The Muse's Undoing

“Matty—please don’t’ tell. I’m like five minutes pregnant, it’s not even completely confirmed yet.”

Stuart grabs her knee. “I’m confident. Anyway…” He looks to me again. “No one should have to hide who they love. I can’t undo the fact that you’re brothers by adoption, but I can guarantee my parents won’t make any trouble for either of you. Or for Nicole or Vaughn. Honestly, I can probably get them to bury the whole story with the right incentive.”

“Why, all of a sudden?”

“I think about this a lot,” he says sincerely. “You’re my brother now, too.”

I hadn’t thought about that. It’s sort of mind-blowing now.

“Matty, I want you to have what you want,” Maggie says. “Especially if that’s Fischer. There. Was that supportive enough?”

“I want to marry him,” I say.

Her brows lift and Stuart grins. “You know what we’re better at on the Upper East Side than scandals?”

“What?” I ask.

“Keeping them quiet. You pay enough attention, after thirty years, you realize everyone’s got some pretty nasty skeletons, and no one’s ever the wiser.”

Fischer returns to the sofa, taking in the scene. “What are we talking about?”

“Birthdays,” I say quickly before turning back to Maggie and Stuart. “And I’ll believe that gift when I see it.”

57

EPILOGUE

FISCHER

THE FOLLOWING SUMMER

“What the fuck did you just do?” Matthew asks the second I exit the network offices.

So, he saw that.

It’s hot, muggy, and we’re in Midtown. This is not where I wanted to have this conversation. And this isn’t the reaction I was expecting. I have a plan involving candles and possibly hot wax. “I didn’t realize you still watched the show,” I say, keeping a safe distance for the moment.

“I watch it every night. How could you do something like this without talking to me about it first? Does this mean you’re leaving?”

My head rears back. Leaving? As in taking an overseas assignment? I halfway want to check him for a fever.

“No!” I grab him by the arm and pull him closer to the building. He has to come willingly. I can’t exactly manhandle him with half my weight on a cane. But he does. “I’m not going anywhere. I just want to focus on my writing.”

“So that’s it? You just quit? Without talking to me? How long have you been thinking about this?”

I sigh. “A while.”

I handed off my prime time show tonight to a brilliant up and coming anchor named Paulina Ramos. In the last year, I’ve started a successful podcast, and I’m enjoying the freedom of being my own boss, which also, to an extent, comes with writing. My articles are still being published in all the major publications, but I have yet to finish the book I’ve been working on for nearly three years now.

More importantly, however, being on TV prevents me from living my life the way I want to. What I want is to be with Matthew. Forever. And have it be no one’s fucking business but ours.

“Since you’re here, I could use your help getting all my crap out of my office. Wanna come up?”

He stares at me like he barely recognizes me.

“I’ll explain,” I tell him. “But under protest, because this isn’t how I wanted to do this.”

“Maybe you should have thought about that before you told the world your future plans before you told your boyfriend.”