Page 30 of The Brave and the Reckless (Bravetown #1)
ANNIE LOU AND THE FOURTEEN THIEVES by CommanderAnnieRyder
Fandoms: Bravetown Park. Bravetown (TV Show). Den of Thieves (Attraction).
N OAH
I was about to be fired. I should have known that I was too replaceable to get into trouble.
Annie Lou’s costume was highly specific.
It wasn’t that easy to switch her out. Ace Ryder just needed to show up dressed in black with a bandana over his face.
So when I tailed Esra through the hallways of the office building, summoned by Renee, I knew only one of us was getting fired.
People here hooked up all the time, but not in the park, and definitely not during opening hours.
Had we forgotten to switch off the microphones one day?
The hideout’s location wasn’t accessible to the public during shows, but maybe another cast member had heard us from outside. I still would have expected the courtesy of a conversation. Who the hell would run to Renee to tattle right away?
I balled my fists when we walked into Renee’s office to see Lucas already sprawled in one of the chairs opposite her desk.
“Oh, hey, Lucky!” Esra’s face lit up at the sight of him. She clearly didn’t realize what his presence here meant. Or maybe she did, but she was blinded by the fact that she actually liked him, because no matter how many times I made her come, she never smiled at me like that.
“Hey gorgeous.” He smiled back.
Sleeping with a girl doesn’t make her your girlfriend.
I’d heard Adriana tell him as much the day after he’d spent the night in Esra’s room.
Getting me fired would sure get him a step closer though.
Or maybe it wouldn’t. Esra was into the costume.
Into Ace. Into being handled by the guy in the mask.
She liked being the little damsel, had called herself Pretty Annie Lou right after I’d made her come the other day.
She might just start hooking up with whoever replaced me.
“Sit down everyone,” Renee said and closed the door to her office behind us, “we need to talk.”
“Do I need a lawyer? Do I get a phone call?” Esra asked with a big grin that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She knew as well as I did that we could be in deep shit.
“I know the two of you are active online,” Renee said as she sat down, pointing at both Lucas and me. “So you have likely seen some of the posts and comments.”
“I turned off the comments on all my videos last week,” Lucas said and turned to Esra. “I wasn’t sure if you watched my videos, but you don’t need to see that shit.”
“I don’t watch your videos, sorry,” Esra mumbled, furrowing her brow.
“You called us in here because people have been trolling Esra online?” I asked.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Renee said.
Esra and I sighed in relief, garnering confused looks.
Sure, yes, the park’s online presence was important, but we’d clearly both been worried about a scandal of a vastly different scale. A few online haters were nothing.
“I’ve been deleting the comments and untagging myself from any posts like that,” I said, unable to keep my smile hidden.
“You’ve both been getting comments about me?” Esra asked, relief short-lived.
“There are a few very persistent commenters that we can block across all accounts and write off as ‘trolls’,” Renee said using air quotes, “but the general consensus isn’t great either.
It’s not affecting our numbers. Not yet.
But the online chatter has been loud enough for our customer experience team to notice.
Once they notice, it usually doesn’t take long for word to spread.
” Renee sighed and trained her eyes on Esra.
“I want to make it very clear that nobody thinks you’re at fault, okay?
You saved us from having to cancel our show altogether after Lindsey left, which would have definitely resulted in booking cancellations.
Still, I’ve decided to put out a casting call to find someone a little more experienced. ”
“You’re firing me?” Esra’s voice cracked and, in that moment, I would have burned down the entire internet to keep those assholes hiding behind their usernames far away from her.
“Oh, no, no, honey, no. You’ll always have a place here at Bravetown. Just not as Annie Lou. And it will take a few weeks for us to find a replacement and get her ready for the show, which is why I’ve decided to extend the run until we switch to the Spooktacular Sunset Showdown in late October.”
Esra opened and closed her mouth. “Can I keep the boots?”
Seriously?
