Spoiler Alert

by Olivia Dade

  His voice turned low. Serious. “My body is a tool. That’s all.”

  “Still.” She scooted a little closer on the seat. “Thank you for protecting me as best you could.”

  His brow creased beneath that golden sweep of hair, and he captured her wandering digit in a light hold. “I only delayed the inevitable. At some point, they’re going to know your name and your address. Probably your phone number too.” He pressed a kiss to the pad of her finger. “I’m sorry, April.”

  She shrugged. “It’s not your fault. When I agreed to dinner and today’s date, I knew all that was a possibility. I’ve tried to mentally prepare myself, but if I have trouble handling it, I’ll ask you for advice.”

  “Of course,” he said, pressing her palm against his cheek. “Whatever you need.”

  He couldn’t protect her from public scrutiny, even if he tried. Not without hiding her from the world like a dirty secret—which would hurt her so much more than even the most unflattering candid shot or intrusive phone call. Besides, protecting her wasn’t his job.

  Making all the inconvenient aspects of dating him worth it? Now, that was his job. One he could resume . . . tomorrow, maybe? If his flight didn’t leave too early?

  “When do you have to get back to LA?” The line of his cheekbone—it was so distinct under her fingertips. So sharp, like his jaw. “I need to work for the rest of the night, in preparation for the cleaning company tomorrow. But other than that, I’m free.”

  When his forehead crinkled this time, she smoothed the lines. “My flight leaves tomorrow morning. I wish it didn’t.” Then his face relaxed, his grimace lifting into a hopeful smile. “But I’d planned to work out in the hotel gym first thing in the morning, before showering and checking out. Want to join me? We could grab a quick breakfast afterward. The hotel has a decent buffet.”

  She dropped her hand to her lap, the nape of her neck prickling in warning.

  “You want me to work out with you?” she asked.

  Before this moment, she’d thought—

  It didn’t matter. He was treading familiar ground now, digging the same poisoned well deeper and deeper yet, and she’d abandoned that particular spot long ago.

  She wasn’t going back. Not for anyone, and especially not for a man whose company already came fraught with endless complications and contradictions.

  “Uh, yeah.” His voice was quieter now. A bit uncertain. “Early tomorrow morning. If you’re interested.”

  Her stomach was roiling, her cheeks hot with anger and stupid, stupid embarrassment.

  One more chance. Just in case she’d misunderstood.

  “Tell me, Marcus.” Her legs. They were touching his. She angled her knees away from him. “What do you recommend from that breakfast buffet?”

  Head tilted, brow lowered, he was studying her closely.

  “Um . . . I usually have the oatmeal. Hard-boiled eggs. Fruit.” The words came slowly. “But there’s—”

  “I appreciate the invitation.” To her pleasure, her smile was probably colder than the wind on his bare chest earlier, her words clear and calm. “On second thought, though, I think I’ll be too busy to do anything tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow and for the rest of her life.

  Her lips were trembling, and she pressed them tight. Breathed through her nose until the hurt stopped twisting her gut inside out.

  Oh, wow, someone prodding me to work out! How novel! she wanted to cry gaily, arms spread wide in false surprise. And how grateful I am for the suggestion of healthy food alternatives! Without your help, how would a woman of my size ever know about the importance of exercise and nutrition?

  But she didn’t think she could keep her voice steady, not while saying something that revealed so much of her scarred heart. There was no point to wasting her energy on sarcasm, either. He probably wouldn’t even register it as such. They never did.

  My body is a tool, he’d said. Like body, like owner, apparently.

  She should have known. A body like his, a face that pretty? Of course he cared about appearances more than what lay underneath. Of course.

  An erection didn’t mean he respected her. It didn’t even mean he liked her body. Just that their pheromones were compatible, probably to his abject confusion and dismay.

  She loved shiny things, always had. But he wasn’t a diamond. Just fool’s gold.

  Marcus Caster-Rupp could fuck off to exactly the same place as all the other people—roommates, colleagues, so-called friends—who’d seemed to offer unconditional affection at first, then eventually coaxed her to visit the gym, presented her with the gift of a high-tech scale, bought her a membership to a weight-loss organization, offered her helpful nutritional tips.

  Over the course of two decades, she’d occasionally dated and fucked men like him. Before that, she’d lived with people like him for eighteen years.

  Enough.

  She was done being fat-shamed. By him. By everyone.

  Tonight, she was pouring a glass of wine and explaining exactly that to her friends on the Lavineas server. Sharing hurts she should have acknowledged long before, telling them truths she wished they’d understood without her having to say anything.

  She’d try to do it gently, because they were her longtime friends, unlike the man sitting across from her in this cab. But she was doing it. Period. No matter how hard it was to expose herself that way, and no matter how badly they might react.

  “Okay.” At least Marcus was sensitive enough not to argue, not to reach for her again, even as those blue-gray eyes watched her so carefully. “That makes sense. You’ve got a lot going on.”

  “I really do.”

  She pulled out her phone from the inside pocket of her purse. With a few taps, she made herself a note to pick up wine along with the necessary cleaning supplies.

