Suddenly, something touches my lips. “Cake on a stick,” Cameron says.
“Huh?” I open my eyes. Cameron is looming over me. He’s still in his shirt and kilt, and I can’t stop myself from eyeing the almost indecent way the forest-green tartan drapes over his thick thighs.
“Cake on a stick,” Cameron repeats. “Eat it.”
I go cross-eyed as I try to focus on the thing he’s waving in front of my mouth. “I… Where did you get a cake pop?”
“Made ’em.” He nods to the stove. I see several baking trays lined with greaseproof paper, full of pink and white cake pops. “You were in Summerland. Open your mouth.”
I let him feed it to me, relishing the sweetness of the icing. Cameron watches me chew. “Love you,” he says simply.
I choke on cake.
A light flush touches his neck. “I’m not good at saying shit. And I know you like cake on a stick, so… Aye.” He nods awkwardly. “There you go.”
I wash down the rest of the cake pop with a sip from my giant water bottle, my thoughts scrambled.
Honestly, I’ve been trying not to think about the guys’ confessions in the hotel room last night. I don’t have theemotional bandwidth. But now Cameron is standing in front of me telling me that he loves me, and he’s made me cake pops.
“Don’t overload,” Cameron says, glancing at the clock. “You worked too long. Go to bed.”
Before I can answer, my phone lights up. Lulu’s name flashes across the screen. “I should just take this,” I say, ignoring Cameron’s scowl.
Lulu and I have been calling back and forth all day, coordinating Lochview’s social media campaign. Honestly, I thought she might refuse when I asked her to help. I did just ditch the party she planned for me, after all. But she’s been amazing.
I answer the call. “Hey, how’s it going?”
“Babe?” Lulu’s voice bubbles down the line. “You’re killing it. Killing. It.”
“Yeah?” I let out a sigh of relief. “I haven’t been checking the likes.” I’m still too nervous to look at my analytics.
“Don’t look at the numbers if they’ll freak you out,” she agrees. “Let me give you the rundown. The account has already hit 30k, and we’re getting a ton of engagement. I’ve been looping in Scottish influencers to make sure we’re hitting the right crowd. The sustainable fashion girlies are eating this up. I’m tracking clicks to the council contact pages, and I think they’re going to have a very full inbox tomorrow. There’s one picture of the ginger guy holding a lamb like Simba that’s already getting turned into a meme.”
“Crumpet,” I whisper.
“Yes, she’s a photogenic queen. Oh, the kilty thirst traps were genius, by the way, everyonelovesthe Sheep Daddies.” She keeps rattling on, and I sit back and let it wash over me.
It’s working. My plan is actually working. I’m going to save Lochview. It feels too good to be true.
“On the downside, your comments are a bit of a mess,”Lulu warns. “To be fair, publicly canoodling with three giant farmers at your five-mil party, ditching, and then disappearing to Scotland and plastering pictures of said farmers shirtless all over your social media accounts is, like, achoice.A lot of people think you’re in a weird pastoral cult.”
I sigh. It’s hardly surprising. When Alec, Fraser, and Cameron grabbed me at the club, there were hundreds of influencers filming. I’m sure the clips are going viral online.
I guess it’s only a matter of time before Mum sees them. She’ll be mad. I promised her I’d keep a low profile. I’d say I failed at that pretty spectacularly.
I bite my lip. “Hey, Lulu, about the party…”
I hear typing in the background. “Hmm?”
“I’m sorry I ditched. You worked hard on it. I just… I don’t know how I feel about this job anymore, to be honest.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I fiddle with my cake pop stick. “I mean, that article that said I’m bland and have no personality anymore was rude, but it wasn’t actuallywrong, was it? I’ve built my entire platform off showing people what they want to see.” I frown. “I think I accidentally people-pleased away my entire personality.”
“Masked too close to the sun,” Lulu agrees sagely.
“And now my soul fell out.”
