Page 9 of Winging It with You

Theo

Santa Monica, California

“Hey, boys, mind if we steal you for a sec?” Arthur catches us just as we step out of the elevator the following morning. “It’ll only take a moment,” he adds, quickly turning and weaving through the hotel lobby.

Asher gives me an annoyed side-eye. Judging by his grumpy demeanor all morning, I gather he didn’t sleep well last night.

Once we step out of the brushed-bronze revolving door, Arthur leads us around the expansive building to a blocked-off section of the grounds where Jo, who’s simultaneously on a phone call and aggressively typing one-handed into her tablet, is standing waiting for us.

“Gotta run,” she says, quickly hanging up. Her hair is pulled back into a short ponytail under a simple baseball cap and once again, she’s dressed head to toe in black, a Jo Bishop staple, I’m learning. “There are my favorite faux-bros! Feeling rested? Ready to get this competition started?”

When I glance at Asher, he’s fidgeting with the strap of his backpack.

“That good, huh?” Arthur says, shaking his head when neither Theo nor I say anything.

“Anyway,” Jo says, not really caring that it’s very clear we’d much rather be anywhere but here, “we need to capture a quick social media stringer—the first of many, actually, before the challenges start.”

I immediately don’t like the sound of this. Social media and I have a love-hate relationship. I pretend to be above it all and act like I’m indifferent to it in general, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get stuck in a social media wormhole from time to time.

“And what’s a stringer?” Asher thankfully asks, because I was wondering the same thing. Arthur busies himself with the sturdy tripod and begins setting up his large camera, adjusting the settings while assessing the current lighting situation.

“Just a series a video clips that we produce to either be split and posted online in shorter segments or, depending on the content, run as a whole video.” Jo sets her trusty tablet down and grabs us each by the arm, like a mother leading a pair of oversize toddlers through life, and all but drags us in front of Arthur’s lens.

“Okay, if you two can just…yup, stand right here, Asher—” she says, physically adjusting his stance to one that feels absolutely the opposite of natural.

“And Theo, please scoot in…yes, right there. And put your arm here,” she says, manipulating my arm around Asher’s shoulder after she forced me to stand practically on top of him, clipping on a wireless mic before she turns away.

Asher looks less than amused when I cast my eyes in his direction.

“Eyes forward, please,” Jo demands. Amid her puppeteering, Arthur has turned on two small but incredibly powerful lights, instantly bathing us in the heat of mobile stage lighting.

“ Fuck , that’s bright,” I grumble under my breath, raising an arm in a measly attempt to shield my eyes.

Asher, whose arm is now involuntarily wrapped around my waist, is drumming his fingers against my hip, his agitation building.

“Mics are about to be hot,” Arthur says, messing with the little box that allegedly turns our neck mics on and off at the touch of a button.

“Camera’s on, Jo…ready whenever you are.

” The camera’s recording button glows to life, and I feel Asher’s body become rigid against mine.

Several nosy onlookers have stopped beyond the barricade to watch us awkwardly stand while Arthur and Jo take their places behind the camera.

“Okay, Asher, let’s start with you.” Jo says, crossing her arms and looking between the real-life two of us and the two of us being captured on the camera’s viewfinder. “Why don’t you introduce the both of you and tell our audience what you’re up to.”

“Sure,” he says, clearing his throat. “I’m Asher Bennett and this is Theo Fernandez, and we are competing on this season of The Epic Trek. ”

Jo and Arthur look at each other, neither of them saying a word, and I feel a slight tremor radiate through Asher, his entire body tense.

“Was that…horrendous?” he asks, the pitch of his voice rising ever so slightly.

“No, no, my boy,” Arthur says, adjusting his camera settings. The red light turns off. “We just want to give the lovely people watching at home a little more to work with.”

Jo silently nods in agreement. “Yeah, that was pretty bland.” Arthur shoots her a look. “What? It was!”

An idea pops into my head.

“You know what the best part of reality television is?” I say, leaning in close enough that Asher’s the only one who can hear me.

Asher looks up at me, his eyebrow raised in curiosity.

“It isn’t real,” I whisper, my lips just barely brushing his temple.

“And you don’t have to be either. So, who do you want to be, Asher Bennett? ”

He bites his lip, a flush creeping up his neck, and I can practically hear the individual gears churning behind those green eyes. “Okay if I try it again?” he asks Jo and Arthur after a moment.

