Finding Chris Evans: The 9-1-1 Edition (11 page)

But as she went up on her tiptoes, she didn’t see the Meet & Greet line. Instead she saw the stage. And him.

Christian Taylor Evans.

The sight hit her in the chest, squeezing hard around her heart.

Back in Chicago, he’d introduced himself as Chris, with that quirking, lopsided grin. The same grin he was flashing now—at a crowd of screaming fans. His dark blond hair was thick, a little longer than the last time she’d seen him, and had a natural wave that made a woman want to sink her fingers into it. Then there were his eyes. The women in the front row would be getting a devastating double dose of deep, dreamy blue—and Trina was almost relieved she was too far away to get the full effect.

He was tall and a little on the lean side for someone who made his living at physical labor, with none of the hulking muscles she associated with construction workers, but he never seemed to have any trouble manhandling furniture or appliances on his show—and she remembered with graphic detail exactly how easily he’d lifted her not-insubstantial weight that night in Chicago.

He turned toward her section of the audience and the women around her swayed toward the stage en masse, carrying her with them. The security guards staggered with the effort of keeping them from rushing closer, but Trina barely noticed.

Chris was looking this way.

He was looking
right at her
.

She lifted her hand to wave, the movement more instinct than thought. A vision flashed in her brain, visceral and pure and so real she could almost taste it—his gaze would single her out, locking on her in the crowd, his sentence would trail off and her name would rise to his lips.
Trina.
“Let her through!” he would call, his voice echoing through the speakers, and security guards would flank her, escorting her to the stage, boosting her up onto it where he would be waiting, his hands stretched down to pull her up, into his arms, that strength that she remembered so well closing around her, reassuring her that she wasn’t alone, she would never have to be alone—

He turned away, gesticulating to the other half of the crowd.

Right. He couldn’t see her. Just another face in a sea of faces. She wasn’t special. She was just another fan.

She needed to get to the Meet & Greet line.

Trina nudged the arm of the woman beside her wearing an Abracadabra! T-Shirt. “Do you know where we go for the Meet & Greet?”

“Oh, honey, good luck.” The woman spared her half a glance, unwilling to fully wrench her attention away from the stage. “People camped out
overnight
for those spots.” She waved vaguely toward the Polo Ralph Lauren outlet. “The line wraps around the building, but you won’t be able to see anything from back there. Right now your best bet is the superfan contest.”

“The what?”

Abracadabra rolled her eyes. “Don’t you follow his Twitter? His team will be circulating throughout the event, picking out five lucky superfans for the first five spots in the Meet & Greet. Most of them will go to cute little kids, but there’s always at least one for an adult who goes the extra mile.” She hitched up the objects Trina hadn’t noticed clutched in her arms, showing off a coffee table book, DVDs and CDs—all with Chris’s face plastered across the front of them. “I have his book
memorized
. Anyway there’s no way anyone is going to meet him today who isn’t a superfan.”

Trina felt a stone drop into the pit of her stomach. She needed to see him. Yes, it was desperate and pathetic since he’d made it very clear, through his odious manager, that he wasn’t interested in having anything to do with her—or with anyone else who came along—but Trina couldn’t seem to accept that. She needed to see his face when he told her to get lost, because right now all she could see when she pictured him was that crooked smile lifting as they splashed through the fountain in Grant Park.

There was a pause onstage as Chris bent to take a question from an audience member neither of them could hear and Miss Abracadabra finally looked at Trina. Her gaze raked from the top of her ponytail to the toes revealed by her flip flops—taking in the complete lack of magician-themed paraphernalia. “On second thought, you might want to try the line.”

Trina grimaced. “Thanks.”

The line did indeed wrap around the building. And down the sidewalk to the next outlet store, and along that building—with a gap carefully maintained by mall security so those interested in shopping could get to the entrance—and along the
next
store. Trina was panting by the time she reached the end of the line, and the lightweight plaid shirt she’d picked out was glued to her spine with sweat.

