“Right,” Kenny nodded. “Yes, thank you, that wasn’t a concern I’d had before now, at all. So tell me everything I have to know aboutLove Island?”
“What exactly do you think they’re going to do to her, Smith?” Harris asked in exasperation as Smith once again glanced toward where the three women were comfortably ensconced on the living room furniture, watching an inane TV show with lots of flesh on display.
“Kenna can be a little shy,” he noted, doing a piss-poor job of peeling the potatoes Harris had handed to him after his arrival. “It’s easy to mistake it for aloofness.”
“Tina likes her,” Harris said with a shrug. “They’ll be fine. Also, why do you care?”
Fuck.
“Things have changed.”
Greyson, who’d been the process of basting the beef in the oven, glanced up at Smith’s words.
“Because you kissed her in front of the whole town, you mean?” Harris’s much more annoying brother asked.
“Barely anyone saw that kiss,” Smith dismissed. “They were all ducking for cover.”
Harris made a choked sound. Greyson closed the oven doorand straightened up, folded his arms across his chest, and leaned back against a kitchen counter.
“You going tell him? Or should I?” The irritating twin asked enigmatically.
“Tell me what?”
“My good friend, Spencer Carlisle, has great sporting ambitions for this town,” Greyson intoned. “He improved the community sports field. Then he got sponsorships for the football, rugby, netball, and cricket teams.”
“Sounds like a paragon among men,” Smith said drily.
“His latest, purely unnecessary, improvement had him roping in the big hitters, Hollingsworth and Brand, for donations.”
“We’re big hitters too,” Harris interjected.
“We didn’t finance the Minitron,” Greyson reminded. “Hollingsworth was a silent investor, but Brand was all over that baby. I just think he likes seeing his name up in lights.”
“Will you fucking get to the point?” Smith snapped, then swore when he nearly cut himself with the potato peeler. “Why are you waffling on about this?”
“The point is that our tiny sports field has a size-appropriate big screen. And the game is usually live-streamed.Why? I don’t know. I think it has an audience of fifty on a good night. It also serves as an outdoor cinema for underserved communities on Friday nights, but that’s neither here nor there. Didn’t you notice it showcasing your every goalkeeping failure last night?”
His blood ran cold.
“What are you saying?”
“Our off-site camera operator, while filming the chaotic mass exodus, kiss-cammed you and Kenny.”
“Fuck.” Smith’s eyes helplessly tracked back to Kenna, not sure how she was going to take this news. “That… It was a private moment.”
Harris threw his brother a quelling glance. Greyson nodded and remained silent.
“Smith.” Harris’s voice was quiet, which only made the hairs on the back of Smith’s neck stand on end. “For some reason, boredom maybe, somebody uploaded the kiss onto a couple of social media platforms. And it’s gone a little viral.”
“A little viral?” Smith whisper-yelled, not wanting to alert Kenna. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“About half a million views in the last twelve hours.”
“Oh my fuckingGod.” Smith started to rake a hand through his hair, and nearly scraped the skin off his forehead because of the fucking damned peeler he was still clutching in his numb fingers. He tossed the thing aside with a clatter. Luckily, the sound didn’t draw the women’s attention.
“Look, it’s not that bad,” Harris said. “You’re married. It’s not like that couple who got caught cheating.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Smith asked in confused impatience. “What couple?”