They both nod, the red light reappearing.

Asher takes a deep breath, his grip on my waist tightening when he does.

“Hi everyone,” he chirps with a level of cheerfulness so unlike the grump who could barely mutter three words this morning when our alarm went off.

“My name is Asher Bennett and this handsome specimen next to me is my boyfriend, Theo Fernandez.”

He yanks me even closer to him, turning his head slightly away from the camera. “Can I kiss you?” he whispers, his voice low and just for me.

I smile when our eyes meet, hoping he takes that as some nonverbal cue to proceed.

Asher leans up and places his lips lightly to my cheek, and whatever part of my brain that regulates how I’d normally respond to a cute boy kissing me feels conflicted.

His kiss is brief, casual, and logistically, I know it’s strictly for the cameras, but that doesn’t stop my body from reacting to this unexpected display of affection from…

well, my boyfriend. I’m probably supposed to say or do something else, right?

But judging by Jo’s wide grin from behind Arthur, something tells me that whatever this was is exactly what Jo wanted.

“We’re about to set off on our first challenge of this season’s The Epic Trek and hope you’ll be following along with us!

” he adds, waving enthusiastically at the camera like a trained spokesperson who knows his audience.

With the camera still rolling, Asher keeps smiling but rests his head on my shoulder, and I’m painfully aware of how awkward I must appear, standing there with a shocked smile painted on my face.

The red light finally turns off and Asher snaps out of whatever role he’s just been playing, dropping his arm from its spot on my waist and taking a rather intentional step away from me. “Will that work?” he asks, putting his hands in his pockets.

“That was…oddly perfect,” Jo says, clasping her hands together. “I didn’t know you had it in you, Bennett,” she teases.

Neither did I.

He adjusts his glasses. “It’s all part of the game, right?”

But Asher turns toward me now and silently mouths, Thank you.

“You’ve got some downtime the remainder of the day,” Jo says, swiping across the overly populated calendar on her tablet.

“And then tonight, we have a quick preproduction all-hands with the crew, where you’ll meet Dalton, his team, and the rest of this season’s contestants.

” I’d wondered if there was going to be some sort of formal introduction to the pairs we’d be competing against. “But I’m begging you,” Jo says, the familiar all-business tone returning to her voice, “please ensure you get some rest tonight considering we’ve got an early showtime tomorrow before wheels up for the first challenge.

” We both nod obediently as she rattles off additional travel details.

She then turns on her heel and heads back toward the hotel with Arthur like some hyperpunctual mother hen, Asher and I trailing behind as her ragtag group of little hatchlings.

/////////////

Stepping into the hotel’s event space—which has been entirely taken over by the production team—instantly transports me back to high school.

Everyone’s nervously scanning the crowd to see where they fall among the cool kids , their chatter an octave higher than normal as they do their best to appear unfazed by it all.

Jo dragged Asher toward the bar after escorting us from the lobby, in some attempt to loosen him up, if I had to guess.

He’d shot me a nervous glance, his glasses falling down the bridge of his thin nose slightly as Jo weaved the two of them in and out of the minglers.

Arthur ditched all three of us the second we crossed the room’s threshold, his entire face erupting in a shit-eating grin when he joined a group of acquaintances, who seemed to have a bottle of beer waiting for him.

Which left me momentarily alone.

I don’t mind doing my own thing. Don’t get me wrong—I love people. My sister, Elise, would always get so annoyed at me growing up because I’d stop and talk to just about everyone I met out and about, quickly learning the obscure details of their personal lives.

But a few moments of mental quiet here and there are fine by me.

I retreat to the room’s back wall and lean against it, closing my eyes in an attempt to tune out the conversations around me until they’re nothing more than a soft murmur in the background.

Mark always joked about how jealous he was that I could seemingly ignore the world around me as we navigated bustling airport terminals together. I bought him a pair of earplugs.

“I’m glad to see we’re not the only ones bad at faking it,” a distinctive Midwestern voice says from my left. Faking it? How can they tell? I open my eyes to see that I’ve been joined by a pair of women who look like carbon copies of each other, but separated by a generation.

“I’m not…we’re not…” I begin to stammer defensively.