“Holy shit.” There are literally a million messages on my phone. Well, not literally, but for someone who usually has maybe three messages waiting for her when she wakes up, mainly of the promotional variety, one hundred and twenty-eight is like a million.
There are also over a dozen missed calls. Joanna and Hattie are the only numbers I have in my phone’s memory, and, not ready to handle Joanna so early on a weekend, I call Hattie back, and it takes less than a full ring for her to answer.
“Oh my God, Lore, S.A.S.S. socials are exploding!” She shrieks, and all I can do is blink. “Lauren?”
“We have socials?” I monotone, and Hattie goes silent for a couple of seconds.
“Youhave socials,” she clarifies. “How wasthatnot the first thing you checked when you saw the calling card? It’s on there.”
“That’s why I saywe, Hattie.” I sit up, somewhere between elated and panicked. “You started this crazy. You’re seeing it through with me.”
“Technically, Michael started this crazy,” Hattie replies, confirming my suspicions about Michael being responsible for bringing my dream to life. “And, fine, I’ll help you out until you get your footing or manage to hire someone.”
“Thank you.” I breathe a sigh of relief.
“Girl, you’re viral!” And just like that, I’m panicking again.
“What?”
“The photo of you and Michael on the estate terrace, the way he’s looking at you, Lore.” Her voice gets a dreamy quality. “I almost cried. It was one of those moments, you know?”
“I was there. Trust me, I know.” I grab my right-ear wireless headphone so I can log into my Instagram while talking to Hattie and look up the handle on the calling card. “Holy crap!” I gasp, almost choking on my own spit. “We have over twenty thousand followers.”
“Overnight,” Hattie clarifies. “We had two hundred when I went to sleep.”
“And a feed full of photos.” I scroll down, choosing to ignore her last statement to avoid a mild freak out, looking through pictures of me working in the loft study, and Trista from a month back in the red dress I designed for an evening with Brian and for which I totally take credit as the reason they ended up together. There are a couple from girl’s nights, too, and even selfies Posey and I took. “How long has Michael been planning this?”
“From the moment you said yes to his offer.” I can practically hear the grin. “He did a lot of leg work, even got Posey to send me those photos last night, but refused to pay a dime. Said he didn’t want you to think he was doing it for any reason other than him believing in you.” Hattie releases a dreamy sigh, and I find myself joining in on the vocal sentiment. “Oh, which reminds me. I need to reimburse the calling cards from the S.A.S.S. expense account.”
“Uh…”
“Girl, you need help.”
“I know,” I groan, my head dropping into my palm. “I cannot deal with this right now. Distract me.”
“When’s the next event?” I hear shuffling in the background, cupboards opening and closing.
“Two days. An A-list birthday.”
“Okay, that’s going to be more public,” Hattie warns, and the sound of a capsule coffee machine buzzes in the background, igniting my own need for caffeine. “You ready for it? What are you wearing?”
“Sexy deep V halter jumpsuit in off-white, the wine-red point-toe stilettos with a bow in the back, dark smokey makeup, seventies style high ponytail, and golden fit tassel earrings.” The reciting of my wardrobe choice helps calm me down. Clothes I know. Clothes I can handle.
I finally finish scrolling through the feed and hit the tagged posts tab, an entire grid of the same photo in varying filters greeting me. “Oh, wow.”
“You looking at the mosaic of Hallmark dreams come true?” Hattie asks, and I nod before remembering she can’t see me.
“It’s so weird looking at it from the outside,” I whisper, mesmerized by the vision of me leaning over the stone terrace railing, a look of pure bliss on my face as I stare at the view, and a light breeze playing in my hair, captured between Michael’s strong arms as he peers down at me with an adoring smile lighting his face.
“Was it as magical as it looks?” Hattie muses, and I nod as I get up from the bed and walk out of the study before rolling my eyes at my repeated ideocracy.
“It was,” I answer, already on my way up to the main bedroom.
“Are you still staring at the photo grid?” I hum my affirmation. “Yeah, same.”
I stop mid-ascent when a thought pops into my head. It’s as random as they come, but the second it crosses my mind, I know in my gut it’s the right thing to do.
“I want Posey.” That’s met with a long silence. “On the S.A.S.S. staff, not sexually.”