Page 7

BATPHONES AND BOYS

TEMPEST

" S up?” Parker spun away from her laptop and sucked on the straw of her ever present iced coffee. At this point, she should just mainline it. “How was your day? Make any life-altering decisions? Hide any farm animals? Get assigned to tutor any hot football players?”

I dropped my bag and stared at the corner of our room. “Why is there a kiddie pool on our balcony?”

The two of us had worked out a temporary schedule so we could get to classes and extra-curriculars without ever leaving baby donkey home alone. And honestly, the brunt of the donkey-sitting so far had fallen on Parker’s shoulders since a lot of her classes were virtual.

I think she’d managed by consuming an inordinate amount of caffeine.

“Brilliant, right?” She bounced up to demonstrate. “Love me some same-day Zon delivery. I figured out that if we put puppy pads in it and surrounded it with hay, it makes a perfect donkey bathroom. We still gotta do some serious big boy pooper scoops, but better than our room smelling like a barn.”

It was better, and what was more, with the kinds of things a house full of fifty-five sorority sisters ordered online, I’m sure no one looked twice at a kiddie pool, puppy pads, a collapsible shovel, and a block of hay arriving on the front porch.

Baby donkey looked up from where he was munching hay, his makeshift wings from yesterday were back on, and decidedly crooked. So fricking cute.

“That’s...” I couldn’t decide whether it was genius or insane. “Actually kind of brilliant.” Until we got the inevitable January cold snap and snow. But hopefully the sanctuary would be back up and running by then.

“And...” She grabbed her phone. “I made him social media accounts. InstaSnap, FlipFlop, the works. He already has thirteen-thousand followers.”

“You what?” Someday I was either going to strangle Parker for her love of social media, or thank her for it.

I hadn’t decided yet. I wouldn’t even have accounts at all if she didn’t basically post to all of them on my behalf.

But it was all part of her grand strategy to make sure no one associated the close-to-real-life version of me with the best-selling romance author version of me.

“Look.” She shoved her phone at me. “I called him @BabyDragonDonkey, since you still won’t decide on his name, and people are obsessed. The video of him doing the spin move around Flynn Kingman has, like, a million views now.”

“Parker.” I pressed my fingers to my temples. “We’re trying to keep him secret. ”

“No, we’re trying to keep him from getting caught in our room.

His social media presence is totally separate.

Oh, oh, oh.” She clicked to another screen.

“And get this. I’ve been messaging with this gamer guy who says he can get us sponsorship deals.

Some protein powder company wants Baby Dragon Donkey to be their mascot for their Bowl ad.

Something about ‘the strength of a dragon in the body of a donkey.’”

I sank onto my bed. “Please tell me you didn’t agree to anything.”

“Not yet. This guy’s kind of annoying actually. Keeps sending me memes and asking if Mystery Donkey’s mommy is single.” She wrinkled her nose. “But he does have, like, three million followers, and has a ton of sponsorship deals on his livestreams, so, I guess he knows what he’s doing.”

“No sponsorship deals.” I grabbed her phone and scrolled through the accounts she’d made.

The donkey doing his little wing flap. The donkey investigating Parker’s gaming setup.

That was probably the one that got the gamer guy’s attention.

The donkey wearing a tiny graduation cap Parker had apparently crafted while I’d been in class.

They were actually kind of adorable. But still. “We can’t draw attention to him. He’s supposed to be at the sanctuary.”

“I’ve made sure that no one can tell where he is in the vids, literally or virtually.” Parker took her phone back. “And, the sanctuary’s account already followed us. They seem cool with it though. Even shared the original video. ”

The donkey chose that moment to bump his head against my leg, looking for treats.

“Don’t give me that look, you poor, nameless cutie patootie.” I told him. “This is exactly the kind of chaos I was trying to avoid.”

“This is our last semester and you’re going to live a little if it’s the last thing I do.” Parker’s grin turned evil. “Did you happen to get an email about that tutoring thing your mother made you sign up for?”

It was supposed to make my law school applications look good. And, of course, reflect well on the family since my papá was in line to be head of the English department at DSU when ancient Dr. Dillamond finally retired.

Not that I needed to look good on any applications. Because I hadn’t started filling any of them out.

I groaned and fell back on my bed. “I don’t know what you did, but I already feel the need to murder you for it. Unless, of course, you somehow got me out of it.”

