“Don’t say ‘die.’ We’ve had enough of that.”
“Then you’d better tell me.”
I pick up my phone and find what I want to show him and then hand the phone to him.
“What am I looking at?”
“It’s called TikTok.” I giggle at his confused expression.
“I think I’ve heard something about that.”
“How can you be so hip to Instagram and know nothing about TikTok?” I ask with amusement.
“I refuse to take on another social media site. It’s all I can do to keep up with Insta.”
“About a year ago, I started posting videos of single-mom hacks… little things I do to make my life easier as a suddenly single mom to three little kids. It’s, um, sort of taken off.” I take back the phone and tap some more on the screen before handing it back to him.
His eyes bug out of his head when he sees I have one point two million followers. “Iris! What the hell? You havemore than a millionfollowers?”
“I know, right? And now I’m getting sponsorship offers every day. It’s turned into more than I ever expected, which has me working on a business plan to capitalize on it.”
“Why have you never mentioned this to us?”
I shrug. “It was just something I did for fun. I never expected anything to come of it.”
“This is incredible. Congratulations.”
“Thanks. It’s been a fun outlet for when the kids are at school. I can give it an hour a day and still get everything else done.”
“And here I thought my hundred thousand followers was impressive.”
“It’s so impressive. What you’re doing is incredibly important. It helps so many people. Mine is just silly mom fun.”
“It’s not silly. Like who knew that a Bounce sheet in a backpack keeps the funk away?”
I laugh at the way he says that. “Stop. It’s got nothing on helping widows survive another day.”
“There’re a few guys on here who think you’re a MILF.”
“What?” I take back the phone. “Ew. That’s gross. I blocked them.”
“With that many followers, you’re going to have weirdos in there. You need to be on the lookout for that.”
“I barely look at the comments. Who has the time?”
“Iris… Seriously. You can’t be too careful in this day and age.”
“They have no idea who I really am or where I live or anything about my kids other than that I’m a single mom to three of them. Don’t worry.”
“They can also see you’re sexy as all hell, and that’s why you’re getting randos making inappropriate comments.”
I prop my chin on my upturned hand. “Am I sexy as all hell?”
He rolls his eyes. “As if you didn’t already know that.”
“I didn’t know that until you told me.”
“I’m sure Mike told you, too.”