Page 46 of Own the Eights
The Dannies gave them matching pearly white smiles.
“We just finished…” Daniel began but stilled and looked to his sister, his dentist-approved smile faltering a fraction.
“Training a group of children with special needs,” Danielle cooed without missing a beat.
“Right! Physical activity is so important no matter your age or ability,” Daniel added.
Georgie glanced around the park. Except for a few parents pushing a trio of toddlers on the swings, there wasn’t a child in sight.
“You understand the importance of exercise, right, Jordan?” Danielle queried smoothly.
Jordan crossed his arms. He was clearly no fan of the Dannies. His cool demeanor could be because of the competition, but she didn’t quite get his extreme level of disdain.
“How nice of you both to care so much,” he said with a thread of derision woven through his words.
Danielle fluffed her blond ponytail. “We do what we can. We love to post about our community service. It inspires our followers to be better people.”
“That’s so generous of you,” Georgie answered, watching Jordan from the corner of her eye.
“It’s the least we can do. We take our job as social influencers seriously,” Daniel added.
“Yep,” Jordan said as ifyepwere the exact opposite of what he really wanted to say.
She glanced up at him and then to the Dannies. Whatever his beef was, she wasn’t about to get pulled into it. And shouldn’t the Dannies be right up Jordan’s alley? All shiny-happy-perfect-body people.
“I loved your post from the grocery store,” she said, going for civility and getting a thumbs-up from her trifecta.
“The what?” Daniel asked and looked to his sister.
They did that eyeball thing again, and Danielle turned to her and turned up the wattage on her smile. “Such a happy coincidence that we were able to connect those two.”
Okay, this was getting weird. Maybe their Danny brains were so crammed with perfect blog posts Daniel couldn’t remember the Dannies’ last post. But this was just a few days ago, and it was for a huge contest.
Danielle gave her the once-over and frowned. “Georgie, do you happen to know who’s ahead in the Battle of the Blogs? Daniel and I have been so busy helping others that we haven’t checked. And you probably have a lot of time on your hands since you don’t seem to engage in any feminine grooming routines, which, by the way, I wrote about last week. You should really check it out. A few highlights and a little concealer could really go a long way for a girl like you.”
Holy backhanded compliment! Now, she understood Jordan’s cool demeanor.
She lifted her chin and schooled her features, going for an ice queen disposition. “You’re ahead, but Jordan and I have some real zingers up our sleeves for our next blog posts,” she said and met Danielle’s gaze head-on. There was time for civility, and then there was a time for bringing the thunder. She tapped Jordan’s arm. “Right, real zingers?”
“Yep,” he said, this time like he meant it when a chorus of chimes pinged at the same time.
They all had their phone alerts set for the CityBeat texts.
Like a pair of rebooted robots, the Dannies took off without another word, and she pulled her phone from the band of her yoga pants.
“They sent an address,” she said, reading the message, but Jordan didn’t respond. She glanced up at him as he watched the Dannies disappear in a large SUV. She tapped his forearm again. “Those two are certifiable jerks, but you really don’t like them, do you?”
He frowned. “I don’t trust them. They’re peddling supplements on their page, and their likes accumulate in batches.”
She shrugged. “It could just be the way the CityBeat platform works, especially since the Dannies have so many followers. And I figured Danielle would be your type for sure.”
Jordan cringed. “Why? Because she looks like a Barbie doll spliced with a Victoria’s Secret model?”
“That’s exactly why,” she mumbled, wondering why the hell it bothered her to think of Jordan and Danielle as a couple.
“Appearance is just one component of being a ten, Georgie,” he replied.
She glanced away. “Could have fooled me.”
