Page 55 of Stacked
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ROBERT
I had plenty to do at my store: order fixtures and artwork for the bathrooms, choose the latte machines, decide on the marketing fonts, and clean.
After leaving Anya’s house, I went home, showered, changed, grabbed a granola bar, and headed to the store with the intention of tackling some of it. Keeping busy would do me good, and winning the float contest meant buzz about the Tomes and Tumblers had ramped up overnight.. When we finally opened, I wanted to make sure we had everything in place.
But when I got to the store, I worked for about twenty minutes before my curiosity got the best of me, before I couldn’t ignore my phone any longer. All the tile patterns, inventory, and latte machine brands in the world couldn’t hold back the itch that came from knowing that whatever was happening on the internet, I was somehow in the middle of it.
And when Brianna showed up about ten minutes later, I wasn’t surprised either.
“I hoped you’d be here,” she said, stepping through the temporary front door and into the planned coffee bar space. “I thought about texting, but...”
“There was no way I’d see it. Not with how overloaded my phone is.”
“So, you know about the video.” She crossed the space and sat atop an overturned paint can. “Like, you’ve seen it.”
“Of course, I have.”
She braced her elbows on her knees, bowing her head so her faded red Cincinnati baseball cap obscured her face. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“For what?” I sat on the opposite paint can. She sounded so upset, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why.
“I was the one who uploaded the video on TikTok. I started this.” She raised her head. “I shouldn’t have done it.”
I frowned. “That was your account?”
“Yep.”
“But it had some kind of AI-looking image for the profile photo.”
She gulped, the skin around her eyes tightening.
“You can tell me,” I said.
“My parents didn’t want me to have an account when I was younger, so I started it on the sly. And it got a decent following, so I kept it. But most people don’t know it’s me since I post, like, remixes and stuff like that.”
“Considering what it was, I figured it was someone in the crowd.” I studied her for a moment, taking in her drawn eyes and the slight crease on her forehead. She was just a kid, and kids made mistakes.And was uploading it even really a mistake?“I’m not mad at you.”
She sat up straighter. “Really? You’re not?”
“There’s nothing in that video to be embarrassed about.” I laughed as I replayed it in my mind. “Except for the fact that I outright kissed Anya to shut her up.”
