50 pages • 1 hour read
Nathan is worried about Bree, as she has been in the bathroom for a while after having a number of drinks. Jamal tells him to just go check on her and stop obsessing. Nathan’s mom texts him to critique his game performance and to push him to go to her suggested nutritionist. Nathan tells her that he’ll text her later and goes to check on Bree. The real reason for his celibacy is that he does not want to have sex with anyone but Bree, and he worries that the revelation of his celibacy and his financial interference turned her life upside down. When he gets to the women’s bathroom, a dark-haired woman tells him that Bree was chatting with her while trying to get a stain out of her shirt before bolting into a stall. Nathan goes to Bree and tries to take her home while she tells him and Kara, the dark-haired woman, that his “ding a ling” is no one’s business. As Nathan carries her out of the restaurant, Bree calls to tell the other guys to come home with them. When they get to Nathan’s apartment, she paints their toes with the LA Sharks colors. He puts Bree to bed, and the guys tell him to pursue Bree, as they are confident that she feels the same way about him.
Bree wakes up hungover and calls her older sister, Lily. Lily steps outside to avoid her children and husband and tells Bree to look at the internet. There is a viral video of Bree talking to Kara, who is a TMZ journalist, about Nathan, telling her that he does not have erectile dysfunction and refused to sleep with Kelsey because he has feelings for someone else, someone Bree drunkenly suggested could be her. She then said that she wished she could use her Tide pen to wipe away all the other women in Nathan’s life. Bree is humiliated, as the video makes it appear that she is deeply in love with Nathan. Lily tells Bree that maybe it’s a good thing that Nathan knows about her feelings because Lily suspects that he also loves Bree. Bree disagrees and worries this will ruin her friendship with Nathan. She hangs up with Lily and calls Nathan.
Nathan’s phone rings, and he sees that it’s Bree. When he arrived at the practice facility, he was swarmed with reporters asking about Bree and her feelings. He hadn’t looked at social media, so the questions took him by surprise. He’s hopeful that she does love him, but Bree tells him that she didn’t mean any of it and that it was the tequila talking, which disappoints Nathan. Nathan scolds himself for getting his hopes up, and Bree promises to make him veggie lasagna as an apology. When he gets home, he watches Bree cook and dance around his kitchen. Bree worked in a diner during high school to make money, while Nathan didn’t have to work since his parents bankrolled his life. He tried to work at the diner with her, but his parents made him quit to focus on football. He hugs Bree and assures her that he isn’t mad at her. He finds a bag of fan mail on his bed that his agent, Nicole, sent over, most of which is Tide pen themed. He finds it creepy, as does Bree, who had reporters outside her building. Nathan offers her a security guard before he changes his shirt, which is ironically stained. Bree watches as he takes his shirt off, and Nathan notes that her face does not look platonic as she watches his muscles ripple. Nathan goes to talk to Bree about what she said in the video, but a knock on his door interrupts them.
Nicole, Nathan’s agent, is at the door. She apologizes for interrupting but needs to talk to them both. She presents a large poster with photos of Bree and Nathan surrounded by hearts and glitter that was brought to her agency’s office by a fan. Bree and Nathan argue over who gets to keep the creepy poster before Nicole stops them and presents them with paperwork. Tide’s brand engagement has gone up 30% since Bree’s video went viral, and the company wants to film a Super Bowl commercial with them, but only if they appear to be dating. Nicole tells them that many couples in Hollywood do fake relationships to promote things. Nicole says that they can break up or get married after the commercial; it doesn’t matter. She gives Nathan and Bree time to discuss, as the money from the commercial would be great for Bree and her studio. Nathan tells Bree that he will do it if she wants; it’s up to her. Bree agrees because she wants to use some of the money to pay Nathan back for helping with her studio rent.
Nathan’s teammates Jamal, Price, Derek, and Lawrence help him brainstorm ways to use Nathan and Bree’s fake relationship to get them in a real romantic relationship. They pitch various strategies to help Nathan, eventually coming up with a “cheat sheet” of romantic moves that Nathan can use, like the cheat sheets quarterbacks use to memorize different plays. Bree arrives at Nathan’s apartment, and the guys scramble to cover up the board, telling her they drew boobs on it. While Nathan distracts her, Derek erases the whiteboard and scribbles cartoon drawings of boobs all over it, with Bree none the wiser of their plan.
Nathan gets ready for the game as the crowd in the stadium roars. Jamal is excited by the energy and noise, but Nathan needs to tune it out to focus. He thinks about Bree to calm himself down, imagining her whispering encouragement in his ear. At his apartment, Bree struggles to get a baking dish down from Nathan’s cabinet to make him brownies for when he returns from the away game. He arrives before she can even put the brownies in the pan, laughing at the sight of her trying to climb up on the counter to reach the cabinet. He helps her down, holding her tightly in his arms for a moment too long to read as platonic. He playfully chides her for napping too long and failing to make the brownies before his arrival, citing the pillows and blankets on the couch as evidence. She tries to claim that she didn’t nap but knows that Nathan’s couch always manages to lull her to sleep for hours longer than she intended. Still in Nathan’s arms, she denies his claim that she’s at his place because she hates her apartment and wants to move in with him. Trying to make her admit it, Nathan smears brownie batter on her face. Bree smears some batter on his face in revenge, which initiates a strangely sensual food fight. Nathan smears batter on Bree’s lips and leans down as if to kiss her before pulling away, which prompts her to ask if he’s flirting with her. He admits it but cites the need to practice their chemistry before their public outings as fake boyfriend/girlfriend. Bree refuses to flirt back, attempting to reestablish their platonic status quo.
