Chapter 4
FOUR
Emerson
“Hey, dude. What’s up?”
Stone plops down onto the couch next to me and takes a sip of the water he just grabbed from the fridge. Stone, his twin Mason, Ritchie, and I share this four-bedroom rental house, and it’s usually great, but I’m still kind of pissed at Stone for his antics with my BingBang video yesterday.
When I just grunt in response, he laughs. “You’re not still mad at me for yesterday, are you?”
We know each other too well. “Yes.”
“No, you’re not. You love me. Besides, it’s not like she’ll call you out, or anything. She can’t afford to tarnish her image, right?”
I toy with the idea of showing him our messages but quickly discard it. I can’t. I told Twila I wouldn’t share it. With anyone.
“Oh, shit, did she actually clap back?” he asks when I don’t respond.
“No. Of course, not.”
“Good. Nothing to worry about, then. Forgive me?”
He leans closer, flutters his eyelashes at me, and purses his lips like he’s asking for a smooch. I can’t hold in my laugh as I shove him away from me. He chuckles and settles back against the couch before grabbing the remote and turning on the television.
I look back down at my phone and resume scrolling BingBang, looking for videos to tack or duo. My heart’s not in it, though, and my mind is a million miles away. Or, more like a hundred miles, actually.
Twila is from the San Diego area, which is only a couple of hours’ drive away from me.
She’s filmed videos near a few landmarks I recognize like the Coronado Bridge and the kissing sailor statue at Navy Pier, near the USS Midway.
But the majority of her videos that aren’t inside her house show a town that looks more like a suburb than San Diego proper, so I think she must live somewhere in the area known to locals as “North County.”
I close my eyes and breathe deep. Why am I obsessing over Twila Greene right now? I’m supposed to be working. But after our little message exchange this morning, if you can even call it that, I can’t stop thinking about her.
She grudgingly told me she was drunk on margaritas when she messaged me last night. And yes, I could read her grumpy tone in that single word. And honestly, that tracks. Tequila is the worst kind of instigator for doing things you know you shouldn’t. I know that from experience.
When I saw that she’d read my message this morning and hadn’t responded, I imagined her stressing over what to say that would keep me from calling her out publicly.
Of course, I don’t know for sure if that’s what she was doing, but I assumed it, and I felt compelled to put her at ease.
I’m not the kind of guy who likes to needlessly torture people with psychological warfare.
I’m a pleaser in every sense of the word.
A puppy dog.
A teddy bear.
And when I did assure her I would pretend the message never happened, she responded immediately and thanked me for not being a total douchebag. My words, not hers. But true, nonetheless.
The green dot next to her handle disappeared after that, telling me she’d closed the app, so I didn’t respond. It doesn’t matter. It’s over. She’ll probably never contact me directly, again.
So, why do I have a pit in my stomach at the thought?
I don’t know Twila, and she doesn’t know me.
We’ve never connected directly like that, and it’s never bothered me before.
It’s like her message unlocked something inside me I never expected.
Like finding out the influencer I’ve been indirectly interacting with on BingBang suddenly became a real person.
A woman with anxieties and fear who just needs reassurance that everything is going to be okay.
She’s not just a pretty persona on my phone’s screen anymore.
I’m intrigued. And I wonder if I can get her to talk to me again.
An idea forms, and I turn toward Stone. “Do we have any margarita mix in the house?”
“Bruh, it’s eleven a.m.”
I chuckle at the disgust in his voice. “I don’t need the tequila. Just the mix. It’s for an idea I have for a video.”
“Oh, okay. Yeah, I think there’s a bottle in the pantry.”
Perfect. My lips curve up into a Cheshire Cat grin. Let’s see if she can ignore this one.
Hopping up, I find an unopened bottle of margarita mix in the pantry, just where Stone said it would be. Setting it onto the counter, I leave the kitchen and skip up the stairs two at a time before knocking on Ritchie’s bedroom door.
