Tycoon Actor C542 (Patreon)

Normally, the people who mobbed Lucas and Jennifer in public were fans — someone wanting an autograph, a selfie, a brief moment they could hold onto. That was just the standard cost of being who they were, and they'd long since made peace with it.

But recently, fans were the least of it.

Reporters had started showing up wherever they went, and not in the restrained, professional way that usually came with being known as the «Power Couple of Hollywood». In ordinary times, yes — a journalist would call out a question or two from a respectful distance, hope for a soundbite, and leave it at that. It was part of the territory, and everyone understood the unwritten rules.

These were not ordinary times.

The moment they stepped outside, the press surged forward against the wall of guards — cameras up, microphones extended, questions already flying before Lucas and Jennifer had taken three steps.

"Lucas! Eckstein's camp is saying L.K. deliberately weaponized his media connections to destroy a fellow philanthropist — is any of that true, or is this about something personal?"

"Lucas, there are photos of you repeatedly with that unidentified girl — the other camp is saying you've been using a child to gain public sympathy while fighting this lawsuit. Your response?"

"Jennifer! Are you aware of the full scope of your husband's involvement in the documentaries? Does the legal exposure concern you?"

"Jennifer, Eckstein's team claims the photos of that girl prove a pattern of calculated image management — do you have anything to say about that?"

Jack and Simon held the perimeter without a word. Shawn had the door open and the engine already running. Lucas and Jennifer moved through it the way they always did — heads forward, no eye contact, no acknowledgment — and were inside the car before any of it could stick.

It had been four days. Four days since the city figured out they were here, and it already looked like this.

The door shut. The noise cut off cleanly.

The car was soundproofed, but Jennifer sat with her hands folded in her lap and said nothing for a moment, as though she could still hear them through the glass anyway. As the car pulled away and the cluster of reporters shrank in the rear window, she sighed.

"This is my fault," she said. "I wanted to take Daciana around the city a bit — let her see things, have some normal days out. And now look at what that brought." She shook her head. "Now even she is getting dragged into this."

She knew exactly what Eckstein's camp was doing with those photos. The framing, the insinuation, the way something completely innocent had been quietly repackaged into something it wasn't. A child, turned into a headline.

"It's not your fault," Lucas said. He wasn't soft-pedalling it — he meant it plainly. "You wanted her to have a few good days. That's all it was. Geoffrey's people were always going to find an angle; that's the whole point of what they do. If it wasn't the photos, it would've been something else." He paused. "Don't let them take up space in your head. That's the other half of what they want."

Jennifer didn't argue. She let out a breath and let it settle.

Lucas watched the city pass for a moment, then shifted. "Let's set it aside for now. Did Neil mention that Felicity's coming?"

Jennifer's eyes lifted. "Felicity? When?"

"Tomorrow, maybe." Lucas smiled, aware of the atmosphere in the car changing. "Since we're pushing the schedule back three or four months for the cast to properly work on the Hungarian accent, she's coming ahead of time to start dedicating herself to the role."

Jennifer nodded slowly, and then something moved across her face — the particular look of someone who has just remembered something they hadn't thought about in a while. It was a small thing, but it was there.

It had genuinely been some time since she'd heard from Felicity. They'd only worked together once — Like Crazy, years ago, a small indie that the three of them had made before the world had gotten this large. One film wasn't much on paper, but something about that project had stuck.

The kind of closeness that forms quickly under the right conditions and doesn't entirely go away even when people drift back to their separate lives, their separate careers. Friends separate. That's just what happens. But some connections don't fully close.

"Do you remember back in 2011 — Felicity was the one who organized that whole New York trip?" Jennifer leaned back slightly into the seat, her eyes drifting toward the window without really seeing the street outside. "Called us both up out of nowhere, wouldn't take no for an answer. We spent the whole day together — I even made my chilli pizza sandwiches." The corner of her mouth lifted. "And then we had that picnic in Central Park."

She wasn't really asking. The look on her face said she was already back there, narrating it more for herself than for him.

"How could I forget." Lucas shook his head, a quiet smile pulling at him. "The three of us sitting out in the middle of Central Park like we had nowhere better to be. Not a care in the world." He paused. "And then the paparazzi showed up, and I moved them along."

Jennifer turned from the window and looked at him. "You flung one."

"He was in the way."

"And then—" she held up a finger, drawing it out "—he flung you back." She reached over and swatted his arm, barely containing it.

Lucas laughed, rubbing the spot. "That is a very selective memory you have."

"I was sitting right there." She pointed at him. "I watched it happen with my own two eyes." She shook her head, grinning now, the weight of the morning sitting somewhere further away than it had been twenty minutes ago. "We had basically no security back then. We could just — go outside. Sit on the grass. Nobody cared."

Lucas glanced at the window, the city scrolling past. "Yeah." He said it quietly.

Back then, the two of them could walk through this same city and barely turn a head — just two people, mostly unknown, with nowhere they needed to be.

"And," Jennifer added, a small smile already forming, "I also seem to remember there being rumours going around that you were dating both me and Felicity at the same time."

Lucas groaned. "Let's just forget that ever happened."

"He-he." She giggled, clearly pleased with herself. "I'm just saying. People believed it."

"People were wrong." He laughed despite himself, shaking his head.

"Very wrong," she agreed, laughing with him now.

The city moved past the windows, and for a while neither of them said anything more — just sat with the warmth of it, those smaller and simpler years, when the worst thing a paparazzo could do was fling back.

