Page 51 of The Friends and Rivals Collection

But even though I’m giving him space, I know his jam, and I mouth along as he answers her with a gee-whiz smile. “Wow, I appreciate the offer, Marie, but we’ve got to edit this episode. You wouldn’t want me to miss posting it, would you, now?”

The man is good. He turns women down with so much honey in his voice it feels like a sugary compliment.

Some men are just talented like that.

“Of course I don’t want you to miss posting,” Marie says.

Ironic, since he’s not the one who posts the videos. I am.

“Be sure to watch, though. We always try to include the audience shots. We love our viewers.”

She giggles. “I love you, Nolan.” Then, she peels away, beelining for the door.

“Love you too, Marie,” I call out nicely since, sometimes, I’m secretly a dick.

“I’m sure she thinks you’re great too,” Nolan whispers near my ear.

“Oh yes, I’m so sure it was me she was loving on when she watched alone .”

After we gather our bags and gear, we thank Harriet for letting us shoot in her fabulously divey joint.

The sturdy woman in the “Don’t you dare kiss the chef” apron tuts.

“I have you to thank. Business will be through the roof tomorrow. I already got triple the takeout orders in the last hour just from you posting you were shooting here.” Then, she lowers her voice.

“And that was some slick handling of those are-you-together questions. I love how you two pretend you’re not a thing. ”

I scoff. “We’re not. We’re definitely not.”

Nolan chuckles. “We’re just friends, like we said.”

Harriet winks. Twice. “Sure. Whatever you say.”

I don’t deny it again. People believe what they want to believe.

We head out onto the San Francisco street. “If only we could bottle their interest in us being together, we’d be rich,” I joke.

“Bottle it and sell that shit. We’d definitely hit the next level,” Nolan agrees, a note of longing in his voice.

I feel that longing deep in my chest. “We’ll get there,” I say, chin up.

The next level is a tough climb, though. Very few YouTubers make a decent living from web TV alone. But that’s our goal—for the show to support us. To pay off our loans. Even with a million viewers, we aren’t quite there yet.

We duck into a coffee shop a few blocks away, order some fuel, then set up a makeshift edit bay at a table. Once I have one macchiato in me and another close at hand, I edit with the kind of focus that would make a Nikon jealous. Meanwhile, Nolan is busy interacting with fans on social media.

An hour later, I spin my laptop around and show him the edit of today’s episode, complete with the audience shots he promised Marie.

Nolan blows on his fingernails. “Damn, Em. Why are you so good at literally everything?”

“That’s easy—YouTube,” I answer.

“Is there anything you haven’t taught yourself online?”

“Let’s see.” I count off on my fingers. “Learned how to edit videos, change a flat, juggle, and do a smoky eye. So, the answer is... no.”

Peering intensely through those Clark Kent glasses, he checks out my eyes. Flames lick my cheeks from his hot stare. “You mean that kind of sexy, smudged eyeliner look?”

I catch my breath. “Yes. But I didn’t do that today,” I mumble.

“I think you look good with smoky eyelids and without,” he says, his smile at full wattage.

I raise my deflector shield. I can’t let Nolan’s champion flirting get to me—or Nancy, for that matter. I’m all business as I say, “So, you’re good with the episode? Can we post it?”

“Fire it up, baby,” he says.

After I hit upload, I find him pointing at his computer screen like an animated character. “Whoa. Big news here. Like, super-big news.”

“YouTube loves us and sent us an offer to be on the home page for a week?” I guess. “Oh, wait, I know! An organic food-maker signed on for a sah-weet sponsorship deal that’ll change our lives?”

“Close. Very close. Try to control your excitement, but we did sell ten more Foodgasm T-shirts from our merch shop today,” he says.

“Don’t knock it. That helps. Every little bit does.”

“Too true. By my calculations, if we sell seven thousand five hundred T-shirts, I might be able to pay off my student loans,” he quips. But like most jokes, it contains a big kernel of truth.

“Stahp, stahp, that’s crazy talk. No one has ever been able to do that in the history of ever,” I say. I sure as shit haven’t paid off mine.

Reflexively, I check our views. More than one thousand in the first minute. It’ll tick higher—exponentially higher. Trouble is that the ad revenue on the views doesn’t go that far.

Unless you break out big time.

And the chances of that are slim, so it’s lucky I learned how to juggle because it’s likely I’ll be doing that with two jobs for a long time.

That evening, I walk into the pipsqueak apartment I used to share with my sister, my eyes drifting briefly to a five-by-seven picture on the coffee table in the living room—a framed photograph of Cadillac Ranch on Route 66.

My chest tightens as I remember taking that picture two years ago, and I look away, focusing on clicking the door closed behind me.

My couch pillows call out to me, but I resist their siren song. Instead, I drop my messenger bag onto a metal chair at my kitchen table and perform my presto-chango routine.

Voila.

Fifteen minutes later, I’m freshened up and decked out all in black—the makeup artist’s unofficial dress code.

After a quick jaunt across the city to a luxury hotel in Union Square, I spend the next hour in the penthouse suite painting the faces of a quartet of eighteen-year-old girls from the city’s fanciest private school.

“Oh my God, we look so good for prom. You’re straight fire with a makeup brush,” a gal named Bexley coos at me.

“It’s easy when I have such a good canvas,” I say. I mean, hello, perfect dewy teenage skin.

Makeup is fun, but I figured I’d be done with these freelance gigs by age thirty. That by now, the show would cover all my bills and then some. Dreams are hard to catch, though, no matter how tenaciously you chase them.

I swipe some glittery blush on Tilly, and she declares I “slayed it.” I know what she means, though I don’t try to adopt their lingo, since... not cool.

Once I’m done, I thank the girls then pack up, checking the time as the elevator sweeps me to the lobby.

If I scurry two blocks over to California Street, I can catch the bus back to my place before the new murder mystery premiers on Hulu at nine.

I’ll text Katie and Jo. See if they want to do a watch party.

We can place bets on twists. Yup, some friends, a glass of wine, a pair of soft PJ pants, and a chance to escape with my girls into a twisty, zany story are just what the doctor ordered.

But as I turn the corner, the blue bus trundles away.

Ugh.

My shoulders sag, and I trudge all the way to the covered stop, the makeup bag digging into my hip. As I wait for the next bus, I idle away the minutes on my phone, rewatching today’s episode—particularly the moments after I bit into the veggie burger.

I did not imagine it—when Nolan watched me lick my lips, his dreamy eyes did darken.

A tingle swoops down my chest, but I squash it down.

Cool it, Nancy. You’re not in charge.