The Boyfriend Designer - Christopher Harlan Page 0,23
now? I look at the clock. Meet and greet and panels start in an hour, and I’m about to fall on my face. I’m starting to feel the exhaustion I should have felt hours ago. It’s like in the old Looney Tunes shows when the Coyote would only fall when he looked down and realized there was no more ground beneath him. I guess now that I have no more videos on “How to Give Girls the Orgasm of Their Lives”, my body is realizing that it needs about three more hours of sleep than it got. Mental note—take nots on that video later on.
“Shit!” I yell.
“What?” Tori asks.
“I need to shower. I need to get ready. And, by the way, you were right, I’m totally obsessed I think, even though I hate him. Shit. Fuck My Life.”
“Wait, what?”
There’s no time for ‘wait, what’ – I run into the bathroom for a quick shower. Ten minutes later I’m drying off and getting ready as my heart is going a mile a minute.
I finish as quickly as I can while still getting myself beautiful for my adoring fans. I really do have anxiety about meeting them, but the more I think about it the more I realize that it’s an excited type of nervous. I’m happy to be around all the fans, I’m just not sure I have all the confidence I need to believe they actually want to hang out with just me.
On way to the main floor, I take enough deep breaths that Tori goes out of her way to reassure me that it’s all going to be okay. “They love you, Shosh. Stop stressing. Did you ever stress when you were my assistant?”
Her assistant. That’s what Conor assumed that I was—nothing more than the hired help. Robin to a much more popular YouTuber’s Batman. “Never. I mean, just that one time I thought I was going to have to fight that guy.”
Tori laughs. “What are you talking about?”
“That time. C’mon, you remember. That tall bald guy who was talking shit.”
She looks up and thinks for a minute. “Wait, are you talking about the biker who came to my book signing with his wife?”
“Yes—the jerk who rolled his eyes when his wife complimented you on that chapter about toxic masculinity. He’s lucky he walked away as fast as he did.”
“Shosh, that guy was easily two hundred and fifty pounds and like six foot seven.”
“So?”
“And besides his size he was wearing legit colors of an MC.”
“MC?”
“Motorcycle Club—and you were not about to fight anyone.”
“You don’t know what I’m capable of, okay. I didn’t like that guy’s eye roll at you—he was a hater.”
“He was a man,” Tori says. “And most of them don’t like what’s in my book. Cormac didn’t even like it.”
“I’d never fight Cormac. He’s dreamy.”
“I agree. But you would fight a giant biker?”
“In a New York minute. He never would have known what hit him.”
“Your open hand is what would have hit him, and that would be the end of it.”
“Keep underestimating me, Ms. Klein. You just wait. If anyone gets out of line, we’ll all be Kung Fu fighting in no time.”
“Anyone?” she asks. “Like Conor? He’s bound to get out of line, especially after last night.”
I almost forgot.
Maybe I just want to forget that I committee career suicide last night by making a total fool of one of the biggest influencers out there. I also don’t want to think about why I followed up my rejection with hours and hours of watching his videos when I should have been resting for today’s meet-and-greet. I don’t know why I have such a blind spot with him, but, now that Tori reminded me that I’ll probably see him in there, I start to get nervous again. The blue balls thing was more of a drop-the-mic kind of technique. It loses some impact if you have to see the person the next day, when their balls return to their rightful color.
“Don’t remind me. Is it time?”
“It’s time. Let’s go, you’ll be fine. I arranged it so that we’re next to one another.”
“Yay!” I yell out, genuinely happy to be with her for this whole thing. “That makes me feel better.”
“Good. Let’s go greet your adoring fans.”
My adoring fans are amazing.
I seriously don’t know why I was stressing before. These women are incredible. And I haven’t even thought about having to go full Uma Thurman in Kill Bill on any unruly subscribers yet. This is awesome.