Sweet Romance11 min read
The 28 Wings, the Moon Necklace, and My Champion
ButterPicks12 views
I never meant to start a fire online.
"I ate twenty-eight wings," I told the camera like it was a dare.
Someone laughed on the show. "Annalise, are you sure?"
"I counted," I said, and ate another one.
After the live clip finished, my phone went insane. "Annalise Brantley 28 wings" trended first. My manager, Valerie Bengtsson, stormed into my dressing room with a phone in her hand and the exact look of someone who had spent a night battling a PR inferno.
"Do you remember your image?" she asked, breathless. "You are supposed to be the cool, distant goddess. Not the one who eats like a college kid."
"I—" I swallowed. My stomach felt heavy in a new, honest way. "Isn't that the point of a lifestyle show? Be real?"
Valerie pinched the bridge of her nose. "Be real, but not trending for cattle-sized appetites."
I almost told her the truth. I almost told her I wasn't acting single at all. I almost told her I had been careless only because I was hungry. I almost told her the truth about Bryant.
Instead I let her move the crisis into other rooms, into text messages and strategy calls that buzzed behind closed doors. When she left, I lay back on the couch and scrolled through comments that were a thousand different things at once.
"Is she for real?"
"Call the dermatologists. How does she look like that if she eats this much?"
"She probably just chews and hides it later."
"Annalise is so cute. She has appetite."
My thumb hovered over a message I wasn't admitting to anyone: Bryant had called me minutes into the chaos.
"Do you miss me?" his voice asked, calm with the kind of steadiness that could anchor a storm.
"You're supposed to be at the track," I said, half joking.
"Am I?" He was already outside my window when I walked over, and I laughed because of course he would be. "Open the window," he said.
I opened it. Bryant Stone climbed in like he owned motion. "You could have told me you were on that show," he said, and then kissed the corner of my mouth like an accusation soft as silk.
"You were supposed to be training," I protested.
"I know you. You get hungry," he said, and his palm found my waist, steadying me. He was warm. He smelled of leather and engine oil and something older and softer I had learned to call home.
He put something cold against my neck. "Nice necklace."
I touched the pendant, a small silver moon. "You bought that?"
He smiled like it had been a secret he'd carried for a month. "Fits your face."
He left before the sun rose, with a kiss that stayed on my lips like a promise and the moon pendant glinting when he pulled away.
The next morning, Valerie burst into the makeup chair with a grin that said both crisis averted and new opportunities.
"Annalise, a big IP wants you as female lead."
I blinked at the script in her hands. "Champion..." I read the title and my heart jumped. The filming location was a single line: Bryant Stone's training base.
I nearly threw myself at her. "You're joking."
"Not joking. You go in, you raise your profile, and you keep your reputation. This is perfect."
"Do you know it's his base?" I asked, breathless.
"That's not my problem," she said, which also meant it kind of was.
"Valerie—" I grinned. "I love you."
"You better," she said, and then she shoved the script toward the photographer.
The role was wild. The director, Griffith Atkinson, was blunt and warm in the way that made you believe he cared more about a scene than headlines. He paired me opposite Bryce Roberts, who had that calm, steady magnetism of someone who won with quiet force. The chemistry test became an approved risk. We shot a kissing scene on day two.
"Are you ready?" Griffith asked with a grin that made it clear he loved the art of making people flustered.
"No," I said honestly.
Bryce leaned close and whispered, "I'll follow your lead."
He did, and when cameras rolled the world narrowed to the sound of our breathing. I felt Bryce's hand at my back, careful, and the contact was safe and professional. It was practiced. It was not Bryant.
I knew, even then, how wrong it might look if someone put the clip next to a photo of Bryant waiting in the wings. My phone chimed during lunch. Live commenters were already asking where Bryant was. Then someone uploaded a photo—the two of us on set, arms casually aligned—and the rumor mill churned.
"Did you and Bryce—?" my assistant Ida Cummings asked, eyes wide.
"It's a set," I said, but even as I said it, a darker rumor spread: someone had snapped a private photo of me and Bryce leaning close in rehearsal. Had they been holding hands? The pixelated image looked like a confession.
"Who uploaded this?" Valerie flew into the room. "We'll call PR."
Bryce's voice was low in my ear. "I didn't." He wasn't trying to be heroic. He was just honest.
We fixed it. A firm statement, a clear denial, a re-post from Bryce's team. It should have been normal. It should have ended there. But the internet is a river with sharp stones at the bottom. Someone dredged up a girl who called herself a long-term obsessive. Her name, Kenna Gentile, surfaced on message boards full of details and angry fantasies. She didn't like me. She didn't like that no one listened to her, that someone else got the life she wanted.
"She's posted threats," Ida said, biting her lip. "She's said things about you."
Valerie's face hardened. "We will handle her."
We thought 'handle' meant a cease-and-desist and a lawyer letter. It meant more.
