Page 110 of While You Were Trending

We’re running out of space to host women who’ve gone viral and need an escape from the attention and negativity.

It would be lovely to be able to afford to put a couple tiny houses on the property so that we can expand and keep doing what our entire purpose is.

“So you’re keeping the mother-in-law cottage and Heath’s basement open for Declan and Shade?” I ask.

“For now.”

I glance at Mabel’s phone again, where a notification has popped up in the app thatFoxy Goes Thereis livestreaming.

My finger disobeys every order I give it to not reach out and click on the notification.

Mabel lifts a brow as Declan’s voice comes through her phone.

“—on the road headed somewhere exciting,” he’s saying as he walks through a parking lot. “Two things I can tell you about where I’m headed. One, this was my second-biggest dream when I was a kid, right after challenging Santa and his reindeer to a hockey game, and two, I expect I’ll blow a tire with what I’m attempting tomorrow. Gonna be messy.”

He grins at us through the app, hair blowing in a light breeze, dimples dimpling, stubble stubbling, then flashes the camera down to Flow, who grins as well.

She has swagger today.

“Think you’ll be helpful, Flow?” Declan asks the dog from off-screen.

Flow barks once.

Declan comes back into view, still walking, still happy and smiley and excited. “Yeah, I think she’ll be trouble too.”

Flow growls softly, and Declan laughs.

So lighthearted.

So comfortable letting the entire world watch him live.

So unaffected by kissing me yesterday.

I shiver and shut off the livestream.

Mabel’s still watching me. She never stopped.

“Not long after Alex asked me out, I was hanging out at the apartment he shared with Declan,” I tell her. “Alex had a sweet tooth but he wanted to eat healthy, so I’d found this recipe for high-protein cookies that I was baking for him. I was pulling the first batch out of the oven when Declan walked into the kitchen. I started to ask him if he wanted to try one too, and he just saidno, turned around, and walked away before I could finish the question.”

“Dick,” Mabel says.

I pull my knees to my chest and hug them. “He had this look on his face—like he knew that I was a phony, that I tried too hard, that I really was the obnoxious brat I played on TV—and at the time, I thought he was judging me. But now—now him and hisI liked youhas me wondering if he was making faces at himself and talking to himself when he saidno. Not to me.”

“You’re making excuses for him that you don’t have to make,” she says softly.

She doesn’t add the other part that lingers in my mind.

Like you make excuses for your mother.

I refuse to look her in the eye. “And then I go down this spiral ofdid he see the real me?, like they do in romance novels, you know? He keeps saying these things—you didn’t pick what your mother put you through, you deserved a parent not a publicist, give yourself credit for who you are despite what the world expects you to be—and it’s like, no one else has ever—ever—put so many of my thoughts into words.” I roll my eyes. “Outside of therapy sessions and things that we all say to each other around here.”

“What did he study in college?”

“Finance.”

“Not psychology?”

“No.”