Page 24 of The HalloQueen

“What are you doing? Want to go get brunch?”

“I actually already grabbed something to try and help with my headache. I’m sorry, I forgot we’d talked about that.”

“Wait, you got hungover?”

On autopilot, I turned toward my office, “I know, I was surprised too.”

“You can drink me under the table any night of the week and still wake up fine.Yougot a hangover? How much did you drink after I left?”

“Shannon, you’re asking me questions like a mom again.”

She sighed,“Sorry. Force of habit.”

“Well, I’m an adult, and I’m your boss so…”

“Oh, you want to play the boss card? Fire me then.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m headed in to work on the launch for a bit. I’ll text you when I’m hungry - maybe we can grab something later.”

She was quiet for a moment and then covered her phone and said something jumbled to the person she was with.“Is it okay if Trae comes with? If you’re busy I think we are going to go do something.”

Internally I cringed. The more times we are together, the more opportunities I had to fuck it up for her. She never got this attached.

“That’s like 72 hours straight now, Shan.”

A girlish giggle escaped her,“Yeah, well, it is what it is.”I could hear her squealing mentally and knew she was only pretending to appear nonchalant about the whole thing.

“I’m at the office. You kids have fun.”

“See you later, Bels!”I heard Trae holler over the line and I disconnected it and shut off the car.

I loved working on Saturdays. It was especially great for online marketing since the building was always empty except for me. I could play my music as loud as I needed to and do take after take of a clip without making the people next door want to get me evicted. When I got into the office, I went to the filming area and plopped into the giant furry beanbag I kept in there so I could scroll through the trending videos while I drank my coffee. I wasn’t trying to invent the wheel, I just wanted to piggyback off of something someone already made popular by making it about my ass.

Ironically, or maybe not, some of the music from popular vampire movies were starting to trend, which was fitting for my life and my new line. I quickly saved the sounds and kept scrolling, hoping to be able to bank a bunch of drafts for the week. I frequently had to jump on a sudden viral trend during the middle of the week, but I liked my filler content to be sitting around. I used to make it whenever the mood struck me and found that the constant interruptions made for horrifically unproductive days.

With my coffee finished and 16 sounds in my files, I headed into the storeroom to pull and steam outfits. Over the years I’d learned to streamline the process by steaming, styling, photographing, and filming an outfit all at once, but it still takes way more time than the regular person would think. People are like, oh you own a boutique, you just take pictures, post them and then have some company ship everything out for you? Wouldn’t that be the dream? No, I spent each and every day curating, purchasing, shipping, marketing and even doing my own damn web development. Before Shannon, HalloQueens was entirely a one-woman show.

I pulled out multiple bat and spiderweb outfits as well as some bell-sleeve blouses and large statement jewelry. I hadn’t put makeup on before confronting Thomas so I would be able to film a ‘get ready with me’ before I started. I’d take some additional clips to make a ‘day in the life’ one too. I knew it sounded overwhelming, but it was thinking like this that saved me time and made me successful, unfortunately, it also made it so this was eight full-time jobs all sitting squarely on my shoulders.

I spent the morning making video after video, banking them in my drafts, while also feeling my stress level begin to climb simply from being in the building full of future work. I was angry at how much better I felt around Thomas - what gave him the right to make me enjoy his energy milking kink? This launch was too important for me to fuck it up. Even though my last two launches had sold out almost instantly because of our viral videos, I knew all it would take to close me down was one failed season. That was the curse of internet fame; the same crowd that could make you go viral could also shit post and get you canceled faster than you can say hot potato. All it would take is someone’s shipping taking too long, or not having any product for size exchanges or god-forbid, actually having a life outside of the boutique. There’d been people that messaged me at midnight with questions and when I didn’t answer until the next morning I would get scathing replies about how poor my customer service was so they’d gone somewhere else for the item. Like, excuse me for sleeping, Ashley.

I was in the middle of flipping myself onto a doorframe, which trust me, was not easy, and I would have bruises on my calves from it, but the pose made my tits look great in lingerie so I continued to use it, when my phone stopped recording and a text came in, “son of a bitch,” I cursed, falling to grab it. I swore I had it on airplane mode so I wouldn’t get cut off, but there was a text from Thomas that paused the filming and ruined my handstand.

TOMMY: I am thinking of you. I am sorry about this morning.

I scowled at it for a moment before texting back, wanting answers, yet not knowing how to discuss it with him.

ANNABEL: Are chupucabras real?

Almost immediately the three little dots popped up

TOMMY: In a sense.

ANNABEL: WTF does that mean? Aren’t they just like freaked out were-vampires?

TOMMY: We can discuss the inner workings of Others societal structures later.

ANNABEL: Mermaids.

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