Chapter 9
NINE
BIANCA
Waking up and being somewhere at the same time every weekday is weirdly soothing. This is a normal life for most people — maybe it’s what I should have been doing all along. It doesn’t hurt that the social media posts I’ve made for Stryker Liquors have done pretty well. I don’t feel like a complete fraud.
It’s just enough to keep me busy while I’m here — work in the day, time to relax, then planning for the spa.
“Morning,” I say to Rose when I get into the office the Monday after the Jepsen Festival. My desk is across from hers, and Sadie’s bed is placed near the window, so she gets a little sun during the day.
“Morning,” Rose says, sounding slightly distracted as she texts furiously. “Sorry, Delia’s blowing up my phone about wedding shit.”
“Ah.” I sit down at my desk and boot it up. “Is everything fine?”
“Yeah.” She sighs and puts her phone down. “It’s just so much and she has a whole lot of opinions. Even my own mom is just like, ‘do whatever you want’ but Delia has a ‘vision’. And then throw in stuff for the family reunion and I’m just a little over it all.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is. And I know she means well, but jeez.” Rose starts typing on her computer. “Anyway, whatever. Let’s talk about the Jepsen Festival, then some other stuff we have down the road.”
“Sure, yeah.”
I get settled in and we go over my posts from the festival. Rose tells me about the newest moonshine cocktail they’re making and the possible campaign ideas we could put together for social media. Time flies by quickly until we’re interrupted by my phone. It’s on vibrate, but it vibrates so many times in a row that I have to check it.
“Oh, fuck,” I murmur. It’s a text from my mom’s PR rep, Flo. I let my personal PR rep go before I moved out here, but whatever it is, I’m guessing Mom has me being monitored too.
Flo: Hi Bianca, please give me a call when you have a chance. It’s urgent. Thank you!
“Everything alright?” Rose asks.
“I have to check. I have to step out for a second, sorry.” I get up to leave and Sadie trots behind me.
I scoop her up for emotional support and call Flo back as I leave the building. She picks up on the first ring.
“Hi, Bianca, how are you?” Flo says, her voice calm.
“I’ll be better knowing that shit hasn’t hit the fan? Maybe?” I pace back and forth.
“It hasn’t hit the fan entirely. We can fix this,” she says. “Basically, Kyler has finally announced the split even though a lot of people suspected it based on your Instagram posts. He doesn’t paint you in the best light in his announcement.”
Of course he didn’t. I close my eyes and take a deep breath through my nose. I wrongly assumed that he’d go the ‘we still care for each other and please respect our privacy at this time’, not…that. His image isn’t the type to stir up any controversy on purpose. Or at least I thought so.
“How did he paint me?”
“Mostly in a sad sack kind of way,” she says. Her bluntness is a relief — she can see through his nonsense. “That yes, you two broke up a while ago, and that you did the dumping while he was down. He sort of paints it as if you were being irrational and having some sort of quarter life crisis. He definitely leaves the door open for you two to reconcile, though. Almost like he’s expecting you to.”
“Which will definitely make his fans love me even more,” I say, my tone dry.
“Yeah, don’t check your Instagram. They’re animals out there.”
“I have the notifications off.”
And I have for years. Dating a singer with a legion of intense fans has meant being bombarded with hate and some truly unhinged threats. I can’t imagine how awful they are now that their theories that I’m just as bitchy as I look online have been confirmed.
How did I not see this coming?
“Good, keep them off. Just a moment.” She pauses, and I hear her say something to someone else. “Anyway, back to the other problem — are you dating the guy who you’ve been posting bits and pieces of on Instagram? Because some pictures of him in that town you’re in have leaked too.”
“Yes…” My heart starts pounding harder than ever. “Have they figured out who he is yet?”
“No. The photos aren’t very clear, so they mostly show the back of his head,” she says. My heart rate slows a little and I press Sadie to my chest. “But he should know that he might have a target on his back.”
I swallow. This was the plan all along and we’d even discussed how many eyes are always on me, but somehow I’d painted it as something abstract in my head — like it wouldn’t affect our day-to-day lives and it would just make Kyler back off if he saw hints of Waylon existing on my Instagram. But now it feels very real. I feel dumb as hell for being so naive and assuming Kyler would take the high road.
“He’s just a regular person,” I say, my voice weak. Sadie licks underneath my chin, like she knows I’m upset.
“That might work in our favor,” she says. “Does he have a lot of social media?”
“No. I can tell him to private his Instagram account,” I say. His Instagram is mostly dog and nature photos, but it’s a big target without moderated comments.
“Give me his name as well so we can get ahead of any issues.”
“His name is Waylon Stryker.” I heave a sigh. “How big of a story is this?”
“About the same as other stories about you both in the past — not the biggest news, but very big in the circles of your fans and his fans. I just wanted to inform you so we could put out a statement of our own,” she says.
