Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 57139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
I pulled on one of the hoodies I kept at her house—no good meeting a serial killer without proper loungewear—and went to the door. Through the peephole, I caught sight of a camera lens. A big one. And behind it, a woman holding a mic with a news station logo.
Paparazzi. Local news. Both?
Great.
I backed away and shut the bolt. “We have company,” I called toward the bedroom.
“Who?”
“I think the news? Things must be slow if they’re here first thing in the morning and you must have gone viral viral if the news is here to interview you, creepy if you ask me.”
That had her jumping to her feet like the fires of hell were licking at her ankles. She padded into the living room, hair pointing in all directions, still wearing the t-shirt she’d slept in. One look at my face and her shoulders sagged. Was that relief or was it just in preparation to take on more stress?
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” she said.
I handed her my phone. She scrolled, her eyes widening as the sheer scale of the disaster lit up her screen.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “They hate me.”
“They don’t hate you,” I said, even though some of the comments definitely read like hate. “They’re… curious.” Lame, I could have come up with something better but I was internally losing my shit too. It was all over for me. My job would never be the same, protecting her would look different, her keeping her apartment was paramount as well now and it would all be in the public eye, if anyone said we weren’t dating or that I didn’t have some random nickname like Vex, she was done for. Nobody could find out it was staged or that I stepped in or that she made Vex up, that was the most important thing for now.
Her eyes snapped up to mine. “Curious about you. I’m just the idiot who uploaded it.”
“You’re not an idiot.” I hesitated. “But we are going to have to get ahead of this somehow, you still have two dates left, I clearly spent the night last night meaning I think I won? Even though I didn’t really win if you get my meaning? Does that mean you already cheated on the other two guys? See, if I have questions, they’ll have questions.”
“Gahhhhh! Stop talking! And how do we even begin to do damage control here?”
I glanced toward the locked door, the muffled voices outside, the endless scroll of my tagged photos. “By making them continue to believe I’m Vex, and I stayed over, and I used to also be a famous YouTuber who went into hiding and used that name to,” I made a face. “Seduce you? I don’t know, you’re not very seducible and you’re used to me in glasses with a laptop in front of my face.”
Her brows drew together. “Cool story, bro.” She smacked me on the back of the head. “We need to come up with something better, for now, we just don’t talk.”
“We tell the semi truth.” I said. “That we’re dating. For real.” The words felt heavier once they were out in the air. I wished it was the truth that we were confessing something we already knew.
Her eyes narrowed. “Really? So we say we’re dating and or seeing how things are going before my final two dates and then what? I mean how long do we go on with this ruse? A week? Two? What does the contract for inheriting the apartment even dictate again? The last thing we need is to be caught in a lie.” I leave out that my feelings aren’t a lie, that it wouldn’t be a lie for me.
I nodded like I had a plan. I did not have a plan. My pulse was already pounding, and the knot in my chest hadn’t unclenched since I woke up. “I’ll look into it, all we have to worry about is just continuing doing what we’re doing, I mean the only outlier is, surprise, me? I guess?”
I hadn’t thought this through. Not the paparazzi. Not the internet. Not the way Harper was looking at me like she was deciding between agreeing or murdering me in my sleep. I truly didn’t think they’d notice but I figure reminding her of that again wasn’t the right thing to do or say.
My phone rang again, and I swore under my breath when I saw the name. It could be worse.
“Bro.” My brother’s voice came through loud and smug. “Is it eulogy time, or am I interrupting your romantic comedy subplot?”
“Not a great time,” I muttered, pacing toward the kitchen.
“Too bad. Why the hell did you rejuvenate a career you already killed before switching colleges? The boys think your ability to play Titanic on the piano is epic, by the way. And the fact that Celine Dion herself commented on it? Insane.”