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“Blaire!” he said, scooping me up and twirling me around in a circle when he saw me.
I laughed and stepped out of his embrace. “Hello, apparent fiancé.”
He chuckled and winked. “What can I say? I move very fast. So fast in fact that I made a beautiful rooftop dinner for us without even being present.”
“Shut up.” I smacked his arm.
“We are so using this footage,” Honey said.
I hadn’t even realized that she had her phone up. “Oh my God, did you capture our hug?”
“Yessss. We should absolutely set this to music. Your fans will eat it up.”
Nate arched an eyebrow at me. “And how would the new beau feel about that?”
“Don’t be an ass, King.”
He winked at me again. “Just seeing if I still have a chance.”
“You’re ridiculous.” I snorted and strode away from him to watch the footage on Honey’s phone.
When Honey played it back in slow motion, it looked like one of those old movies where the soldier came back from war. She was right that we should post this. But Nate wasn’t wrong that Campbell probably wouldn’t like it. He’d been cool about Nate showing up again after our talk about it just being business. And Campbell was supposed to be here at the end of filming to meet him. Maybe that would help.
“All right,” I said, “let’s get started.”
A few hours later, we had the ten planned videos and who even knew how many additional videos we’d managed to get. When Nate and I got together, ideas just spilled from a fount. Whatever we started with, we almost always doubled because we couldn’t stop from coming up with more and more. There was a reason we’d both increased our audience since working together.
Not that anything had done for my audience what one video with Campbell did. I’d never seen numbers like that. And I’d never see them again. Well, not unless we went very public with our relationship. Something neither of us was keen on doing. Not to something this new and special. I wasn’t even ready for my assistant to be in the know. I couldn’t imagine the rest of the world.
“That was a great day,” Nate said.
“It really was. I feel so accomplished.”
He leaned back against his yellow Jeep Wrangler Rubicon that he’d driven up from Midland. “So, are you going to tell me what’s up?”
I shrugged. “Sorry about the video. Honey posted it without my knowledge, and then I didn’t know that everyone would think you were proposing.”
“Yeah, I don’t care about that.” He laughed and pushed up the sleeves of his white button-up. “It was kind of fun.”
“Shit stirrer.”
He pinched my arm playfully. “So, I’m guessing that was Campbell?”
I bit my lip and nodded.
“Are you two an item? How did that even happen?”
“Would you believe me if I said that I got mobbed?”
His eyes rounded. “What?”
“Yeah, on the Fourth of July, right after the ‘I See the Real You’ challenge video.”
“That video fucking blew up. But seriously, mobbed? Are you okay?”
I nodded. “I’m kind of claustrophobic. So, some of it was just that. I got away and ran, but all my friends were at the fireworks already, and no one was answering. So, I called Campbell.”
“Ah,” he said with a knowing smirk.
“So, it kind of happened like that.”
“Well, lately, I’ve had some crazy-ass shit happen to me, too.” He raised his eyebrows. “Involving you, actually.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. There was this girl who kept messaging me. I thought she was hitting on me at first, but then I think she was snooping for information on you. She wanted me to confirm whether or not we were dating.” He shrugged. “It was bizarre. I wonder if it was like how you got mobbed.”
“Yeah. Campbell Soup girls.”
Nate blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Uh…that’s what Campbell’s fans are called.”
“That’s a terrible name.”
“Tell me about it.”
We both burst into laughter. It was nice and comfortable. I’d been a little worried that there would be some lingering…thing here with me and Nate. But it just wasn’t there. We looked great on camera. We were entirely authentic because we enjoyed each other’s company. But there wasn’t anything else there.
“So, what now?” he asked. “When’s he leaving?”
“I’m not sure. He has to go back to LA in, like, two weeks.”
Nate crossed his arms over his chest. “And you’re going to, what? Go with him?”
“I haven’t gotten that far.”
He sighed. “Can I say that I’m worried about you without you getting mad or thinking I’m coming on to you?”
“You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Just be careful, B.” He shot me a mournful look. “He’s a rockstar, you know?”
“I can handle myself.”
“Yeah, but you’ve only known him for a few weeks. This, here in Lubbock, isn’t real.”
I flinched at those words. Because everything felt damn real to me. I knew he was going back to LA, but it didn’t feel like it had last time.
