“Yeah, me neither. Wouldn’t that just backfire on us?”
“Possibly, if we don’t handle it right. Let’s just hold off on them for now and check out the rest.” Jessie brought up another photo on the screen. “These two seem great. Very little on social, but I did find that one of them reviewed Kennedy’s last movie on a blog and loved the performance, but didn’t rave about it, so a fan, but not someone who thinks you hang the moon and would be a risk. One is an accountant. The other is a vet. Seem pretty solid. Married for three years.”
“Jessie?”
“Yeah?”
“Are there any non-hetero, non-accountant couples in the mix?” Kennedy asked.
“Two. Why?”
“Because we’re two gay women with massive platforms. I’m not saying we can’t pick one of these couples, but I’d like us to at least entertain the idea of picking a queer couple, if we can.”
“She’s right,” Cameron agreed.
“Okay. Well, I can skip ahead, if you want,” Jessie replied, and a picture of two guys appeared on the screen. “This is Stephen and Ted. They’ve been together for fourteen years. Married for six. They have a dog and twin girls, whom they adopted three years ago. Everything about them seems solid to both Zane and me. They donate to charity, have a decent-sized social following because they have a blog on being gay dads that they started when they got their twins, and seem to be all-around good guys.”
“They’re on the list of possibilities, then,” she said.
“Agreed,” Kennedy added.
Then, Kennedy’s head moved to Cameron’s shoulder, causing her to freeze at the unexpected touch because they hadn’t even donethisin months. Cameron smiled a little and felt like maybe this raffle thing had been a good idea after all.
“Okay. This is River and Lacey.”
Cameron looked back at the screen and saw two women. One of them had long red hair, which she had lying over one shoulder in a braid, and big brown eyes. The woman next to her was a brunette with shorter hair and blue eyes. She had her arm around the redhead, and she looked a little more on the butch side. They both looked like they could star in a movie with her and Kennedy any day of the week, but something was drawing Cameron’s attention to the redhead. She swallowed and felt Kennedy’s head lift off her shoulder.
“Them,” Kennedy said.
“River and Lacey? Because they’re two women?” Jessie asked.
“Tell me more about them.”
“Lacey is a massage therapist. She works for herself, I guess; drags her table and whatnot to clients’ houses. She’s on social media mainly to repost stuff, but nothing controversial. The best part for me is this, though: River here.” Jessie pointed to the brunette. “She runs one of those old-timey candy shops. It’s really cute. I checked out the site, and she’s a co-owner with a friend, according to their story. Anyway, she’s got a cool vibe going. She really only posts online about the shop but has a decent following because of it.”
Lacey, Cameron thought to herself. It was a pretty name that matched a pretty woman.
“River?” Kennedy said.
“Yeah.”
“Pretty name,” Kennedy noted.
Cameron looked over at her girlfriend, who was staring at the picture of River and Lacey.
“They’re the right look, don’t seem to have any skeletons in their closets that could come back to bite us, and they are both out as evidenced by their socials. The only thing that I think might not work for us is that they’re not married or anything.They’ve only been together for about a year and a half, so there’s probably not a lot to mine there conversationally. Some of the other couples have been together for years. Most are married and have kids, or like the two guys, a blog that you can capitalize on to help promote or, at least, make conversation over.”
“You don’t think these two can make conversation?” Cameron asked.
“I don’t know if they can. I’m just saying that there might be more to do with the other couples.”
“Cam?” Kennedy asked her.
“I’m good with either the guys or these two,” she said, not wanting to make it obvious that she’d much rather spend a weekend with Lacey and River.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. In her entire relationship with Kennedy, she had never once looked at a woman and thought about anything other than friendship. She’d always been a one-person person. But after months and months of no affection between her and the woman she was supposed to be with forever, Cameron’s mind was wandering and thinking about how she wanted to meet Lacey in person and, preferably,alonebecause she was single, and Lacey was also single. It was wrong, so she quickly pushed it out of her mind.
“I’m good with these two. They’re not, like, crazy fans though, right?” Kennedy asked.
