I had been shoved into a time machine.
Eight years ago, every waking moment had belonged to Campbell Abbey.
And now, eight years later, my entire existence belonged to him again.
I stayed at his place every night. We ate all our meals together. We texted all day when I wasn’t at the studio with him. My friends smirked behind their hands, but not a one of them complained that I had been spending all my time with him. How could they when our time was entirely limited?
This was the first break I’d had in days and mostly because I’d promised to do these videos with Nate. No matter what I was feeling about Campbell, I couldn’t let my work suffer. I still had to be on top of things. And I hadn’t seen Honey in almost a week. She messaged me constantly about work stuff, but I’d been working from Campbell’s hotel room or the recording studio rather than at home.
I met her at my place when I went home to get ready to record videos with Nate.
“Okay,” Honey said, staring down at her iPad when I finished blowing out my long hair, “this is the list I have for videos with Nate. We have ten planned for the next couple hours. Plus, the additional behind-the-scenes footage that I’ll take care of.”
“Sounds good, Honey.”
I applied a full face of makeup, knowing what my skin would look like otherwise under the glaring lights. For most of my live videos and such, I just wore mascara and maybe some concealer. I liked to be as natural as possible for my viewers to normalize acceptance of skin texture and the like. But these videos were different.
“You’ve been busy the last couple days.”
“Yep.”
“Are you and Campbell…” Honey trailed off.
I couldn’t hide my grin. “I’m not ready to talk about it.”
Honey arched an eyebrow. “Not ready to talk about it or you’re going to move to LA here soon and leave me behind?”
I laughed. “Definitely not the latter.”
“You sure? You two seem serious.”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen. Kind of just living in the moment.” I puckered my lips, making a red kissy face at the mirror. “Okay, I’m set.”
Honey and I piled into my Lexus and drove to downtown Lubbock. We were surprisingly close to Campbell’s building. I’d spent an hour in his place learning one of the dances we were doing today. Most of the other videos were trends, where we mostly lip-synced songs I’d already known or comedians that I’d listened to on repeat so I knew my part. It wasn’t that hard. It was mostly just forcing myself to record them. That was why it was nice to have recording days with Nate. There was no backing out.
“Blaire!” he said, scooping me up and twirling me around in a circle when he saw me.
I laughed and stepped out of his embrace. “Hello, apparent fiancé.”
He chuckled and winked. “What can I say? I move very fast. So fast in fact that I made a beautiful rooftop dinner for us without even being present.”
“Shut up.” I smacked his arm.
“We are so using this footage,” Honey said.
I hadn’t even realized that she had her phone up. “Oh my God, did you capture our hug?”
“Yessss. We should absolutely set this to music. Your fans will eat it up.”
Nate arched an eyebrow at me. “And how would the new beau feel about that?”
“Don’t be an ass, King.”
He winked at me again. “Just seeing if I still have a chance.”
“You’re ridiculous.” I snorted and strode away from him to watch the footage on Honey’s phone.
When Honey played it back in slow motion, it looked like one of those old movies where the soldier came back from war. She was right that we should post this. But Nate wasn’t wrong that Campbell probably wouldn’t like it. He’d been cool about Nate showing up again after our talk about it just being business. And Campbell was supposed to be here at the end of filming to meet him. Maybe that would help.
“All right,” I said, “let’s get started.”
A few hours later, we had the ten planned videos and who even knew how many additional videos we’d managed to get. When Nate and I got together, ideas just spilled from a fount. Whatever we started with, we almost always doubled because we couldn’t stop from coming up with more and more. There was a reason we’d both increased our audience since working together.
Not that anything had done for my audience what one video with Campbell did. I’d never seen numbers like that. And I’d never see them again. Well, not unless we went very public with our relationship. Something neither of us was keen on doing. Not to something this new and special. I wasn’t even ready for my assistant to be in the know. I couldn’t imagine the rest of the world.
“That was a great day,” Nate said.
“It really was. I feel so accomplished.”
He leaned back against his yellow Jeep Wrangler Rubicon that he’d driven up from Midland. “So, are you going to tell me what’s up?”
I shrugged. “Sorry about the video. Honey posted it without my knowledge, and then I didn’t know that everyone would think you were proposing.”
“Yeah, I don’t care about that.” He laughed and pushed up the sleeves of his white button-up. “It was kind of fun.”
“Shit stirrer.”
He pinched my arm playfully. “So, I’m guessing that was Campbell?”
I bit my lip and nodded.
“Are you two an item? How did that even happen?”
“Would you believe me if I said that I got mobbed?”
His eyes rounded. “What?”
“Yeah, on the Fourth of July, right after the ‘I See the Real You’ challenge video.”
“That video fucking blew up. But seriously, mobbed? Are you okay?”
I nodded. “I’m kind of claustrophobic. So, some of it was just that. I got away and ran, but all my friends were at the fireworks already, and no one was answering. So, I called Campbell.”
“Ah,” he said with a knowing smirk.
“So, it kind of happened like that.”
“Well, lately, I’ve had some crazy-ass shit happen to me, too.” He raised his eyebrows. “Involving you, actually.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. There was this girl who kept messaging me. I thought she was hitting on me at first, but then I think she was snooping for information on you. She wanted me to confirm whether or not we were dating.” He shrugged. “It was bizarre. I wonder if it was like how you got mobbed.”
