Page 71 of Savage Temptation
Two Months Later
“Areyou sure you want to do this?” Atticus asks.
I grip his hand and give him a smile. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“They will bring up the alien sex debacle.”
I shrug. “A girl’s got kinks.”
He chuckles, and I turn toward the journalist that’ll be interviewing us.
After my graduation party footage aired, people had…questions. The media had already researched me because of the Playground footage that had leaked, but after seeing Atticus’s heartfelt confession of love for me, they were hungry for more.
Overnight, we became America’s sweethearts. Women were insatiable for any tidbit of information about our history together. The alien sex debacle has been turned into countless pieces of fan fiction.
Atticus had every intention of allowing me to keep my life out of the public eye, going to great lengths to let me live as freely as possible, without the constraints of people watching my every move, but I decided to meet him halfway.
“Thank you for allowing me to interview you today. My name’s Greyson Carmichael, and I aim to ask a few tough questions.”
I giggle. “A reporter who’s honest about his intentions. I like it.”
“Although the interview will appear in print media, I will be recording our conversation for my notes. Is that okay?”
Atticus nods. “That’s fine.”
Greyson pulls out a palm-sized recording device and hits RECORD.
“All right, let’s get started.” Greyson looks at his notebook. “It looks like you met back when Atticus went to school with your brother, Lance Campbell.”
I clear my throat, more nervous than I thought I’d be. “Yeah, sometimes after their football games, we’d all get ice cream together, and that was when we first got to know each other. I was around nine at the time, and he was thirteen.”
“And when did your feelings manifest?”
“First, I want to get it out there that I know it’s cliché to have a crush on your brother’s best friend. Twelve is when I developed feelings, which was the worst possible time because he very quickly started dating after that.”
Greyson looks to Atticus. “And when did you first realize you had feelings for Tessa?”
“Four years ago, Lance and I threw a party to celebrate a milestone for the Playground. Tessa had doubled up on classes to graduate early, so I rarely saw her. She was a junior, and when she walked through the door, I didn’t even recognize her. I watched her from across the room, interacting with others, and grew smitten. And then the bomb hit—it was little Tessa Campbell, and I was in big trouble.”
Greyson smiles. “This sounds like the plot for a Hollywood movie.”
“Yeah, except the hero would be more bold. I sat for years on my feelings.”
“And what happened from there?”
“Well, I kind of went stark raving mad. I couldn’t get her out of my head, and every time I saw her, it just added fuel to the fire. Then, she graduated from college and started her career.”
“Can we scale back a moment to the scene by the lake?”
“I’d gone to her graduation party, and it was pure torture. I kept thinking that one of the assholes there was probably going to ask her out when I so desperately wanted to. But I couldn’t, not with how much I worked and my friendship with her brother. When it came time to program events into the Playground, I realized there was a lot of footage from the event, and uploaded it, creating a near-perfect reenactment.”
“Which brings us to the infamous confession,” Greyson says.
“My feelings just kept growing, and I could tell anyone. Then, one evening, I was inside the Playground, and I modified the situation to tell Tessa how I really felt. Rather cowardly, I might add.”
It’s weird hearing Atticus talk about his feelings. Feelings I never knew he had.
“At the time, I was hoping it’d make it all easier to manage, but it really only made my desire for her worse.”
