Chapter 11
“I hate this idea,” I say to Aida over FaceTime as I get ready for the recording starting in half an hour.
“Thanks. I worked really hard on it.”
I drag my attention from my mirror as I finish applying mascara, giving her a disbelieving look.
“Really? It was your innovative and brilliant idea to recycle the worn-out trend of people reading mean comments about themselves? That’s the kind of forward thinking they pay you the big producer bucks for? ”
“This was Landry’s idea?” My scowl is so severe my wet lashes smear along the tops of my cheeks. “Award-winning journalist Landry Doughright is leading this derivative charge?”
“Technically, it came from Prince Nepo, but Landry replied to the email chain with endless praise. They think this will be a good way to generate more engagement. Encourage people to keep commenting if they think they can make it on one of your videos.”
As much as I’d prayed all of this attention would snuff out, it’s grown like a wildfire. I feel like I’m not far from choking on the smoke.
People have continued to make dramatic video edits of us from snippets of our recorded sessions, which is fine and expected, but still feels a bit weird to see the reality of what actually exists between me and Cooper warped into a false romantic narrative.
But those videos are nothing compared to how creeped out I was to find that pictures of us walking to get coffee and saying goodbye outside of the cafe had been added to the usual mix.
The invasion of privacy was instant and physical, like I could feel some watcher’s hot, sour breath on my skin as I lay in bed and zoomed in on the shots, not believing my eyes.
I’d called Cooper at two A.M. in a panic I disguised as anger.
“Hey, Kitten. I was just dreaming of you,” he’d said when he answered the phone, voice rough with sleep.
“A nightmare, I hope. Did you have something to do with these photos of us?”
There was a long pause, and I could hear the sheets rustling as Cooper repositioned himself in bed. For some reason, it had felt obscenely intimate, and I pulled the phone away from my heated cheek, putting it on speaker.
“What photos?” he’d asked, sounding slightly more awake.
Instead of answering, I texted him a slew of posts, a picture of us midstride in a crosswalk near his apartment as the thumbnail of one, his hand on my lower back as I’d walked into the cafe for another.
His breath caught, then turned deeper as he looked at the messages. “I didn’t know about these,” he said at last. “But I wouldn’t worry about it, Eva.”
“I shouldn’t worry about some creep on the street taking my picture without me knowing and then posting it on the internet?” I could tell he was trying to soothe me, but I refused to be soothed.
“They probably thought you were Florence Pugh and wanted to capture a celebrity sighting. Figure out who her sexy new boyfriend is.”
“You definitely have personal assistant vibes in that photo,” I said, the fist of worry in my gut loosening a bit despite my better judgment.
“A workplace romance? How scandalous,” Cooper teased, pulling a reluctant laugh from me. “I’m sure it was nothing, Kitten. Get some sleep.”
Bizarrely, I did as he said, but my sleep wasn’t at all restful.
The rough lilt of him saying romance and scandalous looped through my head in a heated soundtrack, images of his lips dragging up my stomach, between my thighs, hands cupping my ass and lifting me onto a desk playing in fragmented and feverish clips as I tossed and turned.
I haven’t slept well since.
“Rylie has to read mean comments too. It isn’t just you,” Aida says, knowing full well that won’t placate me.
“Isn’t the whole idea that I am the mean-comment generator and he reacts to what I say with nothing but charm and good humor?”
“We’re taking the opportunity of bullying to the masses,” Aida deadpans, clearly reading an email instead of focusing on my whining.
I frown, returning to the mirror and finishing my makeup. There’s a ticking in my gut, a tiny scrape of possessiveness that says I’m supposed to be the only one who teases Cooper; that random people in the comments don’t have a right to snarky remarks because they don’t know him like I do.
But that’s ridiculous.
I don’t actually know Rylie Cooper. Sure, the fucknut has been stuck in my head for weeks, and I can’t seem to have a thought without it relating to him, but that doesn’t mean I know him. I guess I just feel territorial about my right to antagonize him.
“Are they really bad?” I ask, trying to hide the trepidation in my voice.
Aida shrugs. “I don’t know, honestly. I haven’t seen them. William, or one of his interns more likely, grabbed them. They’ll auto-generate on the screen for shock value.”
“Oh, good. Can’t wait.”
“All right, let’s get on the call.” Aida ends our FaceTime without fanfare.
