anything he did that was out of the ordinary, I couldn’t think of anything. I mean, my viewers had already seen tonight that Chad didn’t have much of a filter, so that wouldn’t be news to them.
So after thinking about my answer for a moment longer and still coming up blank, I lifted my shoulder and said, “One of Chad’s quirks is that he whistles all the time.”
Sometimes to an annoying effect.
But I wouldn’t add that part since even though he didn’t seem to mind throwing me under the bus on tonight’s live Q&A, I refused to return the favor.
“My turn?” Chad asked.
“Sure.”
And when he rubbed his hands together and shot me a smirk, I braced myself for whatever he was about to say.
He paused for effect, and after building the suspense for a few seconds, he said, “I’d have to say that the biggest quirk that our sweet Arianna here has is that she is a big-time sleep talker.”
He didn’t…
I narrowed my gaze, wondering what he was going to say next and if I should just turn off the livestream.
“You can actually learn a lot about a person when they sleep talk,” he continued. “And while I don’t love having my sleep interrupted when Arianna falls asleep at my place, it does provide some great middle-of-the-night entertainment.”
My palms started to sweat as I wondered what kinds of things I could have mumbled in my sleep. Because while I was mostly an open book, I did have some secrets about myself that I planned on taking to my grave.
9
Cole
Why was I watching this?
I had to be the biggest masochist in the world to choose to watch the girl I was in love with talk publicly about why she and her boyfriend had the perfect relationship—only to have Chad, the narcissist, basically rake her across the coals in front of her fans.
He was such a scumbag.
But even though it was pure torture to watch him publicly demean the most amazing woman in the world, I couldn’t not watch. Because if I was going to have to cheer her up afterwards and let her know that everything he was saying was a lie, I needed to know just exactly all the things I had to combat.
I considered calling her phone just to cut into her livestream to make the public humiliation stop, but I wished she’d just do it herself.
Actually, I wished she’d rip Chad a new one and chew him out right then and there for being such a jerk.
But she didn’t.
She just put a fake smile on her face and took his crap like always.
So I did the only thing I could think to do and just sent her as many encouraging comments as they went on, hoping that it would help her realize she was so much better than Chad would ever deserve.
I sighed and leaned back on my couch as I waited for Chad to answer the last of their questions for tonight.
I should probably just turn my phone off and go over the notes my agent had sent over from his conversations with the 49ers and the Dragons, so I could make it seem like I was actually trying to figure out what team I’d play for next year.
But when Chad started talking about Arianna and her sleep talking—something I’d also witnessed a couple of times—I had to know what he’d overheard and if it was the same thing I’d heard before.
“Sometimes Arianna talks about interesting things,” Chad said, the mere sound of his voice grating on my ears. “Like how much she likes my eyes and how hot she thinks I am when I wear a suit.” The guy shot Arianna a flirtatious wink that made me want to gag. “But then there are nights when she talks about the most random, boring crap. Like just last week she went on and on about how this Harper girl had blue eyes instead of brown. It was ridiculous. She kept saying it over and over, and even started crying about it in her sleep.”
Chad rambled on and on about her dream, but instead of listening to him, I focused on Arianna’s face in the background, which looked as pale as a ghost.
I frowned as Chad continued to talk about Arianna’s night ramblings. Couldn’t he tell that Arianna didn’t like him talking about this in front of her viewers?
“Who is this Harper chick, anyway?” Chad continued. “And why does her eye color matter so much? Like, I know