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And just like that, we were back in our rhythm.
But that night, when I was finally alone in bed and the bus was rambling west again, I stared at the ceiling with one hand propped behind my head and remembered what I’d overheard Chris Acton saying that afternoon as I’d paced outside the interview room. I’d figured you’d end up working for your father’s campaign, he’d said. You seemed eager to get involved last summer, and you’re killing it on Instagram. I turned over and grabbed my phone from the side table to check Reagan’s social media profiles the way I’d meant to days ago.
I quickly logged in to my own barely used account and found his name on a quick search, then blinked, sure I was reading wrong.
One point four million subscribers? Seriously? How the hell had he gotten so many? Those were celebrity numbers.
As I scrolled through his feed, the answer became clear. The man was snarky and fun, relatable and kind—the very same attributes that made him so damn appealing when he was networking at these industry events—and, yes, I was sure his breath-stealing gorgeousness didn’t hurt either. Who wouldn’t want to find his perfect face and fit body in their feed every day?
I swiped back past photos of last night’s sunset at a truck stop outside Topeka, an earlier one of him in the kitchenette booth on the bus, and him in that damn feather mask and glorious tuxedo at the gala on New Year’s Eve. Never had a tuxedo cradled a man’s body with so much precision and flattering emphasis.
Scrolling further, I found with some surprise that the man had sponsors for some of his posts. Three different clothing brands had sent him things to wear in December alone, and if I hadn’t already known that he wasn’t responsible for the Nova situation, seeing these pictures would have confirmed it. Everything about his posts was professional, classy… and incredibly arousing.
My dick stirred between my legs, and I reached down idly to stroke it. One sponsored photo featured Reagan in a couture version of gray sweatpants with a matching hoodie. The outline of his dick was just noticeable in the play of light breaking through the wintry clouds and reflecting off the patchy snow in the park behind him.
A snowflake sat on the apple of his cheek as he grinned into the lens. Hashtags about winter in NYC, Central Park in the snow, and freezing his balls off littered the bottom of the caption. He was breathtaking.
Further back, there was a shot of him with friends in a sports bar watching a football game one afternoon and another the same night dressed for clubbing in the West Village. The man seemed to be a chameleon, able to fit into any group of people whether he wore team colors or skin-revealing mesh. He was the same way with his friends that he’d been on this trip—adaptable, inclusive, engaging, and social.
But how many of them actually knew him? How many of those people saw the vulnerable, tender heart beneath his attractive exterior?
Over the next hour, I went down rabbit hole after rabbit hole, smiling the entire time. It turned out Reagan had done a whole series of posts about Honeybridge. One showed the Welcome to Honeybridge sign and the dozens of smaller signs below that proclaimed it the home of the “Honeycutts: Ice Festival Heroes” and, bizarrely, “Wellbridges: Best Leaf Peepers.” Another was a collage of highly decorated window boxes, with a caption explaining the “rules” of the Honeybridge Box Day competition. A post about the Tavern and Meadery showed Flynn Honeycutt, strong arms folded over his chest, staring down the camera with fierce eyes, and JT Wellbridge, arm thrown over Flynn’s shoulders, grinning proudly down at him.
How do you want to make people feel? Reagan had asked the first time he and I had discussed social media, and I hadn’t understood it until now. Seeing the town like this was more effective than a loud, splashy tourism campaign ever could be at making people want to visit Honeybridge and see the place for themselves.
In my scrolling, I also found linked accounts for Reagan’s influential friends that I could see at a glance reflected Reagan’s organizational style and well-branded aesthetics. Was Reagan managing them, too?
The man didn’t just want a career in social media; he already had a thriving one. One that showed his talent, vision, and determination. And while I didn’t fully understand how much income that translated to, I knew it had to be a significant amount.
So why the hell did he work for me?
And why did Chris Acton assume that Reagan had planned to work for his father?
Trent Wellbridge was a moderately conservative state politician who’d made a name for himself through strategy and networking. We’d met at various parent events when our children were at school together, and I liked him well enough to consider him a friend—he was smart and sociable, an excellent host who shared my enjoyment of good scotch, an above-average golfer, and most of all, he respected my privacy—but I didn’t hold out high hopes for his campaign. From what I’d heard, he hadn’t gained much traction with voters because while he was passionate about winning, he wasn’t specific about anything he might do once he’d won. I couldn’t imagine why Reagan would want to help him get elected, unless it was out of a sense of family loyalty.
On a whim, I searched Instagram for Trent’s political account and nearly laughed out loud. It was almost as bad as PennCo Fiber’s account—or maybe worse since PennCo’s account simply lacked content while Trent’s account had plenty of content and zero appeal. Most of his posts were recaps of mainstream media coverage of Trent’s appearances and blasts of official press releases. There was absolutely nothing dynamic that illustrated who Trent Wellbridge was as a person or even as a resident of the state of Maine.
Chris Acton was right. Trent’s campaign needed someone like Reagan on his team.
Too bad. He’s mine. I took a deep breath and held it before repeating the silent words in my head. He’s mine.
It felt so damn right.
But he’d taken the job at PennCo for reasons that were important to him, even if I still didn’t totally understand them, and… the hell of it was, I didn’t want to fuck that up for him. I didn’t want to give him a chance to fuck it up, if he still wanted me the way I suspected he did.
I liked him. A lot. I genuinely wanted to get to know him better. To enjoy his company as a coworker and friend. To appreciate his imagination and talent for relationship marketing. To pick his brain, as an entrepreneur, and learn from him. To protect him. And if that meant locking my lust away, surely I could do that.
I blew out a breath and closed the app before tossing my phone on the bedside shelf and rubbing my face with my hands.
Respect him as a professional.
I fell asleep repeating the words like a Human Resources training video stuck on a loop.
And then I dreamed of a million filthy ways of making his body mine.
* * *
“Sugar,” Reagan said, handing me two packets over his shoulder as I scooted past him to the table. I took the packets and shook them before tearing them open and pouring them into the mug that was already waiting at my spot.