The shirt had been supposed to be an inside joke—that night in Chicago she’d teased him that he was dressed too well to be a contractor and he’d said he was defying the peer pressure to wear flannel and plaid every day. She’d thought the sight of the shirt would trigger that lop-sided grin, but now she had a feeling he would just be trying to avoid getting her sweat all over him.

It was almost October. It wasn’t supposed to be this ungodly hot this far north—but she didn’t really know much about Minnesota weather. She’d grown up in Seattle and never lived anywhere else until she moved to Chicago to start medical school a couple months ago. When she’d come up with the plan to drive out here and see Christian Taylor Evans face-to-face, she hadn’t anticipated surface-of-the-sun levels of heat pounding down on her as she stood in a line for hours.

It couldn’t be good for the baby.

As if triggered by the thought, a wave of nausea broke over her and she swayed.

“Here.” A water bottle was thrust into her hands, the pretty blonde in front of her eyeing her with concern. “The organizers came through a few minutes ago with water for everyone. You look like you need this more than I do.”

“Thanks,” Trina murmured, accepting the bottle—too dizzy to be proud. The water helped. And so did the shade that the blonde angled over both of them from the umbrella she’d brought.

That was usually Trina. The planner. Always prepared. But for the last two weeks she’d been reeling. Lost in a way she hadn’t been since she first found out her mother was sick.

“Better?” The blonde asked, something about her expression reminding Trina of the best nurses who’d taken care of her mother during those last few awful months.

“Much. Thank you.”

“No problem. We Chris Evans Girls have to stick together.”

Trina managed a weak smile.

She’d never pictured herself as a Chris Evans Girl—whatever that was. She’d just met a guy she liked in a bar in Chicago on her first night in the Windy City. They’d had a fabulous time, the kind of night that made her think of forevers, but he’d had to fly off on business the next day—reluctantly revealing that he was something called the Addition Magician and he had to build a house in Atlanta for a deserving family.

They’d agreed to no strings, the timing too complicated for both of them, but they’d still exchanged cell numbers and then text messages. And she’d still been thinking forever. Maybe she would have been more realistic in her expectations, seen the writing on the wall, if she’d had any idea how famous he was. But she hadn’t known. And she’d been halfway to in love with him by week two.

Okay fine, more than halfway.

Then he’d said he would be finishing up his project a day early. He could spare a day before he had to go to Vegas for the next build. Did she want him to come see her in Chicago?

She’d been so excited she dropped her phone in a sink full of dishwater.

By the time a bag of rice had dried the soggy thing out two days later, she was frantic. She didn’t have the money to replace it and when the phone miraculously turned on, it was like a gift from the gods. She’d immediately replied. Yes, she wanted to see him. Yes, she missed him. Yes, to everything.

And he never replied.

No voicemail messages waiting. Just a series of increasingly worried and frustrated texts. Finally culminating with,
Fine. No strings it is.

She’d texted again. She’d called—and discovered the number was disconnected.

Celebrities changed their numbers all the time, she rationalized. He still had her number, though, and he would call her. When he was done with his new build, she would hear from him.

But she never did.

The disappointment had been crushing. And she couldn’t seem to let go of the hope that he still might call. Even when she told herself it was just an incredible night. That it was for the best. That she didn’t need to be distracted from med school anyway. That the memory would be enough.

Then the morning sickness started.

She’d missed her period, but told herself it was just the stress of medical school. She’d never been particularly regular to begin with. But when she almost puked on her anatomy professor, she was forced to face facts—and buy a pregnancy test.

Hello, Little Plus Sign of Doom. Bye Bye, Neatly Planned Life.

She’d never known positive could be such a terrifying word.

She’d renewed her attempts to get in touch with Chris—it could only be him since there hadn’t been anyone else in over a year. Newly motivated, she did more research, contacting his production company, his management company, any official number she could find that might let her get a message to him—until she came up against the brick wall of his manager, Marty the Snake.

No, Mr. Evans did not want to see her again.

No, Mr. Evans did not accept her claims of paternity.

And if she persisted, Mr. Evans would be forced to file harassment charges and a restraining order.

Trina had been crushed—for all of about ten seconds.

