Nope. I shook my head forcefully, trying to shake the thought away. These people were here to be mean. I hit Delete and reminded myself that the whole point of these comments was to get in my head and cause a rift between me and Ethan. I’d delete all the comments and see him later, and everything would be fine. Hopefully.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
In hindsight, I should nothave picked this table. It was in the corner of Beginners Luck, out of the line of sight of most passersby. But that also meant I couldn’t see Ethan coming unless I leaned way into the aisle, thereby defeating the purpose of the table in the first place. Maybe this whole meeting was a bad idea. I should’ve asked Nittha or Gabby to borrow one of their rooms. That would have given us more privacy. Okay, more privacy from strangers and way less privacy from my friends.
Logically, I knew the comments on BamBam’s videos had very little to do with reality. But that didn’t stop me from feeling paranoid. I adjusted the hood on my sweatshirt so that it was closer to my neck, pulled the brim of my hat down, then focused on sorting through more clips. I’d hoped I’d be further along in my video outline by now, but it was what it was. With any luck, Ethan would trust that I had a real plan if I just sort of waved my hands around and spoke with enthusiasm.
“Hey.” Ethan’s voice pulled at my focus. I looked up to see him walking toward me, a smile on his face. He had circles under his eyes, like he’d been up half the night but was putting all his remaining energy into sounding like he’d slept more. Even exhausted and in his sweats, he was still cute. I wondered if he’d been up thinking about me, or if he’d seen the video last night. Surely he would have texted me if he’d known sooner.
“Sorry I’m late. My grandma needed help getting repacked and moving one of the heavier suitcases. Of course, they are all heavy because she overpacked.” Ethan laughed as he came directly to my side of the table and leaned down to kiss my cheek as if a whole subsection of the internet weren’t currently freaking out about us. My back tensed, and I held my breath, like becoming a human plank would somehow prevent anyone from seeing us.
Dropping into the chair across from me, Ethan furrowed his brow as his eyes scanned my face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Jamie.” Ethan tilted his head to one side as he leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. “Your facial expressions are about as subtle as a leaf blower. Please tell me.”
I laughed, the movement shaking loose a little bit of the tension in my chest. “Emmie posted about us.”
“Oh, that.” Ethan’s lip curled.
“I think she meant well,” I added hastily.
“She probably thought she was ripping the Band-Aid off so everyone could move on.” Ethan sighed and slumped back in his chair. “It’s not so bad, I guess.”
“Except that y’all’s shippers posted on BamBam’s videos.”
“They posted on your grandma’s videos?” Ethan’s eyebrows disappeared under his mop of messy hair.
“It’s okay. I deleted all the comments I could find, so we’re good there. I think. I’ll keep an eye on it for the next few days.” I studied the fraying cuff of my sweatshirt, running my fingers across the edge as if the texture would help me feel calm again.
“I’m so sorry.”
“How do you live like this? With people constantly judging you?”
“I swear this is not my life. Three hundred and sixty-four days of the year I can go to the grocery store and no one knows who I am.”
Ethan slid a hand across the table, palm up, waiting for my hand to join it. I hesitated, my mind flickering between want and fear. A fleeting look of hurt washed over Ethan’s face and was gone as fast when our eyes met. I didn’t want him to feel bad, but with so many people watching for us, I also had to think about not crushing BamBam.
“It’s probably already blown over, and BamBam will never be any wiser.” I tried to sound like it would all be okay soon, even as a fresh wave of anxiety coursed through me.
Ethan’s eyes searched mine. “I’m sorry about this. Truly.”
“I know this isn’t your fault. I’ll be okay, really. It’s just not how I want BamBam to find out about us.” I sighed and tried my best to paste on a smile that we both knew wasn’t real. Giving my shoulders a shake, I added, “Enough about Emmie’s video. Let’s talk about our soon-to-be prize-winning work.”
“Yes, please.” Ethan brightened and shifted, taking his hand off the table as I pushed my computer between us so we could both see the screen. “Show me what you got.”
“So, I didn’t quite get as far on the rough cut as I wanted to this morning, but I still think it’ll give you some sense of where I was going. Imagine fun music and some bright overlays either for lower thirds or some other transition.”
Holding my breath, I pressed Play, and a series of jagged jump cuts moved us from landmarks to Ethan smiling as he showed off the ridiculous singing car and then footage of people enjoying product demos at the con. I even managed to slip in a quick clip of BamBam and Buzzy’s panel before things took a murderous turn. With each cut, my nerves picked up. It occurred to me that outside of my family, no one had ever seen a rough draft of anything I’d done. What if he hated it? Or worse, thought it was boring?
“It’s super rough, I know. But if we move between clips using neon shapes so everything will have a kind of bubbly, bright feel. Maybe use a filter in the same shade as the shapes so everything pulls together.” My words came out in a nervous jumble as the video stopped playing. Ethan watched me, his expression focused and unreadable. My heart started to pound. I sucked in a breath, then added, “Of course, this is all up for discussion. If you hate it, we can start over or—”
“I don’t hate it,” Ethan cut in, shaking his head. “I like it. I’m just thinking about the transitions. What if, instead of neon, we used the con’s color scheme as the filter? It would be more blues and reds, which might feel a little like an ad for the Americanflag—”
“But not if we do it right,” I said, a grin stretching across my face as my mind started to work through the different ways that we could use a filter to help the transitions. “We could use less saturated shades. And if we keep boxy shapes to a minimum—”
“Exactly,” Ethan said, his voice bouncing off the wall behind me as he leaned in. “And maybe we pick music that is upbeat or playful.”
