“Yep. They add to the look of it being haunted.” He kept glancing at the closest one like it couldn’t be trusted, which made Bex laugh out loud. And it made Enoch keep taking his eyes off the video camera and looking at it like he was just as wary.
She started with an introduction of Roman, just in case people were watching who hadn’t seen either of the other two interviews, and asked Roman a few questions about his company.
“Wow,” she said after hearing him talk about it. “It sounds like you’ve put together a pretty stellar group of people at your company.”
He smiled in a way that told her he was really proud of it, and she couldn’t help but just stare at his beautiful face for a moment. His beautiful, strong-jawed, perfectly-stubbled, melt-your-heart face. Then she realized that she was just staring at that face for far too long to be a proper interview and cleared her throat.
“You have an app that has been a fan favorite for quite a while now, right? I want to hear more about it.”
“The one that made us famous is Musicbound. Think of the last movie you watched. Now imagine it without any music. No soundtrack at all.”
Bex flinched, just thinking of how wrong that felt. And for some reason, it made Enoch look to the mannequin closest to him, like if he didn’t keep an eye on it, it was going to attack him or something.
“The music adds a lot to a movie. We thought book reading should be the same, so we created an app to provide music while you’re reading an ebook or listening to an audiobook. The app will scan the book and look for subjects, themes, tone, and a couple dozen more metrics. Then it’ll select music to play while you read that fits the feel and the plot of the book. In chapters where something sad happens, the music will be more sad. When it’s an action-packed scene, the music will be upbeat and fast. Just like in the movies, it’ll fit what you are reading.”
“Shut the front door.” She looked at the camera, knowing that if her viewers weren’t already using this app, they were going to be just as stunned by this as she was. “Are you kidding me right now? This is really a thing?”
Roman’s smile was wide.
“Is the music the same every time you read?”
“Not necessarily. If you read the same book a year later, there will be more songs that have been put out into the world, so it might choose one of those. And if you’re a slower reader, you’ll hear more songs than the faster readers.”
Bex put her hands up, like she’d been hit by a blast. “How do I not already have this in my life?” She took her phone out of her pocket and opened the app store. “I need this right now. This purple one with the music note on a book is it, right?”
“Yep.”
As it was downloading, she looked out at her viewers. “Did you all already know about this? If so, why didn’t you tell me? And if you haven’t already told everyone you know about this, you should do it the second you finish watching this video.” Then she turned back to Roman. “Does it work with nonfiction?”
He made a motion with his head that was both a nod and a shake. “We designed it to work with fiction books only. I still use it with every non-fiction book I read, though. I’ve gotten some interesting results. It has made me double my non-fiction reading just to hear what kind of music it chooses for it.”
“Give me an example.”
“Let me think. Oh. Okay. I was reading B.J. Fogg’s Tiny Habits, and one of the songs it played was Hard Habit to Break by Chicago. And while I was reading Deep Work by Cal Newport, it played a bunch of music that was scientifically proven to help with focus.”
“Impressive.”
“I thought so, too. My favorite, though, was when I was reading Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes. During one chapter, it played Kelly Clarkson’s What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger, and in another chapter, Katy Perry’s Roar.”
She laughed, feeling like they were some pretty appropriate choices, and Roman’s eyes shone with a mix of pride, satisfaction, and enjoyment, and she felt like she was seeing through to the real him. And he read Year of Yes! Her heart melted even more to know that he read a book by a woman who was all about creating shows that people could connect to. Maybe she had misjudged Roman and the way he felt about her job.
Instead of continuing to stare at him, her jaw still hanging at the revelations like she’d lost all ability to control it, she looked down at the app on her phone. “It feels like such a shame that this app has been out in the world and I haven’t been using it.”
“At least you have it now.”
“Yes. This calls for a celebration.” She twisted to grab the mini cooler that was snuggled between a couch cushion and a blanket to her side and opened it up. She pulled out a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and a spoon and handed it to Roman. “Half-baked for the app genius and Red, White, and Blueberry for the giddy new app owner.”
They both took off their lids and scooped up a spoonful of ice cream. Roman closed his eyes and savored his bite, and she wondered how long it had been since he’d eaten ice cream. Or at least a flavor of ice cream that reminded him of his childhood. He put a hand behind him and leaned back, stretching his legs forward.
The blanket fort was definitely much larger than a kid’s version. But they weren’t kids—they were two adults and a twelve-year-old who was as tall as Bex, and bigger or not, it was still cozy. And Roman’s legs were long. So when he stretched, it bumped the base of the mannequin that Enoch had been most wary of.
Enoch flinched back in surprise when he had noticed the movement from the corner of his eye, and then jerked in fear as the mannequin wobbled, looking like it had come to life. In an instant, he was scuttling backward, the couch cushion he sat on and the blanket tucked under the edge of it going with him.
“No!” Bex shouted as she instinctively lunged forward to grab hold of the mannequin that was now falling forward as the weight of the blanket resting on its head was being tugged, and Roman instinctively lunged over Bex to protect her from above. She grabbed the mannequin by its hard plastic ankles—not that the motion could’ve helped at all—just as it fell to the ground.
Then, like dominos, all of the mannequins and the dress forms fell to the ground, all the blankets being pulled down on top of them.
And suddenly, Bex was in a very dark, very muffled, very small space, looking up at Roman, whose hands were on the floor, one next to each of her shoulders, the only space between them being the length of his arms from wrist to shoulder as he hovered over her, currently being the only thing holding up any part of the fort.
“Impressive save,” she breathed.
He shifted his knees, and she let go of her grip on the mannequin’s ankle that she realized her right hand was still clutching.
“This isn’t quite how I remember blanket forts as a kid.”
“What, you never had mannequins attack you in yours?”
He chuckled, and even though she couldn’t see his face, she could sense just the way his mouth would be tugged up in the one corner and how his eyes would almost be twinkling. He was so close that she could feel his breath on her cheek, feel the warmth of his body emanating from him. “I don’t suppose you know the best direction to head to find our way out?”