Chapter 2
Autumn
“You must’ve been super busy the last few days!” Hanna, my sister’s wedding planner, says, escorting me into her office and offering me the seat across from her. “You didn’t post at all!”
I wince. I can’t help it. It—
It hits home.
People talk about writer’s block all the time. I didn’t realize you could get influencer’s block, too.
But I have it. I have a bad freakin’ case of it. I haven’t posted in five days, which might not sound like much to the average bear but for me is an eternity.
I should have loads of content.
After all, I’m a happiness influencer.
And what’s better material for a happiness influencer than an impending wedding? The wedding of the little sister whose happiness means more to you than your own?
Especially when the planning’s all done and you’re coasting into the fun part: a week of being with your sister, her fiancée, and their friends for destination-wedding festivities.
This wedding is the dream material for a happiness influencer. There is no reason I shouldn’t be brimming with cute posts and uplifting thoughts and happiness.
No reason that I want to think about anyway.
But my sister’s wedding planner doesn’t need to know about my woes.
To cover the too-long silence, I wave a hand and launch into Happy Bridesmaid Mode.
“I left way too much stuff for the last minute, and it was definitely one of those Murphy’s law things.
The ribbon rolls for the favors looked about six times as big as they actually were, and the store was out of that pattern, and I had to drive four hours to get more, and then I picked up the dress and realized there was literally no way I was getting it here unless I bought a seat for it, so I bought a seat—”
And then I sat and stared at Canva for, like, three hours without stringing together a single coherent thought, and then I went to bed, and then I did the same thing the next morning…
“—and honestly, it was the best thing I’ve ever done, because I met basically everyone on the plane and made a lot of new friends,” I conclude.
“Pretty much no one had ever seen someone book a seat for a wedding dress. It was the best conversation-starter. People kept telling me their funny wedding stories. And the best part was dinner in the Denver airport during the layover, when the dress was in the seat opposite mine, and people kept giving me looks, so I started talking to it, just to make it interesting.”
Not interesting enough to post about, though—or at least when I tried, it was like my brain was stuck.
“I love that,” Hanna says. “What were you talking about?”
“I was pretending we were on our honeymoon and we were arguing about whether we should spend all day by the pool or do a lot of outdoor activities.”
“I’m Team Outdoor Activities,” Hanna says.
“I’m Team Pool,” I admit. “But I respect the outdoors. It has its place. On the other side of the wall from me.”
Hanna swallows a giggle. “Well,” she says, “you seem like a pretty great sister. I don’t have any of my own, but I would definitely give extra credit to one who flew my wedding dress as her companion.”
“Don’t tell her,” I say. “I don’t want her to know how close the dress came to not making it.” I don’t want her to have any stress at all.
“Lips are sealed,” Hanna says. She looks down at her watch—my dad and his girlfriend are now about ten minutes late—but before either of us can comment on that, there’s a knock on the doorframe and my dad swings around the corner, followed by his girlfriend, Nessa.
I get up and hug them both—my dad five six, round faced, jowly, still giving off the Boston-cop vibes of his first career; Nessa an inch taller and slimmer, elegant in a bright-colored maxi dress.
She’s his age—sixty-one—a badass Somali woman who worked her way up from a childhood in a refugee camp in Maine to the successful boutique owner she is now.
They hug me back, fiercely, and then my dad holds me at arm’s length, gives me a stern look, and says, “Why didn’t you tell me about How to Be Miserable? ”
And oh, shit. It had crossed my mind that the algorithm might have dished up the parody account to him, but I’d dismissed it as a slim possibility—and too much of a nightmare to contemplate.
My platform is How to Be Happy, and I use my accounts and influence to try to make the world a better, more positive place.
About a month ago, an account popped up called How to Be Miserable, whose sole purpose for existing seems to be mocking my content.
On my accounts, I post advice about how to be calmer, happier, and more connected.
On How to Be Miserable, someone is posting advice about how to be more miserable.
Me: a photo of a mostly empty white desk with a lit candle, a small cup of pens, and a vase with a rose in it, with the caption Keep your workspace uncluttered except for a few items that calm or inspire you.
Less than twenty-four hours later, How to Be Miserable: a photo of a desk littered with crumpled paper, snack wrappers, and half-empty drinks, with the caption Let’s face it—you’re never going to get anything done anyway.
And that’s not even the creepy part.
My father crosses his arms over his chest. He gives me a look stuck somewhere between a glare and a plea. And he waits, patiently.
Why is that even when you’re fully grown, well out of college, financially independent and slightly famous, your dad can still make you feel like a six-year-old?
I challenge anyone raised by humans to resist the Disappointed Dad look.
“It’s really not a big deal…”
“It’s a big deal, Autumn,” he says. “You have a stalker. This has always been my fear with this whole influencing thing.”
Hanna lets out a startled noise.
“It’s not a stalker,” I say. “It’s just, you know, like a parody.”
But even as I say it, an icy lump forms in my stomach. I’ve been telling myself it’s just goofing around, but some of the images have been a bit…hardcore.
“What about the cheese platter?” my father demands, and Nessa nods.
I shiver internally, remembering.
“It’s not a parody when you post a cheese platter and he reposts your photo with a bloody cheese knife slashing across the brie. That’s a threat.”
“I think it was jam,” I hazard. That’s what I’ve been telling myself anyway.
“I’m a psychological profiler, Autumn, and I know when someone is preparing to escalate. Have you gotten any messages or emails? Anything suspicious in the mail? Have you seen anyone lurking around?”
“No,” I say, all of which is true. So far, everything has been harmless—if unsettling.
