who was telling me everything I wanted to hear.
And so I’d loosened my rules for myself and took that step with him.
I hadn’t regretted it, since I really thought we were destined to get married one day. But hearing his side of things had me doubting all my decisions.
Had Chad really loved me when he’d said it?
Because true love didn’t use manipulation to get someone to sleep with you, did it?
“How about I pick the next question?” Chad said, breaking into my thoughts, not seeming to notice how quiet I’d gotten.
Even though I wanted to dissect every interaction we’d ever had, I knew there were several thousand people watching us right now so I forced a smile on my face and said, “Yes, you can choose the next one.”
The show must go on.
I looked at the comments. There were a few viewers scolding Chad for what he’d just revealed about our relationship, but soon, new questions started populating the screen.
“Oh, this is the million-dollar question,” Chad said, pointing to one of the comments. “@loranasanchez is wondering if we’ve ever talked about marriage and kids.” He glanced sideways at me. “You want to answer this one, honey?”
“S-sure.” I sat up straighter. Maybe if I took charge of this question it might go better than the last. So I cleared my throat and said, “To answer the first part of the question, Chad and I have discussed getting married in hypothetical terms. But it has only been hypothetical. We haven’t really gotten all that serious about it since the time has never seemed right.”
Chad nodded from beside me.
“But as for kids…” I said, knowing that I was probably about to surprise a lot of my followers with my answer. “Chad and I are both in agreement that if we did get married one day it would just be us and maybe a fur baby. Neither of us are interested in becoming parents.”
Surprised-face emojis filled the screen after I finished, along with a few angry faces.
Yep…I figured that would happen.
And then, just like I also expected, several comments followed, displaying my viewers’ shock over the fact that I didn’t want to have children with Chad someday.
* * *
@boysrbabes23: How can you not want to create babies with Chad? They would be gorgeous.
@riley_franklin66: I thought you loved kids. You always gush over your nephew and niece.
@beatricetheowl: No surprise there. You are all about the fame. So selfish.
* * *
Several other comments followed along the same lines. And even though I knew I didn’t need to defend my position, I said, “It’s not that I don’t love children. I think they are so adorable and fun to be around, and I plan to continue to be the best auntie in the world. I just haven’t seen myself being a mother for several years now and I don’t expect it to change. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I have to have children. I’m fine with other people having lots of babies, it’s just not for me. And that’s okay.”
“Next question?” Chad turned to me with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes, please.” I sighed.
Preferably one that was less polarizing.
I searched the comment thread until I saw: @ariannasbiggestfan: This question is for Arianna only. How are you so amazing at everything?
I smiled, happy to see a familiar name in the sea of unfamiliar ones and said, “I see you, biggest fan, and I don’t know how exactly I got to be this awesome, but if someone has to be amazing it might as well be me.”
@ariannasbiggestfan replied: True, queen. True.
I wanted to say something about my best friend being super awesome as well, but since Chad was sitting next to me and probably wouldn’t like me gushing over another guy, I just looked for the next question to answer.
“It looks like we’ve been on here for about forty minutes,” I said after we answered the question asking how we kept our relationship alive with Chad being out of town so much. “How about we just answer two more questions?” I looked at Chad. “Do you see any you’d like to answer?”
“Umm…” He read the comments for a few seconds then said, “How about we go with, ‘Who is the better cook? And do either of you have weird quirks we don’t know about?’”
Those sounded safe enough, so I shrugged and said, “Sure.” Then I looked straight at the phone. “I am the better cook. No contest.”
Chad grabbed my arm, and with a playful look in his eyes, he