Literally three seconds later, the whirring, ringing sound of Diana requesting a video call blared through his speakers.
As soon as he clicked accept, Diana’s face filled his screen with hilarious intensity. “You kissed Drew Oberlin,” she said with overdramatic seriousness.
Lee laughed. It was the only thing he could do. “Looks like it,” he said. “We’d both had a few drinks and were caught up in dancing.”
Diana leaned back, waving her arms in front of her. “Whoa, wait. First,youwere dancing? Second, this was all just some drunken make-out session?” She sounded disappointed about that possibility.
Lee was a little disappointed, too. “We weren’tthatdrunk,” he defended himself and Drew. Mostly because he wanted it to be true. “But we were having fun.”
“I’ll say.” Diana’s eyes went wide. “Wasn’t this whole thing supposed to be fake so people would assume Drew is gay and leave him alone?”
“That was the original plan, yes.”
“Babe. That kiss doesn’t look fake. There’s a video.”
Lee hadn’t seen the video yet, only the stills. He wasn’t sure he could handle the video. His insides were already doing flips just remembering the taste of Drew’s mouth.
“It was one hell of a kiss,” he said with a sigh, smiling despite himself.
“Lee!” Diana shouted, gesturing like she would climb through her computer to throttle him. “You’re doing this to get ideas for romance novels, not to turn into a romance novel yourself!”
“I know, I know!” Lee replied, matching her intensity, then laughing. “But seriously, Drew is a great guy. He’s so open and free, and he’s a lot of fun. Everyone was dancing with him last night.”
“Was everyone kissing him?” Diana asked, one eyebrow arched.
No. Drew hadn’t kissed anyone else. He hadn’t pulled anyone else into his arms and looked at them like he wanted to take a bite out of them either.
“What are you doing up so early?” he asked Diana instead of answering. “Isn’t it, like four in the morning where you are?”
“Insomnia, and don’t you dare dodge my question,” Diana replied in a flat tone. “Is this fake or real?”
Her question reminded him of the people asking if the pics were AI. The thing was, Lee didn’t have an answer. Under different circumstances, if Drew had definitely been gay and just a normal guy he’d met at a club, Lee would have been swimming in happiness and convincing himself the two of them had sparks that could lead to a fire.
But that wasn’t part of the arrangement. They were just pretending because they each had something to gain from the ruse.
Drew’s lips against his and his tongue in his mouth hadn’t felt like pretend at all, though, even if it was a fantasy.
He was about to answer Diana, who was staring straight at her camera to make it look like she was peering right into his soul instead of looking at her own image on her screen when Lee’s phone rang. The name Javier Rivera showed up on his screen.
“Hold that thought,” he told Diana as he picked up his phone. “This might be important. Hello?” he answered the call.
“Hey, Lee. It’s Javier.”
“Hi, Javier.” He said the name aloud so Diana would know who he was talking to.
“I just wanted to check in to see how you’re doing,” Javier asked, amusement in his voice. “I saw the posts all over social media this morning.”
“Yeah, it’s been wild,” Lee said, grinning at Diana on his screen. “But it’s pretty much what we were aiming for, right?”
“Right,” Javier said, laughing. “But are you still okay with it?” he went on. “It looks like this might blow up, and if you’re not comfortable with things?—”
“I think I can handle it,” Lee said when Javier left his sentence open-ended. “I mean, it’s wild, but so far, so good, right?”
“If you consider a ton of social media attention so good, then yeah.”
“I think it’ll be fine,” Lee reassured him. “This is exactly what Drew wanted.”
Javier hesitated for a second before saying, “Looks like it. I just want to make sure you feel safe and that you’re good with the attention you’re starting to get. Whatever happens next, you’re still our client, and we want to make sure you’re taken care of.”