“It was obvious in the footage?”
“Oh, no—I’m sure it wasn’t obvious at all. To blind people.”
Bex felt heat rising to her cheeks, and for a second, she felt the familiar resistance that made her want to edit it out. She had learned long ago how to push past her fear of being vulnerable on camera, though. Letting her audience see the real her was how they connected to her. “Do you know what? It’s fine. I’m betting a big reason as to why they voted him as the person they most wanted me to interview was because they saw how good looking he is and wanted to get to know him more. They’ll be feeling it, too, so it’s okay if they see it from me.”
“Which is why I kept so much of it in there.”
“There was more that you cut?” Because she had seen plenty of herself very much noticing Roman’s attractiveness.
“Enough for a lengthy compilation video. Want me to put together one? I’m betting I can find a great soundtrack to go with it.”
“That’s a hard no. It’s fine if my fans really commiserate because they’re feeling the same things. It’s not fine if they start making up a relationship name for us. Roman isn’t the kind of guy I can fall for.”
“If you say so.”
“All right, Nikki. You can stop giving me the ‘It’s so cute you don’t see the things that I, as the older sister, can see.’ It doesn’t matter how very attractive Roman is—he’s the wrong type of guy for me, and I will not be falling for him.”
Nikki made a show of wiping the amused expression off her face and replacing it with a neutral one. As they got back to work, Bex made sure she didn’t stare dreamily at the screen even once.
She could do that later, when Nikki wasn’t watching.
Bex had managed to stop thinking about Roman once they finalized the video for their first interview. Then she actually got work done on some ads, planned some future videos, replied to comments, wrote a few newsletters, and responded to an interview. She hadn’t even realized how much time had passed until Peyton got home. As soon as she came into the house, she walked into the family room and plopped down on one of the couches. Bex saved what she was working on, closed her laptop, and went to the end of the room where Peyton was.
“You’re not your normal, peppy self. What’s up?”
Peyton took in a deep breath as she lifted her hands in an exaggerated shrug, then let her arms fall to the couch as she exhaled. “Between my biggest client telling me they ‘no longer needed my services’ on Friday, my crappy date on Saturday, and Max still being gone on a photography trip to the Cascades, I just can’t seem to get out of my funk. You should have seen the butternut rolls I made at a client’s home today. Even they were sad. Tell me I have good things going on in my life.”
“Well, first of all,” Bex said, “you have awesome clients who love you. More than you can handle. Your biggest client didn’t treat you as well as the others, and now you’ll be able to spend more time with the ones who do.”
“True...”
“As far as dating, you are one step closer to finding the right guy, so cross that off your list.” That one didn’t make Peyton perk up as much as the first, so Bex kept going. “I’ve had your butternut rolls, and I would eat a dozen regardless of how pretty they were. And just because one of your best friends is beyond cell reception in the Cascades doesn’t mean you don’t have a houseful of best friends here.”
“Thanks, Bex.”
“Do you know what you need? A dance party.” Bex pulled out her phone and started looking through her playlists for the perfect one.
“Bex, I’m too tired for a dance party.”
“That’s because there’s no music playing right now. Just wait. You’ll see.” As she stood up, she noticed Addison’s car pull into the drive. Perfect. She walked to the stairs at the base of the lobby and called up, “Timini! Mandatory dance party in the family room!”
Within seconds, the stairs pounded as Timini ran down them. “Dance party? I have been in need of that all day.” Timini reached the bottom of the stairs just as Addison opened the front door, so Timini looped her arm in Addison’s and led her to the family room, too.
As Bex paired her phone with the speakers, she said, “Peyton’s feeling down. You two pull her off that couch and we’ll all pull her out of her funk.” Then she started playing the music loud enough that Ian’s grandma, Shirley, and Carol could probably have had their own dance party at their house next door.
Then she set her phone to start recording video and set it on the mantel. Her roommates were used to her videoing random things and trusted that she would get approval from them before ever posting anything online. Now they expected her to film things like this. Not only were things like this often perfect—you never knew when a three-second clip of a dance party would liven up a video or provide the perfect humor—but her roommates liked having this time of their lives documented. Maybe they would get together when they were all in their eighties for roommate reunions and watch these videos.
And then they all started dancing.
At first, Peyton only danced half-heartedly, no matter how much energy Bex, Addison, and Timini put into it. It only took a couple of songs, though, and they were all singing along to the chorus of Rachel Platten’s Fight Song and jumping up and down like they were kids at their first middle school dance.
They were still going strong when the front door opened a couple of minutes later and a confused Ian walked into the lobby. The confusion changed to happiness soon after, and he immediately came into the room and started dancing alongside Addison. Bex loved that he would join in whatever crazy thing they did so easily. She wished that Roman was here right now to join in, too.
Whoa. She’d had exactly one interview and one phone call with him that had gone decently, and suddenly she was wishing he would show up to a roommate dance party? Clearly she had watched too much of him on that video today. She needed to find a way to stop thinking about him so much. Just as soon as she got their next interview planned.
And then had the interview.
And then planned and carried out the next two.
And edited those three.
And released them and promoted them all.
Okay, new plan: she just needed to not allow herself to think of him anytime she wasn’t doing one of those things. Because he was the wrong guy, and she wasn’t about to fall for him.
As the song quieted near the end, a grinning, heavy-breathing Peyton said, “Holy guacamole, this is fun. Can we make mandatory dance parties an official thing?”
Bex walked right out to the lobby where they kept the roommate calendar and message board and pulled out a pad of sticky notes. In as big of letters as would fit, she wrote Mandatory dance party every Monday night and stuck it to the board.
There. It was official.
And while she was writing it and sticking it up, she congratulated herself on going a full twelve seconds without thinking of Roman. This was going to be no problem at all.
10
Roman
Roman pulled into the parking lot at the address Bex had texted him, fully expecting to see a recreation center or some other kind of building that might house a racquetball court, since that was the direction she had taken their phone call. Instead, there were outdoor courts similar to tennis courts, but a bit smaller. He might’ve thought he was in the wrong place, but Bex was on the court with her roommate and another guy he recognized from Ian’s wedding, and Bex’s videographer nephew, Enoch.