exactly ten minutes.
“No,” I whisper.
His lips twitch, the barest hint of something like relief. “Good,” he murmurs. “At least one of us is honest.”
Then he reaches out his hand, palm up, between the safety of shadow and the burn of light.
The audience leans forward, a single creature holding a single breath.
And I realize, with a dizzy, terrifying clarity, that the moment I put my hand in his, nothing in my life will belong only to me ever again.
I should walk away.
Instead, I stare at his hand, at the veins and the faint callus along his thumb, and feel the weight of every script in this building pressing down.
“Lia,” he says again, softer under the crowd’s roar. “Please.”
My fingers move, almost of their own accord, lifting, hovering over his.
The heat of his skin kisses the air between us.
The world tilts.
And just before I touch him, the cheers crashing like surf around us, a single, treacherous thought slices through the noise:
What if this is the first real thing that’s ever happened to me here?