“Okay. I have to get back to work, so can we work out the statement over email later?” I ask.
“You’re modeling way out there?” I can practically hear her eyebrows shoot up.
“No, I’m doing social media for Waylon’s family’s company,” I say.
Flo pauses. “Wow. Okay. Good for you. Well, I’ll go ahead and send you a draft in an hour or two, okay?”
“Okay, thanks.”
I hang up and take a few seconds to gather myself before heading back inside.
“Sorry,” I murmur to Rose.
“It’s fine. Sounded like an emergency,” Rose says, frowning. “Are you okay? Because you can totally take a longer break.”
“I’m okay, I swear.” I adjust Sadie on my lap. “It’s just some bullshit I’ll deal with after work.”
I try to stay focused the rest of the day, but it’s hard. My hand itches to check my phone and see what’s being said online even though I know it’s not good for me to do that. By the end of the day, I’m wiped just from being tense all damn day.
Walking Sadie when I get home helps relieve tension, though I wish she wanted to walk longer. But it’s enough to calm me down to go over the statement Flo sent over and send it back. I force myself to start texting Waylon about the slight turn the situation has taken, overthinking every detail until I just tell him to call me when he can.
God, what if he hates me for this? I warned him, but I don’t know if I warned him enough.
He calls me a few minutes later, and it’s a FaceTime call. Did he mean to do this? I answer it either way.
“Hey,” he says. He’s clearly just gotten out of the shower, and his damp hair and the flush to his cheeks are extra handsome. Plus, he’s wearing glasses, which I find inexplicably hot. “What’s up?”
“Hey, so, um…” I go to my bedroom and sit down on my bed since it’s cooler in there. “There’s a bit of a problem that you need to know about. Can you private your Instagram account?”
“Sure, I can after this call?” His brows furrow.
“Okay, good.” I sigh. I just need to come out with it. “So, my ex announced our breakup in a way that paints me in a bad light, so the hate mobs are extra bad. And everyone knows you exist, but they kind of knew that before. Someone’s snapped a few photos of us around Jepsen.”
“Hm.” He lays back on his couch, completely nonplussed. “That sucks. Are you okay? Since your ex kind of screwed you over?”
I absently rub my breastbone to calm the flutter in my chest. I’m supposed to be warning him and he’s comforting me?
“Are you okay with all of this?” I say, leaning back into my pillows also. “I thought that it was going to be a relatively low-key situation, sort of like how I told you at the beginning. But now it feels like Kyler is making this a whole thing.”
He runs a hand through his hair. “I mean, I don’t really go on social media and my online footprint is pretty small, especially when I private my account. And I doubt that people will go out of their way to come to Jepsen. I guess I’m fine with it. If something happens, then I’ll deal with it then. I’d probably bore a media outlet to death before they even finished an article on me.”
I snort, curling my legs under myself. “You’re way too calm about this.”
In a lot of ways, I’m relieved. His calm is keeping me calm, and for the first time today, the knot in my chest loosens up.
“I just know there’s not much I can do about it right now.” He shrugs. “And people’s attention spans are short. We can just focus on the stuff coming up or stuff we actually want to do as a distraction. We could throw in a regular night out if there’s anything on your bucket list you want to do but haven’t planned yet.”
My bucket list. The other two lists have quickly faded into the background, the sex one taking up their places. I bite my bottom lip. Phone sex is one of them — does it count if it’s FaceTime? The one time I tried with Kyler, he was confused as to what I was trying to do. Then he figured it out and it was unbelievably awkward.
But as chill as he’s being, would he want to do something like this now?
“Where’d your head go?” Waylon asks, his voice soft. A faint smile comes onto his lips, and he rests a hand behind his head. It does great things to his bicep.
“Where did you assume it went?” I ask with a smirk.
His grin widens. “I just didn’t want to assume anything. Trying to be polite and all.”
The little twang in his words tugs at a part in my heart that it shouldn’t. The contrast between him saying he wants to be polite with the ravenous look in his eye makes me ache between my thighs.
“What item on the list were you thinking of?” he asks.
“The phone sex one. Though does FaceTime sex count?” I ask.
“Yeah, I guess,” he says. ‘It’s your list, so you can do what you want.”
I study him on my screen. The scruff on his strong jaw, his biceps, those fucking glasses. I want to do everything with him, to be honest. Every last thing on my list, twice over.
“Then let’s do FaceTime,” I say, biting my bottom lip. “Wait a second, let me get set up.”
I put my phone down and grab my small phone tripod. I take a few seconds to set it up and sit on my bed again.
“Fancy,” he says. He’s moved over to his bedroom, propped up on his pillows, his shirt off.
“I usually do this two-handed,” I admit. Now that I’m just sitting there on the bed, self-consciousness washes over me. I’ve been more or less naked in front of whole crews of people, but being on this bed makes me feel more naked than ever.