It just didn’t seem like Chris. The guy she’d met in that Chicago bar wouldn’t do that to her. He wouldn’t just vanish. She believed that.

So she’d scanned his public appearances for the next few months, settling on a mall opening in rural Minnesota because it was the only one of his upcoming events that was open to the public and wasn’t half a continent away. She’d cut class, taking time she didn’t have to drive from Chicago to the wilds of Minnesota, because she couldn’t afford the last minute plane fare and she had to look him in the face and tell him.

But by the look of the line, she wasn’t going to be anywhere near his face.

A woman in pumps with a mall ID badge walked down the line, passing out mini water bottles with the mall’s logo on them and paper fans that looked like Chris’s head on a stick. Trina accepted one and began the surreal activity of fanning herself with her baby daddy’s face.

“That isn’t Captain America.” A woman a few feet ahead of them in line glared at the face-on-a-stick fans.

“Different Chris Evans,” the fan distributor explained.

“There’s more than one Chris Evans?” The woman frowned.

The blonde in front of Trina snorted. “Honey, you have no idea.”

The Captain America fan ahead of them huffed indignantly and stomped off toward Abercrombie.

“Good,” a voice piped up behind Trina, startling her. “Better odds for us.”

Trina turned, realizing belatedly that while she’d been chugging water and reminiscing, the line had been growing behind her. The petite brunette who’d spoken looked about nineteen and could have been a candidate for the superfan competition. She wasn’t just waving a Chris-Face fan, she had his body splayed across the front of her T-shirt and even wore an Addition Magician visor to keep the sun out of her eagerly shining eyes.

“I had no idea he was so popular,” Trina blurted out. Or that all of his fans would be female. Though given the crooked smile, she probably should have guessed.

“This is nothing. The only reason there are so few people here is because we’re pretty much in the middle of nowhere. I drove up from Minneapolis for this,” Fangirl announced proudly. “I would have been here sooner, but I had to work last night and I ran into the worst construction on the drive. I should have called in sick, like I did when he came to Madison last year, but my boss says I’ve already used my sick days for the next three years and if I don’t want to work there are other waitresses who’d be happy to have my job.” She rolled her eyes. “She’s such a Nazi. I just hope she didn’t make me miss my shot to meet him again.”

“You’ve already met him?”

“Madison,” Fangirl reminded her. “Now
that
was a zoo. It was right after that Daniella dumped him and every girl in the upper Midwest seemed to think she was destined to be the one to heal his broken heart.”

“Daniella?”

Fangirl looked at her as if she was wasting good oxygen by breathing. “From
Romancing Miss Right
? The dating show? That’s how Chris got his start.”
Don’t you know anything
was heavily implied by her tone. “He was one of the Suitors on Daniella’s season—he made it all the way to the end, but then she picked
Alan
, if you can believe it, though everyone could see he wasn’t there for the right reasons. Chris really loved her too. I was sure they were going to name him Mister Perfect on the next season, but instead they picked that awful astronaut who ended up crashing his car or something right before they were supposed to film. Of course, by then Chris had started doing the Addition Magician show and he didn’t have time to be Mister Perfect.”

Trina marveled that none of this had been on his official bio. It talked about his history as licensed contractor, how he’d built his first addition on his parents’ house when he was seventeen, and how his natural charm and warmth had landed him the reality TV gig—but she’d assumed the TV gig in question was the Addition Magician show, not a reality dating series known for being over the top and exploitative.

“When Daniella broke it off with Alan—which anyone could see coming—she came crawling back to Chris and of course, he took her back, because he still loved her. All these girls think they have a shot since he’s single, but if you ask me, he still loves her, which is why he hasn’t been with anyone else since they broke up.”

Queasiness churned in Trina’s stomach again. He’d never mentioned Daniella in Chicago, but Trina hadn’t exactly been offering up ex-tales either. Was Daniella why he’d suddenly stopped taking her calls? If he was getting back with his celebrity girlfriend, that would explain why he wouldn’t want a pregnant one-night-stand popping up from his past.