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I was done.
I pushed back in my chair, and just as I passed where Laura was standing on my way to the door, she said, “Where are you going?”
“Out.”
“You can’t leave, Grayson. We’re doing a photo shoot that you’re starring in.”
I stopped walking and faced her. “I’m doing what?”
She was holding a tablet and aimed the screen at me. “If you’d read my email, you would know what I’m talking about.” She pushed her red glasses to the highest point on her nose. “Going forward, please take the time to look at everything I send you. I don’t write those emails for my benefit. I write them for yours.”
I grabbed the tablet from her, flipping through mock-ups of cartoonlike figures of a male and female, posing in different areas of what I assumed was my office. There was copy written above each image, along with text conversations that were identical to the internal workings of our app. “Are these ads?”
“Yes.”
“What are you going to do with them?”
She crossed her arms while another self-satisfied look moved over her face. “Since your dual post with Jovana went live, the marriage arm has regained over six percent of its loss. Just like I knew would happen.” She grinned even harder. “We want to see if we can increase the results more rapidly if we start a marketing campaign that focuses on how Hooked helped you two find each other. The campaign won’t launch for another month, after the two of you are engaged.” She took out her phone and spoke directly into the speaker: “Remind Jovana to keep her left hand in a position where it’ll be easy for us to digitally wrap a diamond around her finger. We debated about using a mock ring, but we decided to go the digital route so when you do propose, it’ll match the one you give her, which I understand you haven’t purchased yet.”
I clenched my fingers together as I processed what she’d said to me.
An ad campaign, which I assumed would run internationally to capture our full demographic.
With my face plastered across all forms of digital media.
That would bring more attention to me.
More comments.
And now everywhere I looked online, I’d see not only Jovana but the two of us together.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” I barked.
She pulled the tablet from my hand, like she thought I was about to throw it. “I’m telling you, when I initially saw her in the bar, I knew she had the perfect presence for what I was looking for, but I didn’t anticipate her being an influencer and having the reach that she does.” She set her bag on the chair in front of her, as if letting me know she had no intention of leaving before our two hours were up. “Grayson, the response you received from that dual post was immense, along with the additional posts Jovana has made since then.”
She tapped the screen of the tablet several times before pointing it in my direction. She was on Jovana’s Instagram account, showing me the picture that Jovana had shared of us at a Mexican restaurant, where there were glasses in our hands, and us toasting. The caption read: spicier than a jalapeño margarita.
Laura scrolled through the responses. “Look at the comments.”
There were thousands.
I already knew what the majority said because I’d spent enough time checking out her fucking account.
“And this one,” she said, moving on to the next photo that Jovana had posted of us, which was against a brick building on Newbury Street, showing us in an intimate embrace. We’d been walking back to my place after eating at a seafood restaurant when Jovana suggested we take a photo. My lips were on her cheek and her eyes were closed. She’d aimed the camera high, capturing the tops of our heads and her full expression with the caption: In my I-can’t-stop-smiling era. “Grayson,” Laura said softly, “as one of the few people who knows the truth about you two, I have to say, I’m blown away by what I’m seeing. The both of you couldn’t look happier or more in love. And that connection grows stronger in each shot, like in this one.”
She was on the most recent photograph Jovana had posted a few days ago. This one hadn’t been staged. I was shirtless, cooking eggs and bacon at the gas range in my kitchen. Just a few moments before, I’d asked her how she liked her yolks when she came up behind me, wrapping her arms around my stomach, whispering, “Don’t worry, I’m not cuddling. I’m just thanking you for making me breakfast,” and then her arms were gone, and she released me.
What I hadn’t realized was that she’d put her phone on a tripod and set the timer to capture the scene.
The photo showed my head turned to the side as I looked down at her, the angle emphasizing my profile, a smile lifting from the corner of my lip with the caption: When he makes you breakfast.
Rather than using a heart emoji, which had become one of her signature endings whenever she posted about us, she used the smiley face with the three red hearts spaced around it.
“So you see,” Laura said, pulling the tablet back, “you two are quickly becoming the hot couple. And we’d be stupid not to use that to our advantage.” She waved her hand over the air, drawing an invisible arch. “That’s why we’ve entered the capitalization stage and why we’re going to launch these ads as soon as you put a ring on her finger. The public is already going nuts for you two. Can you imagine the explosion that’s going to happen then?”
Why the fuck was I smiling in that photo of her arms around me?
Why was I gazing down at her like she made me the happiest man alive?
