Page 34 of Where Happiness Begins

A choking sound comes from his throat, and after I tap his back twice, he swallows forcefully. “Why?” he rasps out.

“Because my followers have been asking day and night about you, and I think if we give them a few crumbs, they’ll let it go.” I take a sip of water. “Plus, it’ll make the whole thing more believable.”

“I don’t know,” he says, now picking at his food. “I told you I don’t do social media.”

I almost feel bad at how uncomfortable he is, but not enough to let it go.

“Come on! It’ll be fun. And short, I promise.”

“What would I need to do?” he asks, and I grin.

“Nothing. Just, like, answer a few questions. Look cute.”

His eyes roll upward, then he says in a lower, almost shy, voice, “I don’t like being in front of cameras.”

“Gotta get used to it, mister up-and-coming producer of the year.” When he doesn’t react, I nudge him with my knee. “It’ll be fine. I’ll do most of the talking.” Then I bring out the big guns. “Please?”

He side-eyes me, then sighs. “Fine. But no Twenty Questions, okay?”

I jump to my feet, plate in hand. “Scout’s honor.” I scurry to my room to prepare the setup, fluffy socks sliding against the parquet floorings of the hallway. “Thanks again for the food!”

Thirty minutes later, we’re ready for showtime.

“You nervous?”

“No,” he says, clearly nervous, hands clasped tightly.

I hide my smirk. “Good.”

As I adjust the camera one last time, I roll my shoulders back, feeling some tension there. Even though I’ve done this kind ofthing hundreds of times before, I feel tightness in my stomach at the thought of doing this. Now it will really,reallybe out there.

On the camera, it’s obvious we’re sitting way farther apart than a couple usually would, so I say, “Scoot over.”

He does, only in the opposite direction.

“I meant closer to me, dummy.”

Once again, he listens, a twinkle in his eyes. “Bossy when we’re nervous?”

This time, I’m the one who shoots him the stink eye.

“All right, you ready?”

The moment he says yes, I turn the live stream on and start my usual welcome spiel.

“Hey, everyone. So, as you may have seen, I dropped a little bit of a bomb two weeks ago, and while I initially wanted to keep this a secret, I don’t think I can any longer.” I turn to Carter, who’s looking straight into the camera like I would at a grizzly bear. I kick him under the frame, making him snap his head my way. My smile must look incredibly fake as I widen my eyes at him, hoping he’ll start acting a little more natural if we want this to actually work. “This is Carter, my husband, and we’re going to answer a few questions you have for us today.” Then I take his hand in mine. It’s stiff as a rock, but I don’t let it go, and eventually, he seems to relax, his fingers becoming softer between mine.

Thank God.

This is the first time we hold hands, and for some reason, it doesn’t feel as strange as I would’ve expected it to, at least for me.

“So let’s see what we have.” I start scrolling through the comments on the live, ignoring the hundreds of exclamations and going right to the questions, reading them aloud.

“How long were you together before getting married?” I read, and immediately I realize what a crappy idea this was. We didn’t even think to get our stories straight beforehand. I turn to Carter, who’s watching me, and now, instead of being nervous, he almost looks amused as if he knows I’ll be the one to have to get us out of this mess.

Sucker.

I smile again, hoping the heat in my face isn’t too obvious on people’s phones. “We actually just met a while ago, and we didn’t date long before knowing we wanted to marry each other. Right, boo?”

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