“She’s done nothing wrong,” I interjected. Technically not true, but nobody seemed to know what we did when our microphones cut out.
“I know,” Renee sighed. “I called all three of you here because I want to try and make the next few weeks a little easier for Esra.”
“I’ve had it easy,” Esra said. “I don’t really spend much time online, and there’s only been a few people who were outright rude to me in the park. Judith shuts them down so quickly. She’s great at that. I don’t even have to interact with them.”
I’d had no idea that she’d been dealing with any vitriol in person.
It was one thing for people to say as much to me when I was in costume.
They thought they could draw a mean comment from me because I played the antagonist in the town’s tale.
Making Esra face their opinions was plain cruel.
They could consider themselves lucky that they’d only been shut down by Judith.
“I think it would help if you upped your online presence,” Renee said.
“Nowadays a lot of people come to the park to see the people and characters they found online. Like that Ren Faire whip guy who keeps singing pop songs and changes the lyrics to be about whipping, so people come to his shows to suggest really horny songs. He’s hot, he’s funny, he rakes in the cash. ”
All three of us stared at Renee. She’d never taken a big interest in our social media profiles.
There were a few rules she made us follow to keep the general park image family-friendly, but she’d never spelled out what she wanted to see from us or what she expected for the park.
She’d also never questioned whether we made extra cash through our accounts, even though there was probably some legal ground for her to request a cut if we filmed in costume and during work hours.
“I’m not saying you guys should start singing BDSM songs to curb the fallout. Just think of something to make Esra a little more likable. As Annie Lou. You’re a likable person, Esra.” Renee quickly clarified that last part.
“You just want us to include her on our socials?” Lucas asked and shot Esra a smile. “I can think of a few ways to do that.”
“Likable,” Renee repeated. “We already have one Heather.”
Translation: no half-naked tricks on horseback.
“I might actually have an idea,” Esra said, biting her lip, “but I’ve only taken one year of psychology and wrote only one paper based on the hypothesis that the performative belongingness that comes with being a superfan fulfills the emotional and psychological needs of a person more than the actual subject of their admiration.
Plus, that paper focused solely on the fans of three different sports teams, so while I was able to theoretically confirm my hypothesis, I don’t know if it can be translated into practice or if it works for fictional cowboys. ”
I only understood half of what she was saying, but I couldn’t look away.
It was the Hippocratic oath all over again.
The stark reminder that Esra couldn’t do her laundry or bake a batch of cookies without putting the whole house at risk but had lived a whole different life before she took this job.
Just like many times before, I wondered what the fuck she was doing here.
For once, that thought didn’t strike because she was somehow unfit for this place, but because I realized Bravetown could never measure up to this girl.
She was blindingly bright in ways that couldn’t be taught in school.
How did someone with a brilliant brain like hers end up running around in a costume in a small local theme park?
Why on earth was she letting me touch her every day when she should have been dating Nobel prize winners or something?
“What?” Renee asked after a moment of stunned silence, probably doing both Lucas and me a favor.
“Bravetown is a construct more than a place. It exists online. It exists in that short-lived TV show and in the picture books you sell in the parks. It exists in people’s minds,” Esra explained, “and to the fans, being part of Bravetown is more important than the individual pieces that created it in the first place.”
“Do you think it’ll work?” Esra stared up at me wide-eyed and hopeful .
“In some ways, yes.” I weighed my answer. “I think it will win over some of the people who are ambivalent about you, and the ones who support you will support you louder than before. It’ll help drown out the negativity.”
We walked home side by side after spending two hours filming short videos with Lucas.
He’d walked off toward the hotel, claiming that was the best Wi-Fi in the park if you wanted to post on social media, but I knew for a fact that the entire park had good signal.
I usually filmed my reactions on short breaks at the stables.
So my best guess was that some park guest had slid into his DMs with her room number.
“Hmm… but the root of the problem remains. Me. I suck as Annie.” Esra sighed. “I guess I can say that at least I tried.”