Page 3 of Wild and Bright

“Logan is our guest,” my mom shouts back, which immediately prompts me to look away from Logan and roll my eyes dramatically. He’s visiting for the holidays with his girlfriend and his best friend, something he’s done dozens of times since he left for college, but this time it’s different. Now that he’s a college graduate with a real engineering job in Indiana, he’s been promoted to a “guest”, while I’m Cinderella forced to scrub the floors and make the nasty mini quiche.

“That’s right,” Logan says, clearly not sensing my irritation. “That also means I get to pick the entertainment. We’re turning on basketball.”

I glare at him. “Absolutely not. I have exactly twenty minutes before the lighting in this room turns to shit.”

“Aren’t you a professional? Use that ring…thing.” He gestures vaguely at my tripod.

My eyelids flutter. “Light? Is that the word you’re looking for? I am using it, and it still can’t beat natural light. My face needs a lot of finesse, and I know that because I’m a fucking professional. Artificial lighting makes my nose look twice its size.”

He groans. “I’m sure it won’t make your opinion on lip gloss any less credible.”

Ah, there it is.

The inevitable judgment of my job. Every member of my family thinks influencing is silly. A vain job. A fake job, even, like I’m a little kid putting on a play and charging my family members for admission.

I whip around to face him. “This is my fucking career, Logan. I have a daughter to take care of. Not everyone has a job like you. Some of us have jobs you find frivolous, but they wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t a need for it. Some people need frivolous things in their lives.”

Logan’s dark brows snap together. “I was teasing you. Jesus. Chill out.”

I can see that he means it, and I feel like an ass for snapping at him with such little provocation. I take a deep breath and release it slowly. My upcoming conversation with Hunter must be making me edgy.

“Go make the quiche,” I say. “I’ll be quick, and you can watch basketball as soon as I’m done.”

He groans but still gets up from the couch. “I fucking hate that quiche.”

“Put lots of cheese in it.”

“I’m going to put whiskey in it,” he mumbles as he walks away.

I glance at my phone. 1:06. Hunter said their flight would land at 12:30, and that they would head straight to their parents’ house, which meant they’d be arriving any minute. I’ll have to make this video in one take. No restarting when I stumble over my words.

Just as I’m about to set my phone to record, a small face appears in the hallway.

“Mommy, can I sit with you during your video?”

“No, honey. Not yet.” I try to look at her sternly even as I want to smile. She’s so like me at that age—wanting to do everything the adults do. “You still have three months before you turn five.”

I don’t know why I chose five as the arbitrary cut-off age when plenty of influencers feature their children daily in their videos from the moment they’re born. It’s not like I have anything against it. Our lives are so saturated with social media that showing my child’s face online is hardly any different than showing it at the grocery store.

It’s probably my mom’s voice in my head, passive aggressively ranting about the selfish, irresponsible influencer parents who “use their children” to further their careers.

“Can you put some eye shadow on me then?”

I smile. “Sure. Come here.”

I reach for my metal bin and grab the two boldest colors I can find. “Do you want red or black?”

She purses her lips to the side as she plops down on the couch. “I want both. Put the black right here.” She points to her lid. “And the red in the outer corner.”

My lips quirk at her use of terms she’s heard me say in my tutorials. “I wouldn’t have even thought of that. You have good instincts.”

“Yeah, I’m going to be really good at makeup when I grow up.”

“You already are.”

As I lightly brush red over her lid, her brows draw together. “Will I be famous when I’m five and you let me make videos with you?”

“A lot of people will see them, so I guess that makes you famous in a way, but not quite like Ryan’s World famous. He has a lot more subscribers than me. A hundred thousand isn’t as much as it sounds.”

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