Page 87 of Baby Girl
I frown when all I see are pieces of…paper, maybe…propped up in front of the cameras. “Paper? Won’t that just fall over?”
Oakley rolls her eyes at me. “I’m not that incompetent, jeez.” She marches over to the camera that is aimed at the couches, carefully shifts things around, then holds it out to show me.
I cover my mouth with my hand and try to catch the choked laughter as a buzzing feeling fills my limbs. “Oh my god!”
She grins at me, clearly really fucking proud of herself. Not going to lie, I’m kind of proud too. “Good, right?”
“It’s fucking perfect,” I respond as I go to her and take the thick piece of folded card out of her hands.
There, stuck on the side to face the camera is a line drawing of a middle finger.
“So, like I said, face masks, nail polish, oh! And…” She ducks around me and rushes into the kitchen, returning with a grocery bag. “Snacks! I have popcorn, chips, chocolate, and there’s ice cream in the freezer.”
I glance around, seeing the face masks and an array of nail polish bottles on the coffee table, then at the covered cameras, and back to Oaks with her super cute and hopeful smile.
Resigned to my fate, I smile. “What do I need to do?”
She gives a high-pitched little squeal, followed by a body squirm. “You go shower. Don’t put anything on your face after you wash it, though.”
Fifteen minutes later, almost exactly, I’m on the couch with a weird, white, wet, scary, guava- and aloe-vera scented, slimy paper mask with eye, nose, and lip holes stuck on my face.
“How long do I have to leave this on?” I ask through gritted teeth as the woman hoping to find true love on a nationally broadcasted television show starts her interview on the screen. As much as I adore reality TV for the pure trashiness of it, I would really love to be able to roll my eyes at her naivety. However, I’m too scared this thing will slip off my face, and then I’ll have to touch it with my fingers again, which is something I am trying to avoid at all costs so my sarcasm is just going to have to be internal.
Sorry, lady, the world just doesn’t work that way.
Oakley scoops up a handful of popcorn and feeds a piece through the little mouth hole. “About fifteen minutes.”
“Right,” I mutter and try to adjust how I’m sitting so my head can at least recline on the back of the couch.
“So, what happens if she doesn’t like any of the guys?” Oakley asks as the profile pictures of the prospective love interests are put up on the screen.
I shrug and then eye the bowl of popcorn on the couch between us. “It’s probably in the contract that she has to pick at least one or she won’t get paid. So, fake it, I guess?”
Oakley hums before crunching on some more popcorn. “And what if she likes more than one? Surely she doesn’t have enough time on the show to make a choice?”
Pinching one piece of popcorn from the bowl, I try to get it into my mouth without touching the soggy paper that overhangs my lips the littlest bit. “Same answer. She has to pick at least one. Last season, the woman nearly passed out having to choose between the last two guys. I think she might have even picked guy A and is now married to guy B.”
“A and B?” she asks, and I can just fucking tell her eyebrow is raised under her stupid mask.
I shoot her a look. “I couldn’t be bothered to remember their names. They probably aren’t even their real names.”
“Right,” she snarks back. “So, anyway… why couldn’t she just choose both and continue dating them until she’s ready to pick? Like, off the show?”
Cocking my head to the side, I look away from the TV and really question that. Why couldn’t she? Why did she have to pick? Couldn’t she have faked picking and then kept on dating whoever she wanted until she could make the right choice, if there was even a choice to be made? When I do answer, my voice is wispy and lacking in conviction. “Probably societal expectations.”
Oakley makes an agreeing sort of noise before putting more popcorn into her mouth, then she hits me with the hard questions. “How are things with your daddies going?”
“I thought we were supposed to be relaxing and having a fun time? What’s with all the questions?” I joke, ignoring the very real sensation of the popcorn repopping in my stomach.
She points a finger at me while still holding a piece of popcorn. “Nope, missy. You aren’t evading the question. Xavier lives here. You get more gifts in a single day from Hudson than I do in a week, and I’m in the habit of gifting myself. You spend endless hours posed for Darcy each week. And if I don’t text Derek daily with an update about you, he blows up my phone until I tell him you are fine.”
“You what?” I explode, sitting up so quickly my mask slips down my face. Pinching it between two fingers, I tear it off my face and slop it directly onto the coffee table as heat flushes through my entire body, causing my heart to race erratically. “What the fuck? You’ve been texting Derek about me?”
Oakley has the fucking nerve to flap her hand at me. “That is not the point, but just so you don’t get your panties in a twist, here, see for yourself.”
She plucks her phone off the coffee table without dislodging her mask, unlocks it, taps a few times, then hands me her phone with her message thread open to the top of the messages with Derek.
My heart lodges itself in my throat. The messages start from the night Tray took me.
