The Boyfriend Designer - Christopher Harlan Page 0,6
may not write back until later. I don’t care, though, I’m about to jump up out of my seat and do a big old happy dance—which probably would have been a better thing to do than scream, but whatevs.
Me: Hey hey.
I see the bubbles and see that she’s writing back right away. Maybe it’s a slow day in book tour land.
Tori: I’m going to rip this girl’s hair out.
That’s a little dramatic for a Tori text.
Me: What girl?
Tori: The assistant that Cormac’s company provided for this tour. She’s like the new you, only disorganized and kind of flaky.
Me: First of all, there is no new me, only me.
Tori: Sorry. How dare I make such a comparison.
Me: My heart is honestly hurting right now picturing you with another assistant. Tell me that you think about me every time you’re with her. Whenever she tells the next person in line at one of your signings that they can come up and get their book signed, tell me you’re imagining it’s me.
Tori: You’re sick in the head. But don’t worry, it’s just assisting. She means nothing to me. She only assisted me once or twice so far.
Me: Next time I see Cormac remind me to slap him across the face for trying to replace the best thing you ever had with some publishing company prostitute. Tell me at least she’s pretty—I can’t take the infidelity with an ugly assistant.
Tori: She’s beautiful, but that’s beside the point.
Me: Huh. Maybe for you it is. You’re not the one being cheated on.
Tori: Okay, so Bri is starting to seem a little less bad the more we text. Thanks for that.
Me: Bri? That’s the little whore’s name? I can’t believe you left me for a girl named after a gross cheese.
Tori: I need you to dial the crazy back to like a 5. First, the Brie is delicious. Second, I’m not cheating on you—you’re killing it with your vlog and I’m killing it with my book. We’re living the dream.
I stop joking for a second because I really want to tell her about my channel.
Me: How many weeks on bestseller list now?
Tori: Twenty in total, I think. This week might be twenty-one, I’d have to check. This is so crazy, and to think Cormac almost didn’t publish this.
Me: Make sure you remind him of his stupidity every chance you get, okay? Unending guilt trips are the cornerstone of a healthy relationship.
Cormac is Tori’s fiancé and a partner in the publishing company that finally agreed to take her on as a new author about a year and a half ago. Sounds scandalous, right? Like my girl was banging the boss so she could get a publishing deal? Well, that’s not exactly how the whole thing went down. Tori, being a touch of crazy herself, decided that the only way to get a deal for a book that Cormac hated was to construct a social experiment where they lived like fake boyfriend and girlfriend to see whose views on the opposite sex were right.
I’ll tell you a secret—I always knew it was going to end like it did.
She was hot for teacher from the start, whether she wanted to admit it or not. Now they’re engaged, and happier than ever.
Me: So, I need to tell you something. Can I call you real fast, ‘cause all this texting is giving me carpal tunnel. If I’m going to have pain in my hands I can think of better reasons to get it than being too lazy to dial you. See, even this text is way too long.
Tori: Count to thirty and dial.
Me: Okay.
I follow instructions. She picks right away.
“Better?” she asks.
“Wow.”
“Wow what?”
“Your phone did that weird thing where it picks up before I even heard a ring. I’ve always wanted to experience that, and now I have.”
“I’m glad to be able to help you experience new things,” she jokes. “But you wanna know something even more trippy? It rang twice on my side.”
“Stop it! Pretty soon you’re going to talk me into believing in Area 51 and that whole Lizard People thing.”
“Lizard people?” she asks.
“How are you such a YouTube sensation and you haven’t kept up on your conspiracy theories?”
“Sorry, Shosh. You hear that?”
“No, what?”
“That’s the sound of me slapping myself on the wrist for not trolling conspiracy theory websites. Bad fake celebrity I am.”
“I’m totally laughing on the inside, by the way.”
“That’s all that counts. Now, are you just going to leave me hanging?”