  “Maybe—” His body still wasn’t touching hers, but he’d edged a bit closer again. So close the heat radiating from him threatened to melt her resolve. Too close. “Maybe I could fly back later in the week? Help you unpack and get settled? I’m between jobs right now, so . . .”

  That shyness, that incompletely masked hurt in his voice, was a ploy. An act. It had to be.

  She didn’t need to respond to it with softness anymore.

  “Whenever someone helps me unpack, I always have trouble figuring out where everything went.” Phone deposited safely back in its pocket, she zipped her purse shut. It made a satisfyingly final sound. Then she turned to look out the window. “I’m not sure what my schedule will look like for the rest of the week, so I shouldn’t make plans. Thank you for the offer of help, though.”

  At that point, he seemed to understand. Enough, at least, to stop trying.

  “Okay,” he said again.

  That was the last word exchanged between them until the cab arrived in front of her new, empty rental. They made their stilted farewells without touching a single time.

  His face, the one time she dared to look, was drawn. Solemn. Resigned.

  She didn’t care. She didn’t.

  Once out of the cab, she walked to her entrance. Unlocked the door. Opened it. Kicked it shut. Flipped the dead bolt.

  She didn’t look back.

  Lavineas Server DMs, Ten Months Ago

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: You seem . . . off today. Everything okay?

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: Nothing that merits complaint. But thank you, Ulsie.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: It doesn’t need to be something of earth-shaking importance for me to listen. If you want to vent, I’m here.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: I’m just tired, I think. Sick of traveling, at least for now. Unsure where I want my career to go after this.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Making a career change is hard. I only recently started applying for different positions, even though I’ve wanted to leave my current job for months.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: You’re doing it, though, because you’re brave.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: I ha
ve no right to whine. I’m very, very lucky to have my job. But

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: But what?

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: It gets lonely. I don’t feel like myself around anyone, really.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I’m sorry, BAWN. ::hugs::

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: What can I do to help?

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: Keep being you, Ulsie. That’s more than enough. :-)

  12

  MARCUS LET HIMSELF BACK INTO HIS HOTEL ROOM. IT WAS dim and cold and pristine.

  In the bathroom, he splashed his face with cold water, then braced his hands on the edges of the marble vanity and stood over the sink, letting himself drip.

  April didn’t want to see him again. That, among all the confusion of their cab ride, was clear enough.

  He’d said something wrong. Done something wrong.

  It shouldn’t surprise him anymore, and it shouldn’t hurt him anymore, either.

  When he finally dried off, the towel was soft against his skin, when he wanted roughness instead. He wanted to scrub and scour his flesh until he’d uncovered a new iteration of Marcus Caster-Rupp. One whose throat wasn’t thick and tight. One who hadn’t lost both April’s friendship and the possibility of so much more in a mere handful of days.

  When he opened his laptop and checked Twitter, there they were. He and April, fingers intertwined by a colorful display of rocks. Braced against a rail, body to body, as the ground jolted beneath them. Cuddled close in their planetarium seats.

  The paparazzi photos were beginning to appear too, on various entertainment sites. In those, he had his mouth open and hot on her neck, her shoulder, as she laced her fingers through his hair and held him close, chin tipped toward the sun, eyes closed behind those cute glasses.

  Whatever he’d done, it was after that. In front of the paparazzi, or in the cab.

  The images—

  Letting out a hard breath, he scrolled down, down, down, away from them.

  After checking one thread of comments at the bottom of an article, he clicked away from those as quickly as he could too, hoping April made a smarter decision than he just had. He hadn’t gotten the sense she was sensitive about her body during the Fanboy Asshole Incident on Twitter, and Lord knew she was gorgeous, but anyone’s confidence could be shaken by enough cruelty.

  That said, someone had already created a Twitter account dedicated solely to retweeting pictures of April and adding admiring commentary. Their handle? @Lavineas5Ever5Ever. The follower count had already hit two hundred and kept rising as he watched.

  If they knew her Lavineas server name, he suspected a second account might appear: @UnapologeticLaviniaStanStan.

  Speaking of which . . .

  He couldn’t post there anymore, not without silently confirming that he’d lied to April as Book!AeneasWouldNever about his nonexistent business trip and its nonexistent ban on internet and cell phone usage, but he had to see what everyone was saying.

  With one click, he was invisible. Simultaneously outside and within his longtime community. Observing. Taking comfort from his friends, even from a desolate distance.

  New threads had popped up along with those new photos of his date with April. New DM notifications too—including one from Ulsie, which couldn’t be right.

  He blinked at the screen. Squinted. Clicked after a few moments, his heart rate soaring to uncomfortable levels.

  No, he wasn’t imagining things. She’d written him in the last few minutes, even though he’d said he would be out of touch indefinitely, even though he’d hurt her with his obvious falsehood.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I know you said you were going to be off on a job where you couldn’t get online, but I wanted to let you know something.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: In case that wasn’t entirely true, in case maybe your offline trip had something to do with my dating Marcus Caster-Rupp: we’re not dating anymore.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Which is a stupid thing to tell you, since you didn’t want to meet me in person, even if I canceled my second date with him. So this was pointless.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I’m sorry. My head is a mess right now, and I wasn’t thinking. I won’t bother you again.

