Page 88 of Lights, Camera, Love

“Here.” She picked up the receiver on the nightstand and clicked some buttons on the base. “You there, Esmeralda?”

A tinny voice came through the line, and Jess handed over the phone.

“Es? What’s going on? Is everything okay? I knew this was a bad idea.” I couldn’t stop the alarm from bleeding into my voice.

Jess waved and walked her fingers down the imaginary stairs, telling me she’d give me space. I nodded and mouthed a thank you.

“Jesus, Soph. Relax!”

“Relax, she says, as she calls the emergency line and sends me into a cardiac episode,” I mocked.

“Are you on camera?” Es asked.

“Nah, I’m at the crew’s house. Something about a secure line that won’t drop or whatever.”

“Perfect. So how’s the four-way going?”

I snorted. “Is that what you called to ask about?”

“You want business or gossip first? Never mind. Why break tradition, right?”

I muffled my laugh with my hand so the guy watching the screens down the hall wouldn’t come barging in here. We should discuss work, not my love life. I doubted the producers would appreciate hearing about me using my special amendment to the contract to talk about boys.

Es and I always broke tension with frivolous gossip, especially if it was terrible news. Once, one of our factories misplaced an order, and we had to scramble to get four hundred dresses made in twenty-four hours. That time, we’d discussed how happy we were that Henry Cavill had found someone he adored, even if we were jealous as hell and not at all salty that it hadn’t been one of us. Didn’t matter; he was president of the rub club, anyway.

“Gossip. Go.”

“Okay,” Es started. “You guys are trending everywhere. Twitter, TikTok, Insta, Facebook, hell, even my mom called to talk about your love life.”

“Noooo.” I smacked a hand to my forehead. “She’s going to tell my mom, and I made her and Dad promise not to watch!”

“You know our moms get together every time there’s an episode and watch it together, right?”

Fuck. I could actually see that happening. Montana was a long way away, and while I loved my parents, they were somewhat shit at keeping from doing things they shouldn’t.

“I hate you a little right now,” I deadpanned.

“I know. But I also know you love me more.”

Even though Julie had said some people were on board with our unconventional pairing, that was a while ago, and social media opinions changed faster than it took for the next video to load. We didn’t know if it had turned since then or how it worked out now that Aaron was involved.

“How bad is it?” I asked. “The social media thing.”

“Depends on who you ask, honestly. But I’m pimping the shit out of all four of you and leading the charge for #quadrouplegoals after the talk you guys had. I’m with Oliver on the spelling of that, by the way. The ‘quad’ and ‘couple’ combo means there should be an O. Sucks you won’t win the money, but it’s so worth it if you’re happy.”

“They aired that?”

“Of course they did! It was one of their highest-watched and most talked about episodes. The storm, the talk, and while they didn’t show the bedroom antics, they sure as shit showed Aaron in that thong.” She sucked in a breath. “Damn, girl. The ass on that man…”

“They didn’t show the bedroom stuff?”

“You mean you gettingstuffedby three dudes and living like the goddess you are? No. They put a notice at the bottom of that episode that the storm lost some of the camera feeds, but in the next episode, they showed you all waking up together, cute as shit. I guess they had recovered things by then.”

I recalled Jess’s wink when she came over the day after the storm, saying there were some outages. I wondered if she had somehow “lost” the footage for me. If she did, I owed that woman a fruit basket or something. Because while I wasn’t at all ashamed of what we did, it felt a little too personal to share with all the viewers.

“So, how was it?” Es asked, feigning nonchalance.

Right, I’d believe that when pigs flew.

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