“Could you help me get Yuxi’s attention?”
Yuxi’sattention? But they already seemed to know each other.
“What do you mean?”
He shifted, squirming, and fiddled with his short, dark hair, clearly embarrassed now. “I mean I really like her. I’ve liked her for a long time and I want to ask her out, but I need to impress her a bit beforehand.”
I smiled, relieved this was the point of the conversation. “Why are you asking me for advice?”
He raised a hand toward me and trailed it downward from the top of my head to my booted feet.
“Fair point,” I said with a straight face, and we both laughed. Solomon’s relaxed demeanor made him look even younger, and I tried to guess his age. He was slight and boyish, swimming in a black T-shirt and jeans.
“Wait—aren’t you at high school?” I asked. “I don’t know if I feel comfortable about this.”
“Dude. Hurtful. We’re at film school together. We’re both twenty-three.”
“Oops, sorry.”
“Now, how do I get her attention?”
There wasn’t enough time to tell him to go to the gym and start working out.
“Well, you need to show her you have something going on. What I see is you sitting around a lot, on your phone, and generally doing nothing.” Guilt nudged me in the side at my harsh words, but it had to be said.
Solomon threw up his hands. “There is literally nothing to do. I mean, all the real jobs are taken. And both Yuxi and I know how to operate cameras and sound equipment, so it’s frustrating.”
Sounded like an excuse to me. “You could help Tabitha and me with the physical work.”
He didn’t look happy about that, which sent a ragged edge of irritation through my chest. I was losing my patience with him.
“Hmm, maybe,” he said. “But I want to do real work. I have technical production skills.”
I rolled my eyes at his backhanded insult about my job, but I thought more. “Okay. I don’t know that this is very technical, but I noticed no one from the company is posting on socials while we’re working during the day. I mean, I know Simon asked us to take photos and vids and post on our own accounts at night. But I’ve looked on the production company’s site, and although they post a short bit of footage every night, they’re not posting timely stuff on their socials yet. It might help boost our chances of winning.”
His face suddenly lit up. “Yeah, great idea. I can offer to do that and ask Yuxi to help.”
Thinking about the production company’s website reminded me of the nasty comments I’d seen last night about Tabitha.
“Hey, could you also take vids of Tabitha being nice and fun and helping people, and post them?”
“Of course. That’ll be easy. I mean, shedoesalways help people and is nice and fun. Except to you.”
And what could I do about those comments about Tabitha online?
“Has sheseenthose comments about her?” Solomon’s mind had gone there too. “I mean, I would imagine she has, but she didn’t mention anything this morning. I bet she’d be ropable if she did.”
“I’m not totally sure, but I don’t think so.” She’d be crushed, and it was important to prevent that.
“Really? And no one’s ever said anything to her? Shit, maybe I shouldn’t be taking advice from you. Dude, you need to tell her. Or someone does, because some of those comments are out of order. Someone needs to stand up for her online.”
“Look, don’t say anything yet. Give me a chance to try to turn this around. In the meantime, could you just make sure you post as many positive vids of Tabitha as you can?”
He cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable. “The only thing is, I’m pretty sure I’ll have to get my mum to sign off on the postings.”
My head shot back. “Yourmother? What’s she got to do with it?”
He looked surprised. “She’s the boss of this company. You know how internships work, right?”