William requested a quick turnaround on this video to feed the ravenous algorithm, so we’re recording remotely on our computers…
Soundbites not wanting to pay a filming crew’s measly wages to record in person probably also has something to do with it.
I flick on my ring light and log in to the video call, trying to ignore the giddy swoop of my stomach when Cooper’s goofy grin is the first thing to greet me.
I haven’t seen him since our coffee last week, and it bothers me that I’m still caught off guard by his looks—the way his lips are perpetually curved in an almost grin, ready to laugh at a second’s notice, the deep creases around his eyes that are a shade lighter than the rest of his skin, like he’s spent every sunny season smiling and the humor is tattooed there.
No amount of exposure therapy seems to cure me.
And then there’s his fucking personality.
Cooper has worn away my resistance to contact with his absolutely ridiculous texts.
They come at random times a day—questions like in a jellyfish situation, would you rather pee on someone or be peed on?
Or do you think bees let out a lil moan when they do their thing on a flower?
Videos of puppy bellies being jiggled to a pop song’s beat, or a meme of a sleepy kitten dressed in a bonnet with photoshopped flames behind it and the text HOW DARE YOU LOOK AT ME WITH THAT TONE WHEN IM FEELING CRANKY AND SENSITIVE over the top, with the accompanying message: got the sense you were thinking of me 3 .
It made me furious that I had, in fact, been thinking of him. I made sure to tell him I hadn’t. To my surprise, I also found myself arguing for peeing on, accusing him of being a weird bee voyeur, and telling him about how our golden retriever was my best friend when I was growing up.
And Cooper always responded. Promptly too.
Seamlessly navigating us from the silly and trivial to coaxing out detailed answers about my day, what I was researching for my next Babble piece, what I thought about a book I was reading.
And in this bizarre alternate universe I find myself living in, I was genuinely asking him about his day in return. Hungry for the answers.
It’s all so different from how it originally was, and I keep waiting for him to go radio silent like he used to.
It takes me a beat to realize Cooper is waving his hand at me on the screen. I come back to myself with a shake, and his smile widens. “Oh, you are there. Thought your screen froze with you gazing longingly at me.”
I give him a blank look. “You know how in baby books and pre-K they show children flashcards and diagrams of people’s emotions? You must have gotten your wires crossed between abject disgust and mooning.”
“So now you’re saying you want to moon me?” Cooper’s eyes shoot wide, and he makes a show of looking over both shoulders. “I mean, it’s just us here so if you insist…”
Aida’s login stops me mid-curse, and I’m horrified to see William’s name join the screen. As if it isn’t bad enough I have to read mean comments for internet engagement, now I have to do it in front of an entitled rich boy with the personality of a wet wipe.
“Rylie, Eva,” he says by way of greeting.
I give a pathetic little wave, Cooper professing his love of William’s silky gray pocket square instead of hello.
“Good to see you too,” Aida says coolly, not taking well to being ignored. William’s eyes slit to her in the barest degree of acknowledgment.
“Just a quick run of show,” he says, glancing at a printout in front of him.
“This should be fairly straightforward—all we need is for you each to read some preselected comments and give us a clip-worthy reaction. We’ll be recording both of you during the readings so make sure to react to each other’s as well. ”
I raise my hand like a shy kid in class, and William looks at me like he can smell my timidity through the screen and it’s foul. “Can we see these comments before we start? Kind of, um, gear up for the tone?”
“No. We want this to be as authentic as possible.”
My gaze slides to Aida, alarm bells going off in my head, but she has her professional mask on.
“Right. Yeah. Of course.” I kick myself for being so soft and nervous. This is a job, my job. They aren’t going to set me up for something that makes me look stupid… at least, not any stupider than shoving hot dogs down my throat.
William goes through a few more boring production details and editing plans, then leans back in his chair, the subtlest uptick at the corners of his mouth like an emperor about to watch a match at the Colosseum, raising the hairs on the back of my neck.
“Sounds like I’ll probably cry. Can’t wait,” Cooper says, meeting my eyes and giving me a reassuring smile. I relax a fraction. If I’m going down, I’ll be dragging him with me, that’s for sure.
The countdown begins, and I quickly adjust my top, dragging my fingers at the edges of my lipstick before stilling my fidgeting. Aida gives us the signal to start, and we volley smoothly through introductions while a gnarl of suspense grows in my stomach.