Devin
“Rise and shine.” Brielle’s voiceinfiltrates my restless sleep.
I couldn’t sleep for shit. Nothing I tried helped. I read. I scrolled through social media feeds until I felt my eyes were going to bleed. I even counted metaphoric sheep. My eyes were still open at three thirty this morning.
Rolling over for what feels like the hundredth time since lying down, I crack my eyes open into tiny slits as I try to focus on Brielle.
“Why are you waking me up?” I ask, annoyed. “My alarm didn’t go off yet.”
“Because,” she huffs, plopping next to me, “you spent most of last night obsessing over what Sebastian was out doing with hisnew girlfriend. Mark brought over the papers. Time to get up and deal with everything. You’ve got two hours before you need to be at work. Let’s get this over with so you can start to focus on something else.”
Yeah, like that’s going to happen.
I pull the blanket up and over my head. “Who said I want to see what he was up to with her last night?”
“We know you better than that, Devin,” Mark’s deep voice fills the room. “Let’s go. I promise this isn’t going to be as bad as you think it is.”
“Really, Mark?” I say, bolting up in bed before throwing my pillow at him. “You don’t think having to see Sebastian and this woman on the cover of the paper pretending to be in love isn’t going to be ‘that bad.’ Of course it’s going to be bad, asshole.”
His face turns stern for a moment, and he reminds me of my father when he was about to lecture me. “I understand this is hard for you, but, Devin, you have to knock it off and deal with it. It isn’t even bad. It isn’t on the front page of any paper. It made the back ofThe Daily News, and it’s only a half-page story. Don’t make this worse than it has to be.”
I fling the sheets and blanket off me and onto the floor before climbing out of bed and throwing my brother the dirtiest look I can muster. “Don’t forget, this thing started because of a picture, so excuse me if I’m not thrilled to see what these do to my life.”
“That’s a little selfish. Don’t you think?” Mark barks, crossing his thick arms over his chest while Brielle stands there with a sad look on her face. “Sebastian is the one who is being followed around. He’s putting on a show for the city. No one is calling people alerting them where you’re going to be having dinner.”
Unbelievable.“Since when are you on team Sebastian, Mark? You were against us from the beginning, and now you’re siding with him and pointing out things like love, like you’re a damn matchmaker.”
He blows out a deep breath, as if he’s frustrated. “I’m on your side, Devin,” he says calmly. “This man is doing everything he can. He’s inviting these people to document his life so no one knows that photo was of you. You only go to these extremes for someone you love. You’re forgetting this affects him, too. He doesn’t get the choice of anonymity in that photo. I feel like you’re forgetting he’s in that photo too—a photo showing him having an intimate moment with the person he cares deeply about, and now he has to pretend to be in love with someone he just met, knowing what it is going to do to you. You didn’t hear what he had to say last night because you ran from the room, but I did.”
“Hear what?” I ask, grabbing my robe from the foot of my bed.
“It’s not my story to tell.” Christ, I hate when people say that. “You want to know what he said and what he’s feeling, you need to ask him yourself.”
“If you’re not going to tell me, then why even bring it up?” I step around him and into the hallway. It’s too early for this shit. I need some coffee and a weekend on an isolated island where I don’t have to worry about anyone seeing anything or printing anything or giving me their opinions.
“Because you’re being a brat,” he calls out, following me into the kitchen, where I start brewing a cup of coffee. “You’re choosing to be pissed off rather than grateful. You’re better than that.”
I wrench the refrigerator door open harder than necessary. I hate when he plays the “be the bigger person” card. I don’t always want to be the better person. Sometimes I want to act like a whiney brat who didn’t get her way.
“Can we pause for a minute?” Brielle interjects. “I thought you were going to talk to him like we discussed yesterday afternoon. What happened?”
Wrapping my hands around the hot mug, I turn and look at Brielle. “It was an intense night. Sebastian seemed cold, as if my presence bothered him even after sending me home for the day. His parents were there. They offered me the job. Veronica suggested her plan, and Sebastian jumped on it. I was overwhelmed, and I needed a minute. By the time I came out of the bathroom, Veronica was shoving Sebastian out the door and telling us not to speak to each other outside of business until this is all over. When was I supposed to talk to him?”
Brielle shakes her head and gives me a sad smile. “It doesn’t matter now. Now, we have to deal with these pictures. Sticking your head in the sand and acting like a baby isn’t going to solve things. Stop letting fear rule your life, Devin. You’ve already made it to a level where you’ll never have to be your parents. Let’s not forget—a safety net and financial security doesn’t make you a good person. Don’t get so caught up in the money aspect that you forsake everything else.”
Mark decides to add two more cents. “Your reputation at work is important, but it doesn’t have to run your life. The Brookses offered you a permanent position with people who already know you and your work. You made a choice, Devin. Don’t play an unsuspecting victim here. You have a solution that allows you and Sebastian to work through this. This whole picture episode is going to be nothing in a matter of months. Something bigger and juicier will come up. It’s not like Sebastian is a congressman or some super public figure where this will be dragged up again and again. It’s advertising. Think about that.”
My brain feels ready to burst. I feel another migraine on the horizon. I can’t believe they woke me up to gang up on me.
“Holy creepy,” Brielle shouts, looking down at the stack of papers on the kitchen counter. “She could be your twin.”
I can’t help myself. Stepping closer to Bri, all arguments forgotten, I glance at the photos over her shoulder. She’s correct. Under the headline “Is he getting ready to settle down?” is a picture of the two of them. This Arianna chick looks like she could be my younger sister. She has the same cocoa hue to her hair as me. She comes up to Sebastian’s chest; she could rest her head in the same spot I like to when he wraps his strong arms around me.
She’s pretty. The smile on her face as they pose in front of the restaurant is bright and brilliant. I usually smile that bright and big when I think about Sebastian.
“Someone needs to tell Sebastian that acting is not his forte and he should stick to advertising,” Brielle comments, pointing to Sebastian’s face in the photo. “He doesn’t look like he even likes this woman, let alone dating her.”
“I think it’s believable,” Mark chimes in. “He doesn’t seem to be thrilled, but that can be chalked up to having to stop for photo ops before dinner.”
They continue to discuss their opinion on Sebastian’s body language while I silently fist-bump in my head that even though he jumped at the chance to do this, knowing it was going to be hurtful to me, he’s not happy about it. Does that make me some kind of fucked-up person?
“She’s all smiles over dinner,” Brielle says as she stops flipping the pages when she finds another photo of them. Surprisingly, it’s not in the gossip section, rather the cuisine. “At least he looks mildly interested in whatever she is saying to him.”
I stand, coffee cup still in hand, zoned out. This isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I don’t know why I felt like Sebastian was going to be putting on the show of all shows. I was waiting for staged dipped kisses and them being touchy-feely. But Sebastian would never do that to me, and I’m almost embarrassed that, in my petulant stage of anger about the entire situation, I misdirected my frustration at Sebastian.
I just keep making this worse while he’s out there trying to fix it. I hope Veronica’s imposed distance doesn’t last too long. I really want to say fuck it and call him and share everything running through my head, but that makes all this pointless, and I have a feeling that would only make things worse.
