Finding Kat by Elizabeth McMahen

pulled it all together for Chris and me but he wasn’t the same happy, hopeful man he used to be. It made me sad to think of him being so alone, but he didn’t want us to hover around him worrying. He wanted us to do everything we dreamed of doing because “Mom is watching us, and if she knows you’re following me around, watching me wallow she would be pissed off.” She would. She would be pissed at him too, and he knows it, but we let him be anyway. She was our mom but she was his soul mate.
     
    “He watched Fallon with me, you know. I told him about you meeting her and how you tracked her down.” I punched him in the arm for his meddling. I didn’t hit him hard; I knew why he did it. He wanted to get Dad excited about something again, something other than work and the latest flea market find he was planning to restore.
     
    “He said that she was your one. He smiled and laughed the whole time he was watching. He said he likes her and he wants you to bring her home to meet him.” I rolled my eyes. Of course he did.
     
    “I’ll keep that in mind.” I grumbled into my beer. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy he was laughing and smiling but my Dad was more nosey than Chris was. If I took her to meet him, Dad would have me proposing by the end of the night. He was too romantic for his own good.
     
    I managed to change the subject after that and we had a nice talk about neutral subjects. I loved Chris despite his meddling and hoped I could convince him and Dad to move to LA. They lived about four hours away in a smaller city and claim to hate LA. I tried to tell them to move to the suburbs if they want, I just want them to be closer. I knew Dad wouldn’t do it, he wouldn’t leave the house he and Mom bought together 30 years ago, but I had to try.

     
    Kat and I spent the time before the big movie premier getting to know each other. We spent hours talking on the phone before bed and texted during the day. We were both pretty busy. Kat had a ton of interviews lined up to help promote the new movie. I was so proud of her and impressed by her star power, but I hated that we didn’t get to spend much time together. I wondered what would happen when we weren’t in the same town. Would we be able to stand up to the challenge of a World Tour? It would be a while before the next one, but it was something that we needed to keep in mind. She would be on location shooting movies pretty often as well. I hoped that I could handle knowing that she was off across the continent, or world doing sex scenes with some hotshot actor. I didn’t want to share her with another guy, even if it was all for a movie or for publicity.
     
    She knows all about the paparazzi and rumors and I hoped that we could withstand the rumors that were going to be published about us. People love a good scandal, and they have a tendency to look for it everywhere. I’ve seen a lot of strong couples who loved each other, fall victim to the press and lost trust in each other. I didn’t have a lot of relationship experience, so I can’t guess but I hoped that we were building a mutual trust where we could always be honest, if there aren’t any secrets, there isn’t anything to fight over.
     
    I loved sharing stories with Kat, and I loved all the stories she told about the secrets from behind the scenes of movies. I was really surprised to learn the names of actors that were known for being rude and demanding. A lot of those same actors were known for playing sweet nice characters. I always thought that people who made money because of fans should always go out of their way to be nice and approachable. Some of the nicest actors that she knew were best known for their ability to play villains. People would meet them expecting them to be mean and they were pleasantly surprised to discover that they were actually very nice people.
     
    Kat and I did what all new couples do. We got acquainted with each other’s history and talked about our hopes and