“Cut!” someone yells from behind us. Within seconds, Eddy is in front of us, pushing up his glasses with that perpetual, worried look on his face. “Hey guys,” he starts with a sigh. “I know you guys have been, well, less than thrilled with how all of this came about.” He gestures between the two of us. “But I really, really need you to start opening up a little more, alright?” His smile is tight.
I cross my arms over my chest, letting Cooper handle it.
He seems to get the hint.
“Edward, I think we need to discuss what we’re willing to do here a little more. We’re all for being on camera and all that, but don’t you think that we should be able to figure out our relationship first before talking about it in an interview?”
Eddy’s lips practically turn white with the force of him clamping them shut. “We’re doing more interviews here and not in the moment because you guys aren’t giving usmoments,” he hisses.
“No, you haven’t tried, because you’re too busy trying to get controlled sound bites out of us.”
Someone trained himwellon what to expect here. It’s the same speech Isla gave me.
“My sister is coming over when you guys are scheduled to leave. Why don’t the cameras stay, and they start documenting us a little bit more in our element?”
For one, I was not aware of Natalia stopping by. The thought of seeing her again sends an odd shock through me.
I saw her at the wedding, and we exchanged pleasantries. But I wasn’t exactly emotionally in a place where I wanted to talk to her for long.
Eddy thinks about it for a few seconds before giving us a curt nod and heading back to wherever he came from.
“Thank you,” I mutter.
The rest of the interview seems watered down. Like they knew they weren’t going to get much out of us right now, and were asking the most surface-level questions in order to get them out of the way.
Amara, are you making yourself at home here?
Cooper, have you ever had someone live with you before?
Oh, that’s a giant freaking cat! How much food does he eat?
The last one always tends to piss me off. He’s a large breed of cat, and extra fluffy. Sure, he looks huge.
But the more I stew in my annoyance, I think I’m just unhappy to be asked any of these questions at all.
Why did I sign up for this?I find myself thinking, not for the first time.
A few cameramen and Lindsey stay, though she makes herself scarce.
“When’s your sister coming?” I ask, standing in the middle of the living room. There’s nothing to feed guests. Cooper barely keeps anything in his fridge. Surely, we cannot have his family over without providingsomething.
“She’s here now, actually,” he says as he looks at his phone. “I’ll buzz her up.”
“I can’t believe you guys are doing this,” my old friend says, looking around. “And Coop, this place is insane.”
He nods with a smile. “Needs some work, though.”
“Yeah,” I add sweetly. “His interior designer didn’t work out.”
Natalia shoots him an empathetic frown. “It was the rugs, right?”
“Something like that!” I chuckle, grabbing a stale pretzel from the bowl. It was all I could find in his cabinets on short notice, but in my opinion, it’s better than nothing.
Cooper’s foot meets my ankle in a light kick.
“I feel like carpets are always a problem when talking to designers. I have a lot of friends who use them for their beach houses and rental properties. Everything looks good, and thenbam!They have the absolute ugliest rugs known to man.”
“Rugs are really important,” I shrug. “The carpet really did match the drapes, though. I guess it just wasn’t his type.”