“What’s up?” he asks when he pulls it open.
“Hey, you still have that tux you bought for the prom-themed party you went to last year?”
He found the jacket, pants, cummerbund, and bow tie at a thrift shop for a steal when some friends of his threw a “Flashback to Prom Night” party on New Year’s Eve. We’re about the same size, so I’m hoping he still has it and it will fit. Or fit well enough for what I have planned, at least.
“Yeah, it’s in my closet,” he says, opening the door wider and stepping aside so I can enter. “You going to the opera, or something?”
“BingBang video,” I say noncommittally as I sift through his closet.
Yes. Found it. And I have a white dress shirt that will work. This is going to be great.
“Thanks, man,” I say, hurrying out and into my room, closing the door behind me before he can ask any more questions.
I agreed to pay an extra fifty dollars per month toward the rent so I could score one of the two main bedrooms when we moved into this place, so I have a an en suite. Ritchie has the other, and the twins share the extra bathroom between their two rooms.
Stripping out of my t-shirt and shorts, I stride into my bathroom and stare at my reflection.
I turn my head from left to right to examine the thin layer of whiskers on my jaw.
I prefer this look to clean-shaven, and I just cleaned up the edges yesterday, so I don’t need to do anything to it.
Wetting my hands in the sink, I run them through my dark hair to dampen it before squirting some gel into one palm and rubbing it together with the other.
I run my hands through my hair again, taming it into a slick style that makes me look a bit like a scruffy-faced Clark Kent. Without the glasses, of course.
Heading back out into my bedroom, I dress in the tuxedo, then pop back into Ritchie’s room without knocking.
“Hey, man, can you tie this for me?”
He chuckles but doesn’t comment as he climbs off his bed and moves toward me. So, what? I don’t know how to tie a bowtie. Big deal. Most people don’t, right?
The tux I wore to my high school prom came with one of those pre-tied ones that just clips around your neck. And since I haven’t had any other occasion to wear this kind of formal getup, I’ve never needed to know how to learn.
It takes Ritchie a couple of tries to get it straight, then he steps back and looks me up and down. He hums critically, and I hold up my hands in question.
“Eh, I wore it better,” he says, and I turn to look at myself in his mirrored closet doors.
“No fucking way,” I say, striking a pose. “I make this look good. ”
Without waiting for a reply, I perform a slick one-eighty spin and swagger from the room.
Jogging down the stairs, I see Mason on the couch next to Stone, and they’re arguing about whether or not the female lead in the show they’re watching is hotter than some other actress, completely oblivious to my entrance.
Ignoring them, I head back into the kitchen and grab the blender from a cabinet and set it up on the counter before filling the pitcher with ice.
The noise I’m making alerts the twins to my presence, and Stone pauses the show before they both stand and come over to climb onto the stools on the opposite side of the long counter.
“What are you doing?” Mason asks, making a show of looking me up and down with raised eyebrows.
“He’s making a BingBang,” Stone offers as I pour the margarita mix over the ice.
“What kind of video are you duoing that requires a tuxedo and a margarita?” Mason asks. “Wouldn’t champagne be more appropriate?”
In answer, I stare at him as I turn on the blender. This thing is ancient, and it sounds like a racecar is revving its engine in our kitchen. Mason rolls his eyes, then slumps his shoulders until I’m done blending the virgin frozen concoction.
“So?” he asks when I don’t answer his question the second I stop the racket.
“Not a duo,” I say, breaking the eye contact as I spin to search for a margarita glass in the jumbled mess that is our drinkware cabinet.
“A tack, then?” he asks, and I shake my head with my back still to him.
I grunt with victory when I finally find what I’m looking for, and as I pull it out and spin back around, I find the twins staring at me with identical arched brows. My head falls back as I sigh toward the ceiling, then I lower my head to stare at them with my shoulders set.
