Page 25 of Bishop's Queen

CHAPTER NINE

Jay pressed the rewind icon on his computer screen and tapped it to pause, zooming in on Ella. With a few quick snips and snaps, gone were her pristine picture and the beautiful background he’d snagged from Eco-Ella’s homepage.

He leaned back to analyze his creation and scrolled through the last few pics: Ella in the middle of commercialized hell, surrounded by neon lights. Then she was in a landfill mecca. Gone was her recyclable water bottle, professionally replaced with a Styrofoam container from some fast food chain. He smirked. That would make Ella sick. As he paged to the next picture, disgusted with the images, he knew Eco-Ella fans would go insane. One picture showed her next to an ashtray overfilled with non-biodegradable cigarette butts, while she casually chatted to Wall Street–looking suits. “Yeah, this is the money shot.”

Tara would go ballistic, and Jay couldn’t contain a chuckle as he imagined her going into uber-publicist mode when these surfaced. He’d already posted one picture to see how folks would react, and true to the Internet behavior, those who saw it believed it without so much as a questionable comment. Tara had said that his Photoshop skills were subpar. “Well, subpar this, Tara.”

He uploaded the new photos through another Monarch account, using an undetectable profile. Each picture had a spectacular file name, too.

Ella Does Wall Street.Ella Does Corporate CEOs.Ella Makes Friends with Corporate Greed.Ella Loves Styrofoam—the upload was complete. Using the torrent side of Monarch was almost too easy, and normal users would see the photos and have a PR field day. Tara and Ella’s day was going to suck.

Proud of his accomplishments, Jay leaned back in his chair and stretched, eying his chessboard. All morning, he had played against himself, strategizing and analyzing his skills, determining which positions were the best offense and defense. It took a special kind of talent to be the grandmaster of his own games, internally challenging and initiating moves to outwit his own psyche. Chess was a thinking man’s game, one that pushed Jay to be brilliant in all things that he endeavored.

Speaking of brilliance…

“How’s that little addition looking?” he mumbled, flipping back to check the comment he’d left after he uploaded his trial picture.

Wow. That one afterthought had 174 likes, proving people knew what they needed to do.

“Time to go viral.” He swiped the screen to see his current uploads, adding the same comment to each newly uploaded picture. Ella’s cell phone number.

***

Bishop threw his hand over the back of the passenger seat headrest, easing his truck into the parallel parking spot—the tiny one that Ella waved him away from—reversing, then dropping the gearshift into park. The drive to her condo had been filled with an odd, one-sided conversation of Ella talking to her phone, explaining to whoever was watching on a live video cell phone feed that his big,awful,gas-guzzling, earth-ruining ride wasn’t that depraved.

If he rolled his eyes once, he’d done it fifty times. When she threatened to show the world herdriverat one of his grumblings, he gave a strong enough glare that she quickly shut down that idea, instead flipping around and zooming in for an up-close-and-personal conversation with the ECO button next to his radio. All in all, it was an educational broadcast, though if he’d known the inside of his truck was going to be on display, maybe he would’ve shined her up a bit.

“So, warriors, you know the drill. Post your comments, and I’ll get to them later.” Ella dropped the phone. “I didn’t think you’d fit in this spot.”

“I did.” Now that she wasn’t talking to the folks posting questions, her phone buzzed and rang incessantly, grating on his nerves. “I’m not your driver, babe.”

She eyed him, the steering wheel, then back to his face again. “Well, I lost out on the driving opportunity. SoI’mnot the driver.”

“Warriors?”

“We have causes and a fight.”

All right, Internet Badass. He stifled another eye roll and hopefully avoided a lecture about the definition of a warrior.

“The word has more than one connotation, Bishop. You and your soldier buddies don’t have a lock on it.” Her phone vibrated in her purse, and with a slamming hand, she silenced it. “Ready?” She was a warrior secretly pissed off at that potato sack purse of hers.

“Always.”

Her phone buzzed again, and with another slap at it, she opened her door and hopped out, heading to the front door of her condominium.

Crazy was on the move. She strutted as if she owned the world, white skirt drifting. Bishop liked her dark-blue tank top, mostly because, when her hair moved, he got peeks of her back and shoulder blades. When he’d hooked an arm around them earlier, he was struck with how deceptively forceful she was. It reminded him that long ago, he’d spent an inordinate amount of time with his hands on her back.

Ella glided on the sidewalk, confident and carefree. Everything about her cadence and her easy nature-chic was picture perfect, except how she wrapped her arms around her bag. It didn’t hang on her shoulder. No, she was strangling it to her breasts.

She twisted, staring at him in the truck. “Hey! Coming?”

That was his cue to stop gawking. He pushed out and opened the dually’s door. “Hang on. Here I come with your skid of vegetation.”

“We don’t have to bring it all in. Just a couple for me and my neighbors.”

“Got it.” He pulled the first box from the truck bed and smelled the mint. Yup, he could see why she didn’t want to move these babies out of her car. They were tiny air fresheners. Even out in the open, they had a strong scent. He juggled them and a few of the lavenders as he caught up to Ella, finding his key fob to lock the truck.

“Stop calling,” she mumbled.

---