Between shoots I watched Bryant teach drivers in the early morning by the garages. He was nothing like the actors in my life—he was fierce, practical, a man who spoke to machines and won. But he also had a tenderness that showed only when he thought no one was watching. He would reach out and tuck the strap of my jacket under my chin when the wind stung. He would put his hand over mine when I hesitated on a stunt. He would say, "You don't have to be the goddess for me," and I would feel small, seen, and enormous all at once.
"Why didn't you tell Valerie?" he asked one night. "She's always ten steps ahead of everyone."
"Because I was scared," I told him. "I thought I would lose my job, or I would lose you."
He kissed my forehead. "Then don't scare me. Tell me."
We came out the day the studio told the press: "Yes, the couple in question have been together since university. We apologize for any confusion." Bryant posted a single grainy photo with the caption: "Already taken."
Fans exploded. For the first time in my life, they weren't only interested in the image; they wanted the story. Many loved it. Many hated it. But the attention shifted into something softer, like a blanket. We were careful, we were public, and yet we kept some things to ourselves.
Then the message that changed everything arrived.
"She's saying she saw you two in private. She says you didn't stop her."
Kenna had posted a video from months ago, edited in a way meant to humiliate. She claimed I had been cruel to her and that I had bribed people to look away. The words were mean and specific and made-up in parts. They looped through threads and group chats.
Valerie called a press meeting and invited the agents, the director, the studio lawyers—everyone who needed to be there. "Public correction," she said. "We will set the record straight."
At the pressroom, camera flashes felt like hail. I stood with Bryant beside me; Bryce and Griffith were there; so were the studio heads. Valerie took the microphone. She did not smile.
"Today we are going to expose how dangerous and false online obsession can be," she said. "We will present facts."
Kenna was there. She sat at the back of the room with her arms folded, confident in a way that made my skin crawl. Her face on a crowd of people looked small. When the moderator called her name, she stood like she owned the stage.
"You're accused of stalking," the moderator said, clearing his throat. "How do you respond?"
Kenna laughed, low and harsh. "I am a fan. I followed the lead. I took pictures. I told the truth."
Valerie's jaw tightened. "Were your claims subpoenaed?"
"No," Kenna said. "They are my truth."
Valerie smiled in a thin, dangerous way. "Kenna, did you ever attempt to meet Annalise in private? Did you ever send items or threats? Did you record her without consent?"
Kenna's smile faltered. "Some...pictures."
"Here's the CCTV from September 30th, showing your entrance through the alleyway behind the set. Here's flight data showing you left the set five minutes after you arrived." Valerie placed printed images on the table. "Here's the message logs showing threats. We have witnesses. We have timestamps."
The room shifted. Phones jutted out like crucifixes. Kenna's shoulders sank a fraction; she blinked hard.
"You accused the wrong person publicly and repeatedly," Valerie said. "You posted details that caused harassment. You threatened Annalise's safety. That is not fandom. That is crime-adjacent behavior."
Kenna's face flushed red. "I—she ignored me. She lied. She promised she'd meet—"
"Promises in your head don't cancel consent," Bryant said. His voice was quiet but everyone heard it. "You can't invent intimacy and then cry persecution when the world doesn't fit the picture you made."
Kenna's eyes darted. "You—you're a celebrity. You don't understand feelings."
"I understand real. Real is inside this room," I said, and I realized I could breathe. I had been afraid to speak in case my voice sounded small. It didn't. "Real is being scared of someone outside your window. Real is having your messages forwarded to strangers. Real is a person making up stories about me for clicks."
A journalist shouted, "Why expose her now?"
"Because people deserve to see what happens when obsession gets fed by attention," Valerie said. "Because Annalise is not the first target, and she won't be the last."
Then came the part the internet devoured.
Valerie invited Kenna to the front. "Kenna," she said calmly, "tell them why you posted a picture of me."
Kenna's voice trembled. "Because she took my place. She took...he—"
Bryant cut her off with a single sentence. "You made up a story about a woman you didn't know because you thought truth would make you important."
The room broke into murmurs. Kenna's expression shifted from superiority to confusion, then to panic. She tried to step back, but every exit suddenly felt observed.
"Everyone," a reporter said, "how did you get inside the set?"
We played the CCTV again, closer. It showed Kenna peeking from behind cars, slipping near trailers. It showed her reaching to open a door and being caught by a crew member who had already called security. We showed the direct messages she had sent to the actor playing Bryce—messages that begged for contact and then threatened him for ignoring her. We read parts aloud: "If she becomes happy, I'll take her down." "She owes me."
The air in the room felt heavier. Phones clicked. Recordings hummed.
Kenna's face crumpled into layers. The bravado evaporated. "I didn't mean—"
"That's not the point," Valerie said. "You broke rules. You broke law in some places. You traumatized a woman. You encouraged others to do the same. You're in front of live cameras now. People will see your words and your face." She looked directly at Kenna. "What do you want to say to Annalise?"