“Two-handed how?” he asks, his voice husky.
“My vibrator and a dildo,” I say, shifting to sit on my hip. The throbbing between my thighs is already starting to overwhelm me.
“Mm.” He holds up a finger and grins. “Let me get a proper set up too.”
He puts his phone down and disappears for a few moments. I hear him tell Duke to get out of the room, and I glance over at Sadie, who’s napping. Hopefully she doesn’t wake up. A second later, the camera shifts and he has both hands free too. His cock is already tenting in his shorts.
“So…” I bite my lip.
“Why don’t we start with you taking your shorts off,” he says, gently stroking himself through his shorts.
I do as he says, leaving me in just my favorite panties. I have them in every color — lacy and pretty, but comfortable. Waylon nods, taking me in.
“Now what?” I ask. I want him to guide me, half because this is brand new territory and half because I like the way his voice deepens when he gives me commands.
“Get those toys you like.”
I lean over to reach my side table and grab my two favorites — a pink wand vibrator and a pink dildo. I’ve never been able to find a rabbit toy that gives me what I need. I hold them up so he can see them, and he nods in approval.
I go to shimmy off my panties, but he makes a sound.
“Let me see those panties from the back,” he says, his hand resting on his cock but not stroking.
I do as he says and get on my knees, showing my ass toward the camera. Despite what that asshole styling assistant said, my ass doesn’t need re-shaping.
The quiet hmm of pleasure that he lets out makes me look over my shoulder at him. He’s hypnotized, his hand gripping the bulge in his shorts.
“Now take them off,” he says.
His clear pleasure at seeing my ass boosts my confidence and I make a show of slipping my panties off. I toss them aside, sitting down again. I keep my thighs pressed together, though.
“I want to see you,” I say. I’ve felt his cock against my ass before, but seeing it is different.
He tugs off his shorts, then his boxers, and oh. His cock is thick, the kind of thickness I’ve searched for when buying toys. He grips it at the base, running a thumb up the underside. I want to burn this image of him in my mind forever — stretched out, relaxed, cock hard and body strong-looking.
“Show me what you do with both of those. Nice and slow,” he says.
I grab my vibrator first, parting my legs and turning it on the lowest setting. I suck in a breath when I touch it to one lip, sliding it though the wetness that’s already pooling at my entrance. My pussy clenches and I let my head fall back onto my pillows.
“Spread your legs more. I need to see how wet you are,” he says, his voice intense but low.
I do as he says before I can even think about it, like he’s flipped a switch in me. The toy is quiet, so the vibrations against my wetness feel loud in my quiet room.
“Taste yourself.” He strokes his cock up and down even faster, his thumb brushing across the tip. “You tasted so fucking good the other day and now I wish I could taste you again.”
I dip my fingers into my wetness. I’ve never tasted myself, but I do it, plunging my fingers into my mouth. The act feels so dirty in the best way.
“So good, princess,” he murmurs, sliding his hand over the tip of his cock. “Look how hard you’ve made me.”
I can’t keep my eyes off his cock. My pussy clenches, feeling too empty, so I grab my dildo too. I’m wet enough so that it slides right into me. I can’t hold back the moan that escapes from me, and the flare of arousal in his eyes makes me want to do it again.
I shift the angle of my body to hit my g-spot. Usually I stick it to the wall with the suction cup at the bottom and push back against it, but this works too.
“Fuck,” he says, his abs flexing. A pink flush is making its way up his chest to his face, his glasses askew. “This is torture, not being inside you.”
“I wish you were here with me,” I say. Even though I’m about to come, I still wish it was him getting me there. His big, warm hands all over my body. The way he talks to me that makes me feel safe but desired.
“Soon,” he says, his breath hitching. “You going to come, princess?”
I nod. If I make a sound, I’ll break the spell.
“I’ll come with you,” Waylon says, his breathing heavy. “Let go for me.”
I clench around the dildo, savoring the fullness and imagining it was him. The thought of his big body over mine, his beautiful cock inside me, pushes me over the edge. I come with a full body shudder, forcing myself to keep my eyes open to see him. His hand pumps up and down his cock faster and faster until his hips jerk and he comes all over his stomach with a soft groan.
Both of us lay there, breathing hard. I’m lightheaded. My pussy is still pulsing. I feel like I’ve just knocked something loose in my brain. Waylon looks just as dazed.
“Bucket list item, done,” he says with a lazy smile.
“Yeah, definitely,” I manage to say, pressing myself up.
“Maybe we can try a few more things soon,” he says. Duke bark-howls in the background and Waylon glances over at him. “I need to go, but talk to you soon?”
“Yeah, soon,” I say.
He waves and ends the call. I grab my phone from the tripod. It takes me a long, long time to get the energy to get up and think about anything but Waylon.