got most of her wedding and honeymoon expenses covered, thanks to her two million–follower reach. All she had to do was photograph everything and tag all the vendors.”
It was weird explaining it to someone, especially someone with a minimal social media presence. Most people she knew understood the robust Instagram ecosystem that existed between influencers and followers and companies trying to sell them a better lifestyle than the one they already had. Or, at the very least, the appearance of a better lifestyle. Derek’s company had all the social media accounts, of course, which he never checked. They were managed by an intern in the marketing department.
“Online I can be anyone I want to be,” she said. “I can control everyone else’s perception of who I am. I’m in charge of the narrative.”
“And that matters because…”
“Because it does,” she said. “It’s how we remind other people that we exist.”
“Do you post your art online?”
“Never,” she said. “My art I don’t give away for free.”
Derek was giving her a funny look. “Yeah, I don’t get it,” he said. Then he poked her in the side, and that’s when she realized he was messing with her.
She smacked him with a pillow. “Shut up,” she said. “This is what the cool kids do, old man.”
The timer beeps and Kenzie turns off the stove, moving the pot to a cold burner. She tears open the seasoning packet with her teeth and sprinkles the powder in, stirring one last time before transferring the noodles to a bowl. There is no nutritional value in anything she’s about to eat, but just like the Barenaked Ladies would still eat Kraft dinner if they had a million dollars, so, too, will Kenzie continue to eat instant ramen if she ever marries Derek.
Holy shit. Did she actually just think that? Marry Derek? What the hell is happening to her?
Really and truly, it was never supposed to come to this.
When they first met six months ago—met officially, anyway—Derek had no idea who Kenzie was. He didn’t remember her. She didn’t exist to him before the day he first walked into the Green Bean.
The coffee shop wasn’t busy, and she remembers watching through the windows as a metallic black Maserati parallel-parked at the curb right outside the front door. In the University District, where the majority of the Green Bean’s customers were students and hospital shift workers, a Maserati, even in an understated color, stood out.
Derek strode in, tall and well-dressed in his tailored suit and shiny black shoes, hair perfect, leather laptop bag slung over one broad shoulder, appearing every inch the successful businessman he was. Kenzie recognized him right away.
He was the guy from the market.
Every other week for close to a year, he would stop by the Taquitos Hermanos food truck at the west end of Pike Place Market, which is where Kenzie worked when she first moved to Seattle for grad school. Carlos and Joey paid her in cash at the end of every shift, and she went wherever the truck went—food festivals, concerts, even a couple of outdoor weddings. It was a fun way to earn money without having to pay taxes, and the best part was, she could eat anything she wanted for free. On Saturdays, the truck had a regular spot at Pike Place.
“Skirt steak, extra guac, extra cheese, extra tomatoes,” Derek would say when he reached the window, every time.
The taco was four dollars, and he’d always pay with a five and stick the rest in the tip jar. She had no idea he was rich back then. Dressed in jeans and a windbreaker, he looked like everybody else, and sometimes he came to the food truck with his kid. If he did, sometimes he’d buy the kid a churro.
And then his son got kidnapped, and he stopped coming. And then Carlos sold the taco truck.
Kenzie knew about the kidnapping, of course. It was all over the news, and the police were all over the market. A cop came by the truck and asked everyone if they’d seen a little boy in a reindeer sweater anywhere in the vicinity. Carlos and Joey hadn’t seen anything; they did all the cooking and rarely interacted with customers. When the cop showed Kenzie the kid’s picture, she shook her head. She would have recognized Derek if she’d been shown his photo, but kids were largely invisible. She had never really looked at Derek’s son.
It wasn’t until she was home later that she saw the link for