Page 15 of Well, Actually
I shudder the thought away. Despite my evidence damning his capabilities, I’ve never been able to shake my sharp attraction to him, but I’d rather chew on rusty nails than let those traitorous, horny thoughts win. I search his face as I scour through his statement. His tone is sarcastic, but I’m having trouble spotting the lie. It’s pretty hard to have a conversation nowadays without an undercurrent of irony anyway.
“Well,” I say with a sour tinge to my voice, “as long as we have a firmly established power dynamic, fine. But I refuse to enjoy myself.”
“I’ll make you eat those words.” There’s a sinful promise in his look that has heat rushing through me.
“Let’s make one thing clear,” I say, face twisting as I go toe to toe with him. We’re about the same height, and I offer a silent thanks to whatever entity made it so I don’t have to look up at him. “Under no circumstances will I be taking your Mini Cooper for a joy ride.” I give his chest a rough poke in emphasis.
He tilts his head, feigning innocence. “I drive a PT Cruiser. I’ll pick you up in it for our first date.”
“Oh mygod. This literally could not get more embarrassing for me.” I poke him one more time, then step away. He rubs his palm against his sternum like he’s trying to embed my touch there. Or erase it.
For his sake, it’d better be the latter.
I feel Aida and William’s eyes on me, and I know I have a lot to sort out if I’m going to use this shitshow as career advancement.
“Don’t contact me, I’ll contact you,” I say over my shoulder in goodbye, striding away from him.
“Lovely catching up,” he calls.
I flip him off without looking, and I hate the way his resulting laugh echoes through me.
Chapter 5
Hell exists on Earth, and it has laid its foundation in my phone.
I’ve always taken a disgraceful amount of pride in keeping my home screen organized and notifications in check. Pictures are delegated into concise folders, apps categorized to perfection, texts promptly answered.
But since the live stream yesterday, my phone has become an endless, buzzing beast lobbing calls and texts and tags and emails at me, every app glowing with a red circle of notifications in the upper-right corner.
The internet, apparently, is really fucking excited to see the worst thing to ever happen to me play out publicly.
A frenzy has erupted on social media, and I can no longer keep up with the tags. I’ve spent the entire day rotting in my bed as I refresh apps and watch the view count tick up, up,up. People are fixated on chopping up our interview, making video edits of Cooper sayingStop being so charming or I might fall in love with youover trending songs, screenshots of stolen glances flashing after like watching some stupid-ass love montage in a movie. I’m horrified that so many managed to catch a smile I did not mean to offer, always flashing to Cooper’s own dimpled grin.
Cooper is feeding the fire and my personal rage by liking so many of these videos. I glare at my screen as I scroll through the comments on one of the latest:
They’re definitely gonna fuck
Reply: are you delulu? They already fucking
Reply: please let it also be live streamed
I’d be on my knees for this man idgaf
Reply: same
Reply: same
Reply: god SAME
I love that she looks like she’s gonna strangle him and he’s just like
Reply: The best way for her to suffocate him would be to sit on that pretty face… just sayin
That last comment goes off like a flashbulb in my mind, jolting through my nervous system as if it’s a memory and not a suggestion.
The problem is, the way he looks at me in those edits, I could actually believe some of this is genuine. Or, at least, that he genuinely wants to fuck me. And some addled part of my brain is fixating on that, dulling the hard-won souvenir ofwhat being with Cooper is like with a sparkling, heated image of what it could be.
If he didn’t suck so much on a cellular level. Obviously.
