Page 28 of Love Unexpected
“What’s up?” I asked as I dropped my bag onto the chair in front of my desk. “Long night? Is Nora okay?”
She shook her head. “Nora’s fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“Uh-oh. What did I do?” I shifted my bag onto the floor and sat down in the chair, sensing that Jade might want to talk to me about more than the interns leaving their leftovers in the warehouse fridge.
“Did you talk to your little Instagram friend about sharing her artwork on your show?”
“Her name is Ana,” I said, wishing my friends would take my relationship with her a little more seriously.
“Right. Ana. But did you?”
I frowned. “No,” I said slowly. “But it’s on her public Instagram profile. Public is public, right? Should I have?”
“Public for someone with less than five hundred followers is a little bit different than public for someone like you, Isaac.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “You’re right. I get it. What does this mean? Has there been fallout?”
“Not necessarily. The internet loves her stuff. I’ve gotten hundreds of messages from people interested in buying a print of the Red Renegade cover, wanting to know how they can reach out to the artist and commission their own stuff.”
“But that’s good, right?”
“It might be. If that’s the kind of attention Ana is looking for. But what if she isn’t?”
“Okay. I see your point. I should have asked her first. Surely she’ll be excited, though. Selling her artwork would be legit.”
“I think so, you think so, but that doesn’t automatically mean she’ll think so. You just have to think, Isaac. You’ve given me the sense that she’s a pretty private person, right? And your life is anything but. You gotta ease her in slowly, you know?”
“Understood. I’ll talk to her.”
“And tell her to consider cleaning up her social media profiles. Make sure there’s nothing on any of them that she wouldn’t want the world at large to see. If she’s connected to you, and there’s any kind of dirt out there? Somebody will dig it up. You know they will.”
I sighed. I’d seen it happen enough to know that Jade was right. I was not the kind of famous that got me mobbed in the street or had crowds of screaming fans congregating outside my house. But I did have a contingency of fans who were so loyal, so thorough, it sometimes seemed like they knew more about my life than I did.
It wasn’t a conversation I looked forward to. Anawasa private person. I wasn’t sure how she’d react knowing that one, I’d shared her stuff without asking—if she hadn’t watched the show and figured it out already—and two, if we kept talking, there was no way to prevent her from becoming the subject of public scrutiny.
Still, I couldn’t pretend like my life was anything other than exactly what it was. It was the nature of the game. For better or worse, I couldn’t change it.
After Jade left, I settled into my desk chair and pulled up my message thread with Ana. I tapped my phone against my hand, wondering how to start the conversation. She watched the show; I knew that much. Who’s to say she hadn’t already seen yesterday’s episode?
@RandomIOfficial: Sooo, did you see yesterday’s episode ofRandom I?
@Briarsandthorns: Not yet. Why? Did I miss something amazing?
@RandomIOfficial: Here’s the thing. I kind of, maybe, or actually did share your album cover artwork on the show. The good news is that we’ve gotten a lot of messages from people who are interested in buying a print. The bad news is that I should have talked to you about it before I shared your stuff online. And now Jade says I need to talk to you about cleaning up your social media profiles in case there’s anything you might not want theRandom Ifandom to discover about you.
@Briarsandthorns: That...is...I don’t know what that is. I’m glad people are liking my art. But yeah. The other part. That doesn’t sound fun.
@RandomIOfficial: I wish I could say it didn’t really matter. But unfortunately, it’s just the downside of being a part of my life.
@Briarsandthorns: What does Jade mean by “cleaning up my social media profiles?” I don’t know what that looks like.
@RandomIOfficial: I can have her message you about it. I’m sorry about all this. I was just excited about your work, and I like talking about the things I love, and...I didn’t think about what this would mean for you.
@Briarsandthorns: I get it.
I waited for another response to come through, but that’s all she said. She got it. What did that even mean?I get it and I will never want to meet you in person? I get it and I agree with you? I get it, please never message me again?
After filming tomorrow’s episode—we always filmed in mid to late afternoon on the daybeforethe show would actually air—I wandered down to the back patio. The studio had felt crowded today, like the interns had somehow multiplied, but it probably had more to do with me feeling stressed out by my conversation with Jade, and the exchange of messages with Ana that had followed. The patio was almost always empty, and the afternoon was warm. Hopefully, it would give me a little space to clear my head and figure out how to make sure Ana wasn’t upset with me.