“This person, whoever they are, has a dark mind. I believe they could be capable of…more.”
My dad’s as gentle as they come, too much of a softie to kill a spider on his own pillow, but decades of psych profiling have definitely given him a grim view of human nature.
The cheese knife in the brie had briefly freaked me out. It looked so…vicious. But that was the whole point of the parody, right? Taking something pretty and making it ugly.
“You’ve reported it to the police, right?” Both his eyebrows rise to near where his hairline used to be when I was a kid. It’s a little farther back now, but I don’t think you’d quite call him balding.
I shake my head. “There’s nothing to report.”
“Yet. He posted a dead bird,” my dad says. “One of the early signs of sociopathy is when kids hurt animals.”
“He didn’t kill the bird, Dad. He just posted it.” Or so I told myself.
“You don’t know that, kitten. He might have—”
“Carl,” Nessa says gently, and my dad subsides.
My dad turns to Hanna. “What level of security are you providing for the wedding?”
Her face pales. “When the couple and their guests aren’t celebrities and there’s no known threat—” she begins.
“There’s an implied threat,” he says. “This situation should worry you, too. This adds an element of unpredictability to this wedding, and God knows we’ve had enough of that already.”
I wince. Hanna’s been a goddess through the whole planning process, even when things have gone off the rails, which they have a few times.
Weird stuff that no one could have predicted, like the photographer canceling out of the blue because he’d suddenly realized that that was the only weekend he could get tee time in at Bandon Dunes.
After the third time something like that happened, my dad asked me if I thought we should defect to a different wedding venue, like Five Rivers Weddings, which had slid into my DMs after the first time I’d posted that Summer was getting married in Rush Creek.
We’d chosen Hott Springs Eternal, Hanna’s company, over Five Rivers, but when things started going belly-up, my dad began second-guessing the decision.
Hanna’s been scrambling to fix everything so my dad doesn’t bail.
“I’m so sorry about those earlier problems,” Hanna says. “And of course you know I’ll do whatever I can to keep anything like that from happening going forward.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know of someone locally who has private-security experience, would you? I think we need to bring someone in for this week.”
“Dad!”
“Please, kitten,” he says. “It’s not a big deal. Anyone we bring in will be so discreet, you’ll barely know they’re there.”
“I’ll know they’re there!”
I cast a semi-desperate look in Nessa’s direction. Nessa and my dad have been together two and a half years, and I suspect my dad will propose to her once Summer’s wedding is in the rearview. I adore her…but I can also tell she’s not going to be taking my side this time.
She scrunches her nose, as if to shore up this point, and says, “He might have a point, huuno. You’ve posted that your sister is getting married at Hott Springs Eternal. You’ll be posting while you’re here—maybe it’s a good idea to err on the side of caution. If your dad is wrong, no harm done.”
I’ll be posting if I can break out of whatever this weird…block is. But I don’t say that out loud. It doesn’t seem relevant.
What is relevant is the worry creasing Nessa’s face. Nessa is the voice of reason, and if she’s not going to talk my dad out of this idea, then…well, no one is.
The last thing I want right now is for anyone remotely associated with this wedding to be freaked out—especially about something connected to me and my work. I don’t want to be a distraction from my sister’s joy.
“Just do this for me,” my dad pleads. “And for Summer. What if someone shows up and tries to disrupt the wedding?”
And damn it, it’s like he knows exactly what to say to crack me. I bite my lip and say, “Hanna? Thoughts?”
She gives me the most apologetic look you can imagine, but we both know who the client is in this situation.
“My brother used to be in private security.” Her eyes move back and forth between my dad’s face and mine.
“He knows a lot of people who still are. And he…er…owes me a bit of a favor. I bet he could find someone for you. I’ll ask him.
Let Hott Springs Eternal take care of this.
None of you needs to have this on your mind while you’re trying to make this day special for Summer. ”
“That’s the thing,” I say. “I don’t want this to impact Summer at all.
And I don’t see how it wouldn’t if there’s some…
bodyguard…lurking around the wedding, hanging over my shoulder.
This is Summer’s big day. Big week. She’s been looking forward to this for eons.
And you know she’ll get super stressed out if she thinks I’m in danger—which I’m not,” I add sternly to my dad.
“Who’s the expert on criminal minds?” he asks.
“Tell me that years of psych profiling haven’t warped your view of humanity.”
But I know I’m not going to talk my dad out of this. I know he worries, and as much as I want everything to be perfect for Summer this week, I want everything to be perfect for him, too. And sometimes perfect for everyone else can’t also be perfect for me.
So I go for damage containment.
“I don’t want anyone’s attention on me instead of on her,” I say. “This has to be so unbelievably discreet.”
“Absolutely,” Hanna says. “As discreet as they come. Tucker’s friends are good at their work. Incredibly discreet.”
“That would be amazing,” my dad says, his face lighting up
“Not just discreet,” I say firmly. “Invisible. I don’t want Summer to be thinking about this when she’s supposed to be starting her happily-ever-after. I don’t want her worrying about me, and I don’t want anyone’s attention on me instead of on her.”
“We can absolutely make sure that doesn’t happen,” Hanna says.
I rub my hands over my face. “No big muscly guys hovering around making everything awkward. I want some five-foot-four woman in a cute dress who can pretend to be a long-lost cousin but dispatch someone with the edge of her palm behind her back without anyone noticing.”
Nessa snorts.
Hanna is scribbling notes on a piece of paper. It’s weirdly reassuring. I know she could be pretending to take me seriously…but somehow I don’t think she is.
She looks up at me. “I’m gonna make that happen for you.”