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4pm? I’m coming from a much needed haircut. The Wrights hooked me up with their hairdresser, Lisa. Work for you?
No backing out now. Not unless she decided to change her mind.
From: [email protected]
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Subject: Re: Meet up
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4 it is.
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Oh, and while you’re here…do you think we could do the I See the Real You challenge? It wouldn’t take long to film. My followers keep asking me to do it, and I think it would be a big surprise.
A big surprise.
Fuck me. Just seeing that she’d written that was a huge fucking surprise. She hated that song. People must have really been hounding her to do that fucking challenge if she was desperate enough to ask me to be in the video.
But shouldn’t she be doing it with Nate?
I might or might not have stalked her videos and seen that he’d come into town to see her. She’d posted a few videos of them walking around downtown Lubbock, dancing like they were in some high school musical number. They were charismatic. If the effect wasn’t a bit cheesy. Or maybe I just didn’t like the part where she’d put her hand in his and smiled at him like they were a hundred percent an item.
But she was asking me to do this one. Not him.
Which had to count for something, right?
After all, it was her song. I’d written it for her. It only made sense for us to do it together. Except for the fact that I’d spent the e years since the song released protecting her identity. If I showed up in a video with her, there was bound to be speculation.
She must have already done that math and decided it was worth it. And if she thought it was, then who was I to deny her? It was Blaire. I couldn’t say no anyway.
From: [email protected]
* * *
Subject: Re: Meet up
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Yeah, I’ll do the challenge. Need me to bring anything for it?
Fuck. It was happening.
From: [email protected]
* * *
Subject: Re: Meet up
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Great! Just you and your guitar. On second thought, your leather jacket too.
Well, this was going to be interesting.
9
Blaire
Afternoon light streamed in through the living room windows. I yawned from my perch on the couch as Honey went through the list of videos we needed to record for the rest of the month. I had my main videos for most of next month already planned out, but there was always room in my schedule for new trends and responses to questions in my videos. Sometimes, it was easier to video-respond to personal questions than to try to type it out.
It was really what I was most comfortable with anyway. My following had grown so much from trends and that sort of thing, but Blaire Blush was my baby. It was the place I’d invented for other women to feel safe to discuss their issues and to show that our bodies were normal just how they were. Stretch marks, hip dips, skin folds, skin textures, and more. All of those things that the media Photoshopped away, I tried to bring awareness to their normality.
Women were beautiful in every form and were always a cause for celebration.
I made sure that enough of my videos showed who I was without the glitz and glamour of makeup and Photoshop and editing. Sometimes, those things were fun. But not at the expense of a woman’s heart.
“I can’t do another one today, Honey,” I told her. “I am wiped.”
“All right. No problem. I have a full list here.” She glanced at the Apple watch on her wrist. “It’s almost four o’clock anyway.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Four o’clock. That was when I clocked out for the day. Metaphorically.
My job was twenty-four/seven, but I had some boundaries. And four was usually my time to send Honey home, stop looking at social media, and try to be present in the real world. If it wasn’t the summer, I’d go for a run outside. But it was currently a hundred degrees outside, so no, thanks.
A knock on the door jolted me from my thoughts of finally relaxing. Honey’s leg bounced energetically from her spot at the table.
“Want me to get that?” she asked.
I groaned. “No. I got it.”
I came to my feet, pushed my bangs out of my face, and headed to the door. I yanked it open, prepared to see a package had been delivered.
But in the doorway stood Campbell Abbey.
My heart lodged in my throat at the sight of him. He’d cut his hair since the last time I’d seen him. It was still long on the top but shaved closer on the sides. His eyes were the light blue of the Caribbean Sea, and his jaw had been chiseled from marble. And I should have hated the same ripped black jeans he always wore and the distressed black T-shirt, but it all paled to how he looked in a leather jacket with his goddamn guitar at his side. It was the Campbell Abbey I’d fallen head over heels for in high school. Almost a vision of the past. As if no time at all had passed between us.
