“Come on, Rookie, I’m serious.”

There was clearly nothing funny about the situation, but she was desperate to lighten the mood, even a little. In the ten minutes Julian had been home, they’d acted like complete strangers. Polite, wary, totally distant strangers.

“I’m serious too,” she said quietly. And then, when he didn’t say anything, she asked, “Why didn’t you come home earlier? I know you had media obligations, but it’s already Thursday. Was this just not important enough?”

Julian looked at her, surprised. “How could you think that, Rook? I needed some time to think. Everything’s happening so quickly, it feels like it’s all unraveling. . . .”

The teakettle began to sing. Brooke knew without asking that Julian wouldn’t want the lemon ginger tea she was making for herself but would probably drink a cup of plain green if she prepared it for him. She felt a tiny bit of satisfaction when he accepted it gratefully and took a sip.

He twisted his hands around the mug. “Look, I can’t even tell you how sorry I am. To think how you must have felt when you saw—”

“The pictures aren’t the point!” she yelled, more sharply than she’d intended. She paused for a minute. “Yes, it was hideous and painful and embarrassing, there’s no doubt. But it’s why those pictures exist that I find way more upsetting.”

When he didn’t respond, she said, “What the hell happened that night?”

“Rook, I’ve told you: it was a stupid, one-time mistake, and I absolutely did not have sex with her. With anyone,” he rushed to add.

“So what did you do?”

“I don’t know. . . . It started out as a big group over dinner, and then a few people left, and then a few more, and I guess by later on in the night, she and I were the only ones left at the table.”

Just hearing Julian say “she and I” about someone else made Brooke feel queasy.

“I don’t even know who she is, where’s she from—”

“Don’t you worry about that,” Brooke said sarcastically. “The entire country is happy to help you out there. Janelle Moser, twenty-four, from a small town in Michigan. She was in L.A. for a friend’s bachelorette party. How the hell they ended up at the Chateau is really the big mystery.”

“I didn’t—”

“And in case you were interested—although you could probably speak to this more authoritatively than Last Night—they are real.”

Julian exhaled a long sigh. “I drank way too much and she offered to walk me back to my room.” He stopped, ran his fingers through his hair.

“And then?”

“We made out, and she took her clothes off. Just stood up and stripped, like no pretenses or anything. It snapped me back to reality. I told her to get dressed. Which she did, but she started crying, saying she was so embarrassed. So I tried to calm her down, and we had something to drink from the minibar, I honestly can’t remember what at this point, and the next thing I know, I woke up fully dressed and she was gone.”

“She was gone? And you just passed out?”

“Gone. No note, no nothing. And until you told me, I couldn’t remember her name.”

“Do you know how hard that is to believe?”

“She got undressed—I never did. And, Brooke, I don’t know how else to say it, or how else to convince you. I swear on your life and mine, and the lives of everyone we love, that that is exactly how it happened.”

“Why did you do it? Why did you invite her in and kiss her?” she asked, unable to meet his eye. “Why her?”

“I don’t know, Brooke. Like I said before, too much drinking, bad judgment, feeling lonely.” He stopped, rubbed his temples. “It’s been a rough year. Being so busy, me away so often, the two of us never getting any time together. It’s no excuse, Brooke, and I know I fucked up—trust me, I know it—but please believe me when I tell you I’ve never regretted anything more than that night.”

She tucked her hands under her thighs to keep them from shaking. “Where do we go from here, Julian? Not just this, but all of it. The never seeing each other? The fact that we are leading entirely separate lives? How do we work through that?”

He scooted closer to her on the couch and tried to wrap his arms around her, but Brooke stiffened. “I guess it’s been hard for me, seeing how hard this has been on you, when I thought it was what we both wanted,” he said.

“It might be what we both wanted. And I am genuinely, honestly happy for you. But it isn’t my success. It isn’t my life. It’s not even our life. It is only your life.”

He opened his mouth to talk, but she held up her hand.

“I had no idea what it was going to be like, couldn’t envision any of this when you were in the studio every day recording your album. It was a one-in-a-trillion shot, no matter how talented and lucky you are, but it happened! It happened to you!”

“In my craziest, wildest fantasies or nightmares it never looked anything like this,” he said.

She took another breath and forced herself to say what she’d been thinking for three days now. “I’m not sure I can do this.”

A long silence followed her words.

“What are you saying?” Julian said after what felt like an eternity. “Really, what are you saying?”

She started to cry. Not hysterical, gulping sobs but a slow, quiet weeping. “I don’t know that I can live like this. I’m not sure how I fit in, or if I even want to. It was hard enough before, and now when something like this happens . . . and I know it will keep happening, again and again.”

“You’re the love of my life, Brooke. You’re my best friend. There’s no fitting in—you’re the whole deal.”

“No.” She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. “There’s no going back.”

He looked weary. “It won’t always be like this.”

“Of course it will, Julian! When’s it going to stop? With the second album? The third? What about when they want you to start touring internationally? You’ll be gone for months on end. What are we going to do then?”

With this, an expression of understanding registered on his face. He looked like he was going to cry now, too.