  We’re not dating anymore. I won’t bother you again.

  Well, that was confirmation he’d neither wanted nor needed.

  He wasn’t getting a third date with April. He wasn’t even certain she’d write to Book!AeneasWouldNever after he returned from his fake trip, unless he agreed to meet her in person. Which he couldn’t. In theory, he could probably make up some story about why they couldn’t meet, come up with some plausible explanation about agoraphobia or whatever, but he didn’t want to lie to her yet again.

  Yeah, he was fucked, and hurting, and he had no idea what—if anything—he could say in response to her messages. If her head was a mess, his was too. He needed time.

  Accordingly, he said nothing. Even if part of him desperately wanted to ask what had gone wrong on her second date.

  Shoulders slumped, he navigated back to the main list of threads.

  A new topic had appeared. One started by April, entitled A Big Fat Shame. When he clicked, her post appeared, and it filled his entire monitor.

  It was eloquent. It was heartfelt. It was direct.

  It was also an answer to the question he hadn’t been enough of an asshole to ask.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I’ve wanted to talk about this issue for years now, but I wasn’t sure how to begin the conversation. I’ve been especially nervous because the people in this community—all of you—mean so much to me, and I don’t want to hurt your feelings or alienate any of you. But the simple truth is that some of you have hurt MY feelings, albeit inadvertently, just as I’m sure I’ve done the same to some or all of you without understanding how. (If so, please tell me. I want to know and do better.)

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: So here’s the thing: I’m fat. Very fat, in fact. Not chubby or merely curvy. FAT. A good part of the reason I was originally drawn to this particular OTP was, I think, for that reason. Lavinia’s story resonated with me. Her character isn’t fat in either book!canon or show!canon, but in book!canon, as you know, she’s described as unattractive in terms of conventional beauty. Several of Aeneas’s men even call her ugly. As we’ve discussed many times, the choice of Summer Diaz—who’s gorgeous even without makeup and in dull, unflattering clothing—to play Lavinia undercut the resonance of that story line, but echoes of it are still there in the show, even so.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I think I desperately needed to read and watch the story of how a woman most considered homely or downright hideous could earn respect, admiration, desire, and eventually love from the man she desired and loved herself. (Aeneas, of course.) I needed to witness how her character, her choices, and her words would come to mean more to him, in the end, than whether the rest of the world would call her pretty.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I wanted that because of my family history. I wanted that because of my personal and romantic history too. I can’t tell you how many times a date, or a boyfriend, or someone I considered a friend, has shamed me for my size. Sometimes they do so directly, but more often in ways I’m sure they consider subtle or don’t consider at all. They do it by urging me to work out or take a walk with them every time I see them, or by discussing their ostensible concern for my health, or by pushing me toward what they consider more nutritionally sound food choices.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: But I’m not looking to be fixed. I want to be loved and liked and desired not because of my size, not despite my size, but because I’m ME. My character, my choices, my words. Each time someone I care about shows they don’t care about me that same way, it hurts. It hurts more than I can easily express.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: So this ship, this community, is important to me. It’s reassurance that better things are possible for me, and better relationships, and even real, abiding, passionate love. Not be
cause of my size, not despite my size, but because I’m me.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: That’s why it’s painful to me when fics coming out of our community use fatness as shorthand for greed, for evil, for ugliness, or for laziness. I’m stunned by how often it occurs, given that one half of the couple we all ship is not considered conventionally attractive in book!canon. The Lavinia/Aeneas relationship, at least in the books, is fundamentally about rejecting appearances in favor of character. Yet I see fat-shaming frequently in Lavineas fanfiction, and it feels like a slap every single time.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: To be clear, I don’t think fat-shaming is usually a conscious choice in our fics. Hatred of fatness, disdain toward fat people, is so widespread in our culture, it comes out in ways we don’t intend, and I include myself in that statement. Being fat myself doesn’t exempt me from having to consider my words and actions thoughtfully when it comes to fatness, because I’m part of this culture too.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I’m not asking you to celebrate my fatness or make Lavinia fat in your stories or go back and change any old fics with fat-shaming in them. I AM asking, though, for you to be thoughtful any time you reference fatness in your writing. I want you to think of me and ask yourself, “Would the implications of this hurt ULS?” If the answer is yes, please do better—for me, for yourself, and for everyone else.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: As I wrote earlier, I don’t want to hurt your feelings or alienate any of you, because you’re my friends and my community. But I thought this was important, so I said it, and hopefully by discussing the issue, we can become an even better, more inclusive community than we already are.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Thank you, and I’m sorry this ran so long.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: TL;DR: Please don’t make fat people automatically awful or ugly or lazy in your fics. It makes me, an actual fat person, sad.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: P.S. When I say I’m fat, I’m not insulting myself. I don’t use fat as a pejorative, as some do. For me, it’s merely an adjective, like blond, or tall, or (TopMeAeneas’s favorite) TUMESCENT. Whether it’s offensive depends entirely on context, as with many descriptors.