Then I wouldn’t have to spend any more time than was absolutely necessary with annoying Flynn Kingman.

“No, but I did hack the academic success program database this morning. Had to make sure they paired you with someone hot.”

“Parker.”

“What? Like you weren’t hoping for a meet-cute with a secret genius who’d totally get your romance novel career?”

I sat up so fast I got dizzy. “First of all, Flynn Kingman is not a secret genius.”

“So you admit he’s hot?”

“Second of all,” I ignored her, “I don’t need meet-cutes. I need to figure out how to hide a donkey, maintain my GPA, keep my family happy, and now apparently prevent you from turning our room into a social media content farm.”

“Too late.” She held up her phone again. “Look, someone already made fan art of Baby Dragon Donkey. They gave him a little football jersey and everything. Oh, and that gamer guy just messaged again. Says his brother wants to know if?—”

A tiny bray interrupted her as the donkey stuck his nose in my backpack, pulling out my marketing textbook.

“No.” I rescued the book. “That is not for eating. Unlike some people in this room, I actually need to study.”

“Sure.” Parker was typing rapidly. “You study. I’ll just be over here making our donkey into a famous influencer. Maybe starting a merchandise line. Building his brand.”

Parker mumbled something under her breath that sounded a lot like her eternal diatribe about me not letting her build my author brand.

I just couldn’t afford to let the world find out. The therapy bills alone...

“He’s not our—” I stopped. The donkey had settled next to my bed, his crooked wings rustling as he dozed off snuffling his way into adorable little baby donkey snores.

Parker’s phone dinged again. “Ooh, the gamer guy wants to know if Mystery Donkey takes modeling requests. Says his team captain has some ideas for?—”

Gamers had team captains? Maybe DSU had an e-sports team. Huh.

“No.” I pulled out my Shakespeare notes, trying to think of anything I could possibly tutor Flynn and his surprising comprehension of Renaissance literature on.

I wasn’t telling the school, or my mother, I couldn’t tutor the captain of the football team.

“No modeling. No sponsorships. No team captains.”

“Fine.” She turned back to her laptop. “You’re going to have to name him eventually. The internet wants to know.”

The donkey’s ears twitched in his sleep. I leaned in to snuggle his cute face and whispered, “And your name shall be...”

Nothing. I had nothing. This was worse than writer’s block. Because I couldn't use any of the hilarious suggestions Flynn had just tossed out, my brain matter was on creative overload.

My phone buzzed.

Wait. Oh, shizznit.

Not my regular one that I carried around with me. No, this was the super-secret sneaky phone. Parker and I looked at each other, looked at the phone as it buzzed again, and dove for it.

“Batphone alert,” she squealed and snatched it from my grasp. I blamed that on the fact that I had a cute donkey resting against my lap and clearly couldn’t move for fear of waking him.

“Holy donkey balls, Temp...” She stared down at the phone and licked her lips like her mouth had suddenly gone dry.

My agent only used the phone for big, important stuff. Usually we just emailed.

Parker slowly handed me the phone like it was made of fairy dust and cookie crumbs.

Gloria Horne: FlixNChill just threw an offer on the table. And they want all the books. Including the one you haven’t finished yet. Call me.

And now I was the one licking my lips searching for the moisture Gloria’s message had just evaporated. I just stared at my phone, my tutoring plans forgotten.

Me: In class. Can’t call. Give me deets?

Gloria Horne: They’re thinking eight episodes per book. But the way you’ve structured the series, they need to introduce each of the players in the club. Which means we need book 5 finished... yesterday.

I was on chapter three. Okay, chapter one. But I had ideas for chapters two and three. And there were supposed to be six books in the series.

Gloria Horne: Also, their marketing team wants you to do author interviews when they announce.

My stomach dropped. No, that didn’t even come close to the feeling. It dropped all the way out of my body, bounced on the floor a couple times, and rolled under the bed to hide with the dust bunnies.

Me: We discussed this. No public appearances.

Gloria Horne: Darling, you can’t stay anonymous forever. Your books are too big now. The readers want to know who wrote their favorite love stories.

Sometimes I missed the simplicity of self-publishing, back when I could control every aspect of my career. Back before my little stories about love and sexy times had somehow turned into an international best-selling series.

Back when no one cared who I was, what I did, or what I looked like.