Nathan picks Bree up for their Tide commercial shoot in his chauffeured black SUV. Bree is freaked out about the official nature of the car and the shoot, joking about being too messy for such a nice vehicle. Nathan assures her that it’s fine: It’s his car, and he wants her in it. Bree worries that he’s overextending himself and shouldn’t have agreed to the commercial, but her concerns are cut off by a phone call from his mother. Bree doesn’t like the way that Nathan’s parents use him for charity appearances and functions for their country club, take money from him for lavish vacations, and force him to come to their parties to sign autographs. Nathan agrees to do another charity event for his parents, much to Bree’s chagrin. A car full of teenage girls pulls up beside the SUV, trying to see what celebrity is inside, prompting Nathan to ask about Bree’s teenage students. She thanks him for his financial help in keeping her studio afloat. She gives him a list of rules to ensure the survival of their friendship during the fake relationship. Nathan refuses some of them, including the no-kissing rule, as couples kiss in public and they likely will need to do so in order to make their relationship appear real. Nathan pulls her into his lap to take a selfie to post on Instagram, captioning it, “the only woman I want” (142). This post serves to officially announce their relationship before they arrive at the set.
Nathan holds Bree’s hand as they walk into the film set. Nathan’s manager, Tim, describes the outline of the commercial before taking Nathan to his dressing room, where his dinner is waiting. Tim then takes Bree to her dressing room, where her favorite Chipotle order is waiting, courtesy of Nathan. Tim does not seem to know that their relationship is fake, so Bree plays along as the happy girlfriend for him and her makeup artist, Dylan. Dylan fawns over Bree and her curls, as well as her relationship with Nathan. When Dylan asks about the erectile dysfunction rumors, Bree awkwardly attempts to dispel them by claiming that Nathan is a “freak in the sheets” (149), which Nathan overhears and laughs about. They film the commercial, and then Nathan takes Bree home. Once home, Bree calls Lily to discuss the events of the day. She’s concerned because the day was fantastic, and she’s starting to wonder if Nathan has romantic feelings for her. Lily tells her that Nathan must feel the same way, but Bree continues to doubt it and refuses to risk their friendship by admitting what she feels. Lily wonders if Bree refuses to give herself the opportunity to have dreams, like she did when she shut down and iced Nathan out after her accident. Lily worries that Bree can’t let herself dream of a loving relationship with Nathan. Bree thinks that her lack of hope is a small price to pay for not falling apart again like she did after her accident. She resolves to get through the Super Bowl commercial and then find a relationship with lower stakes.
The fake-dating scenario—a common trope in romantic comedy—initially presents itself as evidence of Romance as a Threat to Friendship. Bree is afraid at every moment that the fake romance will destroy any possibility of a real one. Nathan, meanwhile, worries about letting go of the strategy of avoidance that he has used thus far to keep his desire at bay:
The only way our friendship has been remotely successful in its platonic state is because of my acquired ability to keep moving. For instance, if I walk into the kitchen and see Bree leaning over the counter with her butt looking way too good, I don’t linger and look. Keep moving. If I walk by Bree and we accidentally bump into each other, I don’t stop and lock my arms around her. Nope. Keep moving. If we’re up late at night and I’m tempted to tell her I worship the ground she walks on—keep moving (74).
While he does not outright admit to running from his feelings, Nathan surely avoids them with his physical movements. He cannot stop his thoughts from drifting toward his love for Bree when he sees her, but he can stop his body from doing anything that makes those feelings known.
After Bree tells Nathan that she didn’t mean what she said in the bathroom, his regret echoes Bree’s fear of allowing herself to dream: “I let myself dream too much this morning. I should have known better. Bree has been telling me for six years that she’d never want to date me. Why, after one drunken speech, did I think her feelings had changed?” (90). Again, though Bree’s feelings are clear, Nathan takes her denial at face value instead of interrogating why Bree said the things that she did. To ask such questions would be to allow for the possibility of being wrong. The idea of dreaming is important; Nathan let himself dream when he saw the video, while Bree continues to push her dreams of a romantic relationship with Nathan away to avoid any potential disappointment.
The Cost of Fame is apparent during Bree’s drunken rambling in the bathroom. Nathan is upset to see the TMZ reporter there even before he knows that she’s a reporter. He thinks, “She doesn’t need to be witnessing this, but that’s the thing about fans—they don’t believe in giving celebrities privacy. They seem to be under the impression that we ‘signed up for this’” (69). Nathan’s discomfort with celebrity manifests as a protectiveness of Bree: She did not “sign up for this,” and he wants to ensure that she does not face adverse consequences because of his fame.
Bree begins to acknowledge the impact of her past experiences on her present worldview. After her accident that ended her ballet dreams, she decided to never again let herself become attached to a goal or hope: “Life pulls the rug out from under us all the time, so if I can just be happy with what I have at this exact moment, I’ll live a healthier life” (86). This self-protective approach to life deprives her of The Power of Vulnerability. Unwilling to make herself vulnerable to the possibility of heartbreak, she cuts herself off from the chance of happiness as well. Because life took ballet away from her in circumstances beyond her control, she thinks that the same will happen in her relationship with Nathan if anything about it changes. However, her sister, Lily, sees the truth. She tells her, “I know you’re happy at the studio and you’re making the most of how things turned out, but I also see something else. After the accident, you stopped letting yourself dream completely” (154). Bree’s way of protecting herself from getting hurt again like she did in her accident is to avoid taking any risks or changing any parts of her life. She’s happy in her friendship with Nathan, but she could be happier in a romantic relationship with him if she let herself be vulnerable.
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