Kenna's voice was small, "I...I'm sorry."
It wasn't an apology that fixed anything. It was an apology that started a long chain of consequences.
When the press folded, social media turned merciless. People who had once cheered Kenna's boldness now called her out for dangerous behavior. Her online accounts were flooded with condemnation. Old school accounts she’d used to impersonate others were exposed. Her university sent a letter asking for an explanation. Her former workplace—a small radio station—released a statement severing ties. Clips from her past interviews were pulled and analyzed for red flags. The legal team sent her a formal cease-and-desist and prepared documents for harassment charges where applicable.
She crumpled in public reaction the way someone does when heavy rain finally hits a house with a weak roof.
"Please," she said to the cameras in the lobby. "I didn't mean—"
Crowds outside the building were split. Some jeered, some took videos, some shushed others from taking photos. People who had watched the entire press conference posted timestamps and screenshots anywhere they could. Friends that had once followed Kenna's feeds slowly unfollowed and posted messages about how obsession can spiral.
I watched her through the crowd and felt weirdly empty. There was no joy in her fall. Only a relief like the plugging of a leak. It had been ugly. It had been necessary. It had been public.
"I didn't want this to be showy," Bryant said later, his hand finding mine in the car, knotting our fingers in a quiet victory. "I just wanted her away from you."
"You did more," I said. "You made it so she couldn't hide in people’s feeds anymore."
He kissed my temple. "I liked you before the internet liked you. I still like you then."
We kept working. Filming took us to noisy racetracks and quiet hotel rooms. There were moments that felt like little thrifted treasures—Bryant taking off his jacket and draping it over my shoulders when I was cold; Bryant stepping into a makeup chair just to pinch my cheek and whisper, "You look like you could win races in that helmet"; Bryant teaching me how a driver reads the track, his hands moving over the model car like an extension of his mind. Those were the moments that mattered more than any headline.
"You really came from racing, not acting," Bryce said one night, watching Bryant align the cameras to the track.
"Yeah," Bryant answered. "A race is honest. You know if you screwed up."
"You mind if I ask?" I asked Bryant once, while he tightened the moon pendant on its chain around my throat. "Why keep it secret so long?"
He hesitated. "Because you were starting out. Because I was afraid whoever I was would drag you down. Because I didn't want to be the reason you had to choose between being loved and being famous."
"You could have told me you'd be stubborn," I teased.
He kissed me then, slow and a little smug. "I can be careful. I can be loud. I can be whatever you need."
There were three moments that will always be pins on my memory board—the little electric jumps my heart made whenever one of them happened.
First: The morning he climbed in through my window and put the moon necklace against my throat like a talisman. "Fits your face," he said, and the words made my stomach drop in a way that had nothing to do with food.
Second: The day he replaced a skeptic's hot take with a quiet, public truth. At the press conference when he said, "I'm her boyfriend," and stood there steady, the world shifted. People looked different at us after that—less suspicion, more curiosity, but also protectiveness. He had taken a chance and put his name on me.
Third: The wedding morning. "Do you want me to say my vows in public?" he asked. We couldn't have been farther from the racetrack; we were in a tiny registry office, hand-in-hand. He squeezed my fingers and said, "I choose you. Always." It was simple. It was stupidly perfect. I laughed and cried at the same time and felt my own voice shakily answer, "I choose you too."
We were not a fairy tale. We had lawyers, PR strategies, jealous commenters, and the endless calculus of two careers that refused to sleep. But we were stubborn and laughing together enough to survive the rest. We made room for each other's worlds. He let me film scenes where I had to act heartbroken with Bryce, and I let him race knowing sometimes, the engine would ask him to disappear for weeks.
After the stunt of Kenna's exposure, the gossip factories had two options: spin or starve. Most chose to move to other glowing things. We moved on. We laughed and worked and learned to say no in polite, efficient ways.
"Do you regret the secrecy?" I asked Bryant once in a hotel hallway, our voices low.
He looked at me like I had asked the softest thing and the hardest thing at once. "Only the part where it scared you," he said. "But not the other parts. Not the late-night designs for a ring, not the ridiculous plans to get you the perfect anniversary gift, not the early drives to surprise you. The secret made the truth sweeter."
When we finally posted a picture of our small ceremony, I wore the moon pendant. It swung gently against the fabric of my dress as we typed out small thanks and kept some things private.
And when I fold the moon pendant into my palm sometimes, I remember the cold metal against my neck the night Bryant surprised me on the balcony, and I pet the memory like a small, triumphant animal. The internet still has opinions. People still have lives that are messy and loud. I have my job and my husband and a wardrobe full of costumes that allow me to be someone else for a few hours a day.
Once, I tried to count how many wings it would take to make a scandal. The answer was twenty-eight. The rest—love, fear, defense, exposure, apologies, forgiveness—were all a different kind of feast.
The End
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