“Very true. And it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve shown up on Cricket’s account being ridiculous,” Nittha teased as she stood up and walked back to her chair. Glancing around for anyone watching us, she stealthily pulled Cricket out of her carrier. She and Nittha were wearing matching bright-blue swimsuits and sun visors. “Okay, we need to take a couple pictures, then we’ll come back. Gabby, will you help me, since Jamie is being all serious and brought her computer?”
“Happy to.” Gabby grinned and peeked over the edge of her sunglasses at me. “Who works at the pool?”
“You two are technically working right now, too.” I laughed and leaned back in my chair. “Have fun.”
As soon as they were in the pool, I reached for my laptop, letting the lazy sun soak into my skin as I worked. I’d started playing with the placement of a text box on a thumbnail of BamBam holding up about fourteen different makeup brushes, when a voice I didn’t want to recognize interrupted me.
“Is someone sitting in this chair?”
I closed my eyes and willed anyone other than Ethan to be standing there. Why was he so determined to speak to me? Couldn’t he go be cute somewhere else?
“Jamie?”
Opening my eyes, I found Ethan looking down at me from behind a pair of black Wayfarer-style sunglasses and a blue baseball cap.
“I’m awake. You should not sit there.” I threw him some side-eye.
“Why?”
“Because my grandma’s window faces this direction.”
“It isn’t like she is gonna see us from all the way up there.”
“That’s what you think. She probably has a spy at the pool.” When he didn’t budge, I tried a different tactic. Turning back to my computer, I added, “Besides, don’t you want to go hang out with all the other people our age who actually make content?”
Ethan snorted and looked over at the other end of the pool, where Sterling James, one of the beauty creators on BamBam’s list of potential collaborators, and this guy who made prurient skits were splashing unsuspecting passersby. If I was smart, I’d get up and go try to talk to Sterling instead of sitting here watching as Ethan shook his head and began spreading out his towel next to mine. “Yeah, I’m good here.”
In movies, when a guy takes off his shirt, the film starts going in slo-mo so you can watch everyone around him react without him being aware of the effect he is having on the hapless pool denizens. I made the mistake of glancing up right as he peeled the white T-shirt from his body, revealing a thin pink scar running down his chest…and muscles. Nothing bulky or overly defined. Less like he was spending hours in the gym and more like a combination of genetics and someone whose job included manual labor.
This moment was nothing like the movies. I mean, I stared, alright. But unlike in a movie, he knew exactly what effect him being shirtless and two feet away from me was having on my otherwise-rational mind.
Ethan smirked. Tossing the shirt on the edge of his chair, he asked, “You doing okay?”
A little spike of panic coursed through me, and my brain temporarily disconnected as I cast about for a way to recover any chill that he might have thought I had. My eyes landed on my sunscreen, and my ability to think kicked back in. Throwing my braid over my shoulder, I picked up my bottle of sunscreen and held it out to him.
“My mom is as white as you are. You are gonna burn in fifteen minutes,” I said, doing my best to seem totally unfazed, like cute boys took their shirts off in front of me all the time.
Ethan looked down at my hand, then back at me. His confidence didn’t falter whatsoever as he sat down. “I’ll put it on in a minute.”
“You truly are full of bad ideas.” I tossed my sunscreen onto his lap.
“You wound me.” Ethan threw a dramatic hand over his heart and slouched. “You don’t know me well enough to know that my ideas are incredible. Yet, anyway. We’ll be friends, eventually.”
“Name one good idea you’ve had since we met.”
“Sitting next to you.” He grinned as if I’d walked right into his trap. “See how fun this is?”
I rolled my eyes. “Someone is going to tell our grandmas, and then it’ll be like TrendCon Miami all over again, only without my dad here to break up the shouting match before mobility devices get tossed around.”
“I was at a soccer tournament last year, so I don’t have the same emotional baggage from Miami—although I heard my grandma really took more of a swing than a throw, which was still impressive, of course.”
“Uh, her cane was lightweight, and she wielded it like a bat. Plus, BamBam was in a walking boot, so she couldn’t get out of the way fast enough, although really Buzzy’s cane just grazed her thigh.” I shook my head and wondered how I let myself get sidetracked instead of encouraging him to go away. “But that’s not the point. If you don’t want the trauma of seeing your grandma take her earrings off for a fight, you should leave.”
“Who is going to recognize us? It’s not like I wear a swimsuit on my channel.”
I arched a skeptical eyebrow. Somehow, I doubted that people would forget a face like his enough to have him go completely unrecognized. But maybe his main audience consisted of stereotypical cishet men drooling over engines.
“Trust me.” Ethan gestured to his bare chest. My eyes started to follow the motion but stopped as soon as he pointed at me. “And you literally don’t exist on the internet. You’re like a ghost.”
