Page 3 of Love at First Sighting
“What does that say?”
The logo is a circle with three letters printed along the inside and three stars beneath each letter.
Property of PI…
I can’t make out the rest of it. But I take a screenshot of my live video anyway. If only I knew who to tag…
I’m breathing again. The craft is destroyed and I stopped a forest fire, but I still feel a sense of looming dread and adrenaline that’ll take hours to get rid of. Whatever this was, it could have killed me. I could havediedin Spinx yoga pants.
And the brutal reality is that I’m not sure anyone would have cared. Or believed me.
“Guys,” I say into the camera. “I havenoidea what just happened, and I doubt anybody is going to believe me, but I need to share this. And in case someone murders me on the walk back to my car, you’ll know what happened and where to find my body. Uh, peace and love. Bye?”
I end the stream and email the live video to myself, at two different email addresses for extra security. I once lost an entire vlog because I deleted the wrong video off my phone. Can’t let it happen with this.
I haul my ass back to my car. My hands hold steady on the wheel as I try to fight the shake of my fingers and the nauseous feeling in my gut. I spend the drive focused only on the road but jump at every set of headlights that flashes behind me. Each vibration or rattle my car makes sends me into a spiral. It’s a miracle I make it back to the Hollywood Hills in one piece.
I am still full of dread as I pull up to the Bird’s Nest and park. The Nest has been my home for the past two months and is meant to be temporary, so I haven’t fully unpacked andgotten comfortable yet. The most lived-in part of my room is the corner with the best lighting, which I dubbed Content Corner.
It might be an ostentatious multimillion-dollar modern house located up in the Bird Streets of the Hills, but it’s still the closest thing I have to home at the moment. As I pull into the driveway, I see Bex, our house leader, through the wide front windows filming a tea tasting. I’m hoping I can avoid her en route to my room.
As I step out of my car, another whooshes past, sending a harsh gust of wind my way. I jump and scurry toward the door. Meanwhile, in my back pocket, my phone is buzzing off the hook.
Wtf is this shit
No one pays you to talk about your feelings
I would love to see this bitch deal with a flat tire on the side of the road
I guess it’s true—the pretty ones always die first in horror movies
Of course, there are more positive messages, too, but I know I’ve committed influencer crimes numbers twoandthree.
make it look effortless
stick with a cohesive color palette
always consider the brand
I trudge inside. The Bird’s Nest is horrifically white and open concept, with sprawling windows that overlook LosAngeles. When Bex’s father, a wealthy real estate developer and owner of the property, struggled to sell it because the last owner died inside from a botched liposuction procedure, Bex concocted a simple plan—let some influencers live here to gain sponsorships and turn it into a cash cow like the Hype House. Moving in felt like a wise business decision to grow my brand, and in my line of work, grasping any relevance or spotlight I can is always beneficial.
I got an in through a mutual sponsorship with How Glow Can You Go?—a do-it-yourself spray tan kit. When I first moved in, I was living with two girls—Lea and Becca. Lea has over ten million followers across several platforms and she makes bank becoming an expert on the crisis of the week. She has a bachelor’s degree in photography, but her bio reads “Global Nuclear Relations Commentator” this week. Last week, she was an “Anti-Crypto Environmentalist.”
And then, there’s…
“ ’Bout time you made it back here!”