---

By the time Felicity stepped off the plane at JFK, the terminal was already moving at its usual pace — the particular organised chaos of a major airport, crowds flowing in every direction with the single-minded purpose of people who all needed to be somewhere else. Luggage wheels rattled across the floor. Announcements echoed overhead in two languages.

Nobody gave her a second glance.

She put her earphones in and let the music settle over all of it. This was a vibe she genuinely liked — being anonymous inside a crowd, just another person moving through a city that had no particular interest in her.

There was a certain charm to it, the world just carrying on around you, indifferent and alive, and the music sitting on top of it all like a filter that made everything feel slightly cinematic.

She caught a cab outside and gave the address.

...

Andrew Lauren Productions sat in Midtown, and Felicity arrived with her bag over one shoulder and her earphones pulled out, looped around her fingers as she pushed through the front entrance. The receptionist looked up from the desk.

Felicity opened her mouth to speak.

"Oh—" The receptionist's eyes had already gone wide. "You're Felicity Jones."

Felicity paused, then laughed softly. "You actually know me."

"I'm an indie fan," the receptionist said, a little sheepish but smiling. "Like Crazy is one of my favourites."

They talked for a minute or two — easy, unpretentious, the kind of conversation that happens when someone recognises you for the right reasons — before Felicity headed up.

She had expected Brady. Possibly Andrew. That was the meeting, as far as she understood it, and she hadn't thought much beyond that.

So when she pushed open the office door and found Brady and Andrew already inside — and sitting across from them, very much present, Lucas and Jennifer — she stopped for just a half second.

Jennifer was already on her feet. "Fliss!"

The hug was immediate and warm, the kind that carries the weight of actual time apart. Felicity laughed into it.

"Jennifer." She pulled back and looked at her. "It's been a while." Then, glancing past her at Lucas, she added, "But — what are you two doing here?"

Brady cleared his throat from across the room. "Lucas is a benefactor of the project. He's invested considerably in the film." A small pause. "He's also playing László."

Felicity looked at Lucas properly. Lucas Knight, returning to indie. She hadn't seen that coming, and something about it — the fact that he'd chosen this, specifically — made her smile in a way she didn't entirely try to hide.

Lucas stood and came over, pulling her into a quick hug. "It's been a while. I heard you've got two kids now — congratulations."

"I heard the same about you two — congratulations." Felicity stepped back. "Can I see the baby sometime?"

She asked it the way you ask things you don't expect to be taken seriously — politely, genuinely, but without any real expectation.

"Sure," Jennifer said simply.

Felicity blinked. "You're actually fine with that?"

"You're our friend, aren't you?" Jennifer said, as if that settled it completely. Because as far as she was concerned, it did.

Felicity couldn't help the smile that came with that. "I came here for the project and somehow we've ended up in a reunion." She looked between the two of them. "I'm glad."

Brady and Andrew, to their credit, left the three of them to it — saying nothing, exchanging a quiet glance of their own.

Jennifer noticed after a moment and touched Felicity's arm lightly. "We have plenty to catch up on later. Go do what you came to do first."

Felicity nodded.

Jennifer slipped out tactfully, and the room shifted back into a working meeting.

Two hours later, Felicity had a considerably clearer picture of what the next several months were going to look like. A dialect coach would be assigned to her — Hungarian being what it was, the timeline for getting anywhere convincing with it was generous for good reason.

---

After the meeting, Lucas and Jennifer escorted her out, and the three of them talked the whole ride over — animated, overlapping, the kind of conversation that doesn't need warming up.

They arrived at Knight Residences, and Felicity caught the name on the building as they stepped out. She smiled and said nothing until they were in the key elevator, doors closing behind them.

"Lucas." She looked at him. "You own a building. In Manhattan, of all places." She shook her head. "The real estate alone must be obscene."

"He also barely makes any profit from it," Jennifer said pleasantly. "Keeps the rents as low as he can. Has done since he bought the place."

Felicity glanced at Lucas. "Really?"

He said nothing, which was answer enough.

"I guess you're just like that," Felicity said, shaking her head.

The elevator opened into the penthouse, the city stretching out wide through the windows. Felicity took it in for a moment.

"It's good to be rich, huh?" she laughed.

"Being rich is fine," Jennifer said. "Being famous has its moments though. The media has been roasting us pretty good lately."

"Geoffrey's little circus," Lucas added drily.

Felicity winced. "Sorry, I didn't mean—"

"It's fine." Jennifer waved it off. Then her eyes went past Felicity entirely. "Oh — there she is."

Martha had just come through from the hall with Seraphina on her hip. Felicity turned and looked, and her expression softened immediately without her quite meaning it to.

"She's so cute," she said, almost involuntarily.

Jennifer laughed. Lucas smiled.

They settled in, and for a while the conversation just went where it wanted to.

Then Lucas said, out of nowhere, "What if we did the Central Park picnic again?"

Both Jennifer and Felicity looked at him.

"Lucas." Jennifer gave him a wry look. "That's not exactly realistic anymore."

"Possible for me," Felicity said. "Not so much for you two."

Lucas chuckled. "I'm looking into getting a permit for the area. Close it off for a few hours — just us, and security on the perimeter."

Jennifer raised an eyebrow, interest flickering across her face.

Felicity laughed. "So what you're saying is you're spending money on a government permit just so you can feel like a normal person for one afternoon."

"Something like that," Lucas admitted.