Page 1 of Bodyguard By Night

Willow

For Really Real

I blew my hair out of my face. I should have put it up, but my damn vanity always got me. My hair was my best feature. And it wasn’t like I was cooking for anyone else.

Well, except the camera.

Which was where the vanity came in, but that was another day’s therapy.

Anyway, I was used to finding long red hair everywhere in my apartment. Okay, the apartment I shared with four other girls. Which reminded me I only had another hour in the kitchen before my sworn enemy, Dennelle, came home from her shift.

She hated my “little project” as she called it.

“That little project had two hundred thousand views yesterday,” I muttered as I cleaned off the counter. I rushed around the miniature island to check my camera. That last clip was going to be great for my bloopers’ reel.

Here I was on my third try making pâte à choux. The baking shows made it look easy—though I’d watched more than one contestant melt down when the pastry was too runny. Not-so-pro tip—the little pastries didn’t puff up into beautiful golden vehicles for filling when that happened. And now I knew their pain.

I was going to make a batch of these suckers that rose properly today if it killed me.

Or I ran out of time.

I played back my last take. Some of the footage was salvageable. Just not the last twenty minutes when the buttery sludge had spread across my Slipat sheet.

Hmm. I paused. Maybe I should use what I had. Show the not so pretty side of baking. People needed to know that shortcuts were great, but they couldn’t be used for everything.

Especially something like cream puffs.

I set the camera to do another take. I had about thirty minutes left on my memory card, so I’d need to make them count. Then I’d see what I had and edit. I could probably get two posts out of this debacle.

I huffed out another breath, my frizzing curls fluttering around my face. I could do this. I wasgoodat this, dammit.

Gingerly stepping around my tripod, I masterfully hopped over a box I used to prop my lights up just right and got myself situated around the kitchen island.

Social media apps were all about showing people the good parts. They definitely weren’t supposed to see the jar of Skippy I used to make my tripod just a touch higher to get the full kitchen island in frame.

Then again, my particular fans liked to see the behind-the-scenes footage too. I didn’t mind leaning into some comedic timing for the views. I’d learned long ago to laugh at myself. It staunched the tears.

Laughing through my stumbles was what my social media channel was all about. Making mistakes and finding the shortcuts to create the cool things people found on television or on the various video channels. Or even failing and ending up with a new lesson to add to my personal cooking arsenal.

Maybe I’d make a video about that, actually.

I glanced around in my chaos on the kitchen counter, then I spotted my phone on my last carton of eggs. I grabbed it and quickly opened my notes app to write down the idea. A notification popped up about yesterday’s video, distracting me from said notes app.

Maybe I’d just check my replies really quick.

I scrolled as I wound my way around the couch that bisected the kitchen from the shoebox-sized living room. Living in the city—even if it was in the more generous apartments located in Brooklyn—meant space was a premium. I was pretty sure our lovely landlord had sliced up the living room space to add another bedroom.

Mybedroom. Or coffin as I called it lovingly.

I smiled at a few of my regular commenters, quickly scrolling past the trolls telling me I sucked and the bots telling me I should DM them for more followers. I’d learned a long time ago to ignore the noise. Reading that crap was the road to a depressive spiral that made me question everything, followed directly by searching job sites for a regular job that included a steady paycheck.

But then I remembered I really sucked at regular jobs and I got my ass up to make another video. I wasn’t so good at the whole being to work on time. The number of times I’d been fired for that reason alone made my resumé look like swiss cheese. Nine times out of ten, they hated to fire me too but there were rules.

Rules were the bane of my existence.

And here I was getting paid to actuallybreakthem. After the last firing, Wil’s Way began.

I soaked in the sweet replies about being excited for another video. Answered another one asking a question about doing a collaboration. And deleted another one that was obviously a spam reply.

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