Page 64 of The Holiday Fakers
Brody tenses beside me and I suddenly hate myself. Why am I being such a bitch? This isn’t like me at all. Ofcourse,Brody should be happy about the positive publicity. It doesn’t make him a bad person, and I know in my heart he didn’t give our rooms away hoping the couple would tell the world about it.
“See?” Marv says. “Piper’s cool. We’ll include the usual ‘please respect their privacy’ bit, and you can both read it before it goes out. Mia, can you pull up the photos?”
Mia opens her laptop, transfers the photos she took onto it, then shows Marv.
“Delete. Delete. Keep. Delete,” he barks over her shoulder as Eileen returns and quietly passes out the menus.
“Keep. Keep. Delete. Keep. Done.”
“Can we see them?” I ask.
Mia pushes the laptop in front of me, and Brody and I slowly move through the images.
The pictures are amazing. Like,reallyamazing. Mia’s an incredible photographer, and she’s captured the atmosphere of the event perfectly. Everyone looks like they’re having the best time, and Brody and I look … like a real couple.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to him as Mom and Mia loudly explain every drink on the menu to Marv and Cara.
“Me too,” he murmurs in reply. “I’m trying to do the right thing.”
His admission makes me then do the wrong thing, stroking my fingers over his white knuckles.
He unlaces the clasp of his hands and takes mine between his, rubbing his thumb across the back of my hand like a soothing caress as we gaze at the pictures of ourselves.
His touch is gentle, but feels like fire, heat that spreads up my arm and then flows through my body. I squeeze my thighs together to relieve it, but that only makes things worse.
Brody’s being friendly. However by the time I reach the end of the slideshow, I don’t think I can speak without it coming out as a squeak or a moan.
Brody clears his throat. “Thank you, Mia. These are fantastic.”
She grins. “Not my first rodeo.” She pulls the laptop back across the table and addresses Marv. “I’ll send these to you now and the editor ofThe Almanac.”
“Could you also send them to me, please?” Brody asks. “I can give you my email address.”
Mia gives me a quick look, clearly trying not to smirk. “Sure. Type it in here.”
“I’d like to post a couple to my socials.”
“Sure.” Marv replies. “Cara can set it up.”
“No. I’d like to do it.”
Marv and Cara exchange a look.
Brody sighs. “I can use Cara’s phone.”
Mia and Mom are watching the interaction, just like I am. We’re all probably coming to the same realization: Brody is no longer trusted to manage his own social media accounts.
I think back to when Brody was friends with Casey Connors—a child star turned drug-addicted bad boy. The posts Brody made when he was drunk, only to delete them afterward. He acted nothing like the boy I knew in Hideaway, but a lot can change in twelve years, especially when you’re as famous as he is.
Is he fully okay now? He looks fit and healthy, but I don’t know enough about addictionorBrody to know if he might relapse.
“Do you have an account so I can tag you in?” Brody asks me. “Or would you rather I didn’t?”
“Um …” I rarely use my personal account. My energy is focused almost exclusively on the one I set up for my fantasy art, even though no one seems to view it anymore. But I’m not ready for Brody to see it, at least not with an audience.
“Use her artwork account!” Mom says excitedly. “Just think how many more followers she could get!”
Brody’s fingers stop moving on the back of my hand as he gazes questioningly at me.