“Yeah. Campbell Soup girls.”
Nate blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Uh…that’s what Campbell’s fans are called.”
“That’s a terrible name.”
“Tell me about it.”
We both burst into laughter. It was nice and comfortable. I’d been a little worried that there would be some lingering…thing here with me and Nate. But it just wasn’t there. We looked great on camera. We were entirely authentic because we enjoyed each other’s company. But there wasn’t anything else there.
“So, what now?” he asked. “When’s he leaving?”
“I’m not sure. He has to go back to LA in, like, two weeks.”
Nate crossed his arms over his chest. “And you’re going to, what? Go with him?”
“I haven’t gotten that far.”
He sighed. “Can I say that I’m worried about you without you getting mad or thinking I’m coming on to you?”
“You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Just be careful, B.” He shot me a mournful look. “He’s a rockstar, you know?”
“I can handle myself.”
“Yeah, but you’ve only known him for a few weeks. This, here in Lubbock, isn’t real.”
I flinched at those words. Because everything felt damn real to me. I knew he was going back to LA, but it didn’t feel like it had last time.
“We actually went to high school together.”
“So, you have experience with him leaving.”
“I guess I do,” I admitted. “But it’s not the same.”
He looked skeptical. “I don’t want to push this, but he lives in LA. He’s going to be on tour. You know what that’s like?”
“Yes.”
Because I remembered exactly the one night I’d ended up backstage at a Cosmere concert. There had been girls on top of girls, all scrambling for Campbell’s inebriated attention.
“I don’t want you to get hurt, is all. I’m looking out for you.”
“This is different,” I told him.
“I hope it is, for your sake.”
Nate and I were close, and I could see where he would think the worst. That Campbell was just using me while he was in town. The way that Santi was using Eve. Her eyes were wide open that their relationship would end the minute he returned to LA. My eyes were not like that. I didn’t want to lose Campbell a second time. But no one, let alone Nate, knew that we’d even had a relationship before.
“Look, keep this to yourself, but we were together in high school,” I told him.
He arched an eyebrow. “It’s been a long time since high school.”
I shook my head. “No, Nate. Like ‘I See the Real You’ was written for me.”
His eyes widened as he realized what that meant. “Well, no wonder that video looked so good.”
“Yeah,” I said with a laugh, pushing my hair behind my ear. “We were each other’s worlds. It finally feels like the universe has aligned for us again. It’s not the same. I promise.”
He nodded. “All right. Well, I said my piece anyway. I hope he doesn’t fuck it all up.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“Blaire,” Honey said, making me jump. I’d completely forgotten she was there. “Can I send the videographer home?”
I put my hand to my heart. “Sure. Thanks, Honey.”
“Also, Campbell texted.” She waved my phone at me. “I didn’t look at it.”
“Thanks.” I took the phone from Honey and checked the message as she headed toward the videographer. “He’s on his way.”
Nate arched an eyebrow. “I guess that’s my cue.”
But there was Campbell Abbey, striding down the street in black jeans, a white T-shirt, and Ray-Bans. His hands were shoved into his pockets, and he looked off in the distance.
I didn’t run and throw my arms around him like I wanted to. We were in public, and there were a lot of cameras around. I didn’t need the world to know about us before we were quite ready for them to.
He stopped in front of us, pulling off his shades. “Hey.”
I bit my lip. “Hey.”
“You must be Nate.” Campbell offered him his hand.
Nate glanced at me once and then put his hand in Campbell’s. They shook a little longer and more forceful than was strictly necessary.
“I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Same,” Nate said. “Blaire was just saying how you’re leaving in two weeks.”
I rolled my eyes. “Nate, don’t be a dick.”
He laughed. “I want to make sure he’s going to take care of you.”
“Again, I can take care of myself.”
“And, yes,” Campbell said, “I plan to.”
Nate shrugged. “If you say so.”
“Y’all should chill,” I said with an eye roll.
Campbell smiled then and looked like he was fighting not to kiss me. “All right. All right.”
Nate nodded, ruffling my hair. “I’m going to head back home. Let’s do this again soon.”
“Sure.” I fixed my hair. “I’ll send you a text.”
“Sounds good.” He tilted his head at Campbell. “Nice to meet you. Blaire’s special, so…take good care of her.”
“Will do.”
Campbell watched him walk away, and I smacked him on his arm. “What was that?”
“He’s into you.”
I laughed. “I was just thinking that there was nothing between us at all. Because all I see is you.”
“It’s hard not to kiss you.”
“Really hard,” I said, biting my lip.
“Can I steal you?”
“Always.”
“Oh, and…I meant to ask you before you left this morning. The Wrights are throwing a birthday party for my aunt Helene. Would you want to…go with me?”
I arched an eyebrow. “Like a date? In public?”
He nodded. “Well, at least public with my family and the Wrights.”
That was a big step. So far, we hadn’t done a single thing in public. In some way, it wasn’t that different from what we’d done as teens. Only we had a lot more time and room for sex.
“I’d like that.”
“Good.” He took a step forward until he was very nearly in my face. “Now, let’s get you back to my bed.”
I laughed and nodded. “Yes, please.”