Setting the glass on the counter, I pull my phone from my pocket and call Ritchie. When he answers, I tell him to get down here for a house meeting. I know him. If I tell the twins without him, he’ll get all butt-hurt and give me the silent treatment for days.
Yeah, Ritchie’s real mature like that.
Once he slides onto the stool next to Stone, I meet each of their eyes in turn as I say, “This stays right here between us, and is not to be repeated. Deal?”
I get three confused looks and three muttered agreements. I take a long breath and let it out slowly.
“Stone’s hijack of my splash duo with Twila Greene didn’t go unanswered.”
“What do you mean?” Stone asks, furrowing his brow.
“Twila got drunk last night and DM’d me.”
“She did?” Stone asks, his eyes wide.
“Oh, shit,” Mason adds.
“What did she say?” Ritchie asks, and I can’t stop the smile that splits my face.
“She said, and I quote, So glad the sight of me in a bikini made you wet, douchebag. ”
Mason lifts a fist to his mouth and chortles as the other two burst into roaring laughter. I laugh with them, pleased that they find Twila’s response as delightful as I did. When their laughter dies out, I cross my arms over my chest and grow serious.
“This stays here, remember? I knew she’d be freaking out, especially when I messaged her back to ask what all her adoring fans would think of her dirty, dirty mind.”
“What did she say to that?” Ritchie asks.
“Nothing. I took pity on her before she could form a response and told her I was just kidding. Then I told her it was all this guy,” I say, pausing to point a finger at Stone, “and that I wouldn’t be cruel and screenshot her message or anything like that.
In fact, I promised not to tell anyone if she’d admit what she’d been drinking last night when she sent that message. ”
All three of them dart their eyes toward the blender and simultaneously say, “Margaritas.”
“Yep.”
“So you’re making a video to fuck with her?” Mason asks.
“Sort of,” I say slowly, then bite my lip. “It’s more like an inside joke kind of thing.”
“I’ll help,” Stone says, holding out his hand for my phone.
“I think I got enough of your help yesterday,” I deadpan, then hand over my phone anyway.
“Best behavior. Scout’s honor,” he says, tapping in the security code to open my phone.
Yeah, the four of us don’t really have secrets, which is why I felt so bad lying to him about Twila earlier. And why I fessed up to all of them just now. I trust them, and I know they won’t do anything to betray that trust.
I turn on the blender again to mix the melting concoction once more, then I fill the glass with the green, slushy drink. I wish I had some flowers, or something, but fresh flowers aren’t exactly something four dudes keep around the house.
The frozen margarita and my most dashing smile will have to do.
We decide to set up in the living room. Stone holds the phone out, slightly lower than my eye line so it’s like I’m looking down at a woman a who’s a bit shorter than me.
Stone points at me as he starts filming, and the song “Secret Crush” by Abraham Harlowe starts playing.
My lips curve into a seductive smile as I dip my chin and tilt my head slightly, then I hold up the margarita glass as if toasting someone.
I think of Twila as I stare intently into the phone’s camera lens, then my tongue darts out to wet my lips before I scrape my teeth over the bottom one. Then I wink for good measure, and Stone stops the recording.
“Shit, I overdid it, didn’t I?” I ask, my shoulders dropping as Stone re-watches what he just filmed.
“No, dude,” he says, then hands the phone to Mason so he and Ritchie can watch it before he meets my gaze. “It was fucking perfect. No reshoot necessary.”
“Damn, I think I’m getting hard,” Ritchie jokes, then slaps a hand over his eyes to block out the sight of me.
“It’s good, man,” Mason says seriously, then hands the phone to me so I can watch it.
I nod slowly, agreeing with them, then add a caption that simply says “For her” without any hashtags before tapping the post icon.
I know it won’t do well. It’s not my niche, and past experience proves that skirting away from my usual stuff ends up with very few views and an eventual relegation to the “private” folder on the app.
But this isn’t for everyone. It’s for one person, and one person only.
Twila Greene.