Page 42 of Well, Actually
Bizarrely, I did as he said, but my sleep wasn’t at all restful. The rough lilt of him sayingromanceandscandalouslooped through my head in a heated soundtrack, images of his lips dragging up my stomach, between my thighs, hands cupping my ass and lifting me onto a desk playing in fragmented and feverish clips as I tossed and turned.
I haven’t slept well since.
“Rylie has to read mean comments too. It isn’t just you,” Aida says, knowing full well that won’t placate me.
“Isn’t the whole idea thatIam the mean-comment generator and he reacts to what I say with nothing but charm and good humor?”
“We’re taking the opportunity of bullying to the masses,” Aida deadpans, clearly reading an email instead of focusing on my whining.
I frown, returning to the mirror and finishing my makeup. There’s a ticking in my gut, a tiny scrape of possessiveness that says I’m supposed to be the only one who teases Cooper; that random people in the comments don’t have a right to snarky remarks because they don’t know him like I do.
But that’s ridiculous.
I don’tactuallyknow Rylie Cooper. Sure, the fucknut has been stuck in my head for weeks, and I can’t seem to have a thought without it relating to him, but that doesn’t mean Iknowhim. I guess I just feel territorial about my right to antagonize him.
“Are they really bad?” I ask, trying to hide the trepidation in my voice.
Aida shrugs. “I don’t know, honestly. I haven’t seen them. William, or one of his interns more likely, grabbed them. They’ll auto-generate on the screen for shock value.”
“Oh, good. Can’t wait.”
“All right, let’s get on the call.” Aida ends our FaceTime without fanfare. William requested a quick turnaround on this video to feed the ravenous algorithm, so we’re recording remotely on our computers… Soundbites not wanting to pay a filming crew’s measly wages to record in person probably also has something to do with it.
I flick on my ring light and log in to the video call, tryingto ignore the giddy swoop of my stomach when Cooper’s goofy grin is the first thing to greet me.
I haven’t seen him since our coffee last week, and it bothers me that I’m still caught off guard by his looks—the way his lips are perpetually curved in an almost grin, ready to laugh at a second’s notice, the deep creases around his eyes that are a shade lighter than the rest of his skin, like he’s spent every sunny season smiling and the humor is tattooed there. No amount of exposure therapy seems to cure me.
And then there’s his fucking personality.
Cooper has worn away my resistance to contact with his absolutely ridiculous texts. They come at random times a day—questions likein a jellyfish situation, would you rather pee on someone or be peed on?Ordo you think bees let out a lil moan when they do their thing on a flower?Videos of puppy bellies being jiggled to a pop song’s beat, or a meme of a sleepy kitten dressed in a bonnet with photoshopped flames behind it and the textHOW DARE YOU LOOK AT ME WITH THAT TONE WHEN IM FEELING CRANKY AND SENSITIVEover the top, with the accompanying message:got the sense you were thinking of me <3.
It made me furious that I had, in fact, been thinking of him. I made sure to tell him I hadn’t. To my surprise, I also found myself arguing for peeing on, accusing him of being a weird bee voyeur, and telling him about how our golden retriever was my best friend when I was growing up.
And Cooper always responded. Promptly too. Seamlessly navigating us from the silly and trivial to coaxing out detailed answers about my day, what I was researching for my next Babble piece, what I thought about a book I was reading. And in this bizarre alternate universe I find myself living in, I wasgenuinely asking him about his day in return. Hungry for the answers.
It’s all so different from how it originally was, and I keep waiting for him to go radio silent like he used to.
It takes me a beat to realize Cooper is waving his hand at me on the screen. I come back to myself with a shake, and his smile widens. “Oh, youarethere. Thought your screen froze with you gazing longingly at me.”
I give him a blank look. “You know how in baby books and pre-K they show children flashcards and diagrams of people’s emotions? You must have gotten your wires crossed between abject disgust and mooning.”
“So now you’re saying you want to moon me?” Cooper’s eyes shoot wide, and he makes a show of looking over both shoulders. “I mean, it’s just us here so if you insist…”
Aida’s login stops me mid-curse, and I’m horrified to see William’s name join the screen. As if it isn’t bad enough I have to read mean comments for internet engagement, now I have to do it in front of an entitled rich boy with the personality of a wet wipe.
“Rylie, Eva,” he says by way of greeting.
I give a pathetic little wave, Cooper professing his love of William’s silky gray pocket square instead of hello.
“Good to see you too,” Aida says coolly, not taking well to being ignored. William’s eyes slit to her in the barest degree of acknowledgment.
“Just a quick run of show,” he says, glancing at a printout in front of him. “This should be fairly straightforward—all we need is for you each to read some preselected comments and give us a clip-worthy reaction. We’ll be recording both ofyou during the readings so make sure to react to each other’s as well.”
I raise my hand like a shy kid in class, and William looks at me like he can smell my timidity through the screen and it’s foul. “Can we see these comments before we start? Kind of, um, gear up for the tone?”
“No. We want this to be as authentic as possible.”
My gaze slides to Aida, alarm bells going off in my head, but she has her professional mask on.
