There was the Olivia I’d grown up with.
“Maybe,” I said, half kidding. “So you said this was a work thing?”
She nodded a thank-you to the waitress who placed our water glasses on the table.
“You know that I work remotely. I have for a long time since I quit my old agency. I have two different jobs,” she began, resting her elbows on the table. “For most of the day, I’m a social media consultant. I create and monitor social media accounts for different clients—mostly small businesses now, although I did freelance for a few large companies for a bit.”
“As someone who is mostly clueless on social media and gets by on luck, I’d call that an important job.”
“Well, thank you.” Her eyes were wide, the curl of one side of her mouth in a teasing smirk reminiscent of our lifelong arguing. But if I wasn’t mistaken, there was a tiny blush creeping up her cheeks, almost as if she was preening from my compliment. “If you ever need help, I’d be happy to meet with you. You can have your staff search me for weapons when I come to the bakery if that makes you feel more at ease.”
“If it came to that, I don’t think that would be necessary. I’m still buying into the truce you said we came to.” The notion of patting down her body unnerved me enough to make my cock twitch inside my jeans.
“I’m good at knowing what will make customers react and want more of, whatever you’re selling. There’s more to it than a pretty Instagram grid and snappy posts.”
“I’m not surprised that you’re good at making people react. You’ve had lifelong practice.” She laughed when I cocked a brow, and I felt a smile pulling across my lips. Was I actually enjoying a conversation with Olivia?
“We’re here for my other job, and I keep this a secret. I’m a food blogger. I find obscure places that not many know of with great food. I post a photo of whatever I ate, give it a nice description and the right hashtags, and I can usually make it go viral. Since I started a website, a lot of restaurants find me now and offer to pay for features, which I do sometimes. Mostly I’m just the mystery diner.”
“Why is that such a secret? You get paid to take a nice picture of your food. That’s pretty smart.”
“It’s more than that,” she started but held up a finger when the waitress took our order.
“I don’t show my face.”
My brow furrowed at Olivia. “Why don’t you show your face?”
“For a few reasons. I like when I come to a place, no one knows it’s me. I’m just a regular customer so I could really tell the experience one of my followers would have if they came to the restaurant on my recommendation. And when you show your face on social media, trolls come out of the woodwork sometimes. I’m confident in how I look, but I don’t need the aggravation of being scrutinized about it.”
“Why would they scrutinize you?” An odd sense of protection for her washed over me. Why would people say anything bad about her face?
“I knew of a food blogger who would get comments about her weight all the time. Again, I have a pretty decent self-image, but I’m human. That kind of stuff weighs on you no matter how thick your skin is. I can come to any restaurant, order whatever I want, and not have some keyboard warrior telling me I should start skipping dessert.”
“What’s the name of your account?”
She tapped at her phone screen and slid it over. “I’m trusting you with this. Mom and a few friends are the only ones who know.”
I burst out laughing at the name at the top of the page. “Cleopatra, Her Royal Foodie. You still have a Cleopatra obsession?”
“What do you mean ‘still’?” She squinted at me while my shoulders shook.
“I forget what birthday party it was. I think we were seven or eight. You wore a wig and crown and called us your subjects. Congrats on living the dream.”
I expected her to laugh with me, but she fell silent.
Not wanting to ruin the unusual good rapport between us tonight, I scrolled through her posts, impressed at the interaction she had on each one. Then I noticed the number of followers at the top of the page and almost swallowed my tongue.
“You have eight hundred thousand followers? Holy shit,” I breathed before handing her the phone. “And you managed to keep your identity under the radar all this time?”
“So far.” She shrugged, grabbing her phone off the table. “Maybe one day I’ll change my mind. Even the sponsors haven’t seen me since I deal with them via email. I’m sure eventually I’ll have to show my face. Anyway, tonight dinner will be on me as it’s a business expense.” She winked and leaned forward, deepening the tempting slope of her cleavage. “Now that that’s out in the open, let’s talk about Saturday. If you’re still interested, that is.”
The sick part of it was how interested I actually was. Not only to not feel like a loser around Amy but shocking my family would be worth it. I’d have to get my parents on board with this charade, but I thought they’d go along with it. Mom would be over the moon that Olivia and I were getting along enough to join forces for something like this.
The years of ice between us seemed to be melting a bit, at least so far. Maybe this wacky plan would end up doing us all some good.
“I still am, as insane as it is. Maybe we should start by getting our stories straight. Like when we started dating and whatever.” I was distracted by a bread basket the busboy dropped onto our table. The baker in me itched to sample all the different rolls and toasted breadsticks, but I kept my focus on the task at hand. “The last time they saw us, I was running away from you.” Another grin crept across my lips, surprising me. “Like usual.”
“Good point,” she noted, tapping her chin. “Maybe say it was all new, and after a lifetime of being childhood enemies we didn’t know how to act just yet. I don’t think that’s too far of a stretch,” she whispered, and my grin grew wider.
