Sidequest for Love by L.H. Cosway

What do you think? He asked in a text under the picture.

Afric: Good effort. I give you a B+. Your smile isn’t as confident as I’d like it to be, though. I want to see those pearly whites!

Neil: Guess I’ll have to try harder tomorrow.

Afric: I guess you will ;-)

Neil: We’re about to go eat pizza at some place close to the hotel. What are you up to?

Afric: I just finished streaming for the day and ate a lacklustre bowl of pasta for dinner. I’d kill for some New York pizza. Very jealous of you right now.

Neil: Shall I send you a picture? Or would that be rubbing it in too much?

Afric: Send one. I can lick the phone screen and pretend it works like the flavoured wallpaper in Willy Wonka.

Neil: Please do not lick your phone screen. Studies have shown they have more germs than a toilet bowl.

Afric: Pfft. Germs are good for you. My parents let me go around licking everything when I was a kid, and I rarely ever got sick.

Neil: Please stop texting me about licking things.

Afric: Okay, fine. Wouldn’t want you getting all hot under that perfectly buttoned-up collar.

Neil: I assure you the opposite is true.

Afric: The gentleman doth protest too much.

Neil: I’m going now. Have a good night.

Afric: You, too! And don’t forget I want another selfie tomorrow.

Neil: We’ll see.

I put my phone down, a weird sensation in my chest. I had one of those odd feelings, like I could text with Neil for hours, just chatting about random, ordinary stuff.

With him still at the forefront of my mind, I went into my bedroom and opened my laptop. I hadn’t had a chance to do a deep dive on Annabelle yet, and there was no time like the present.

I typed her full name “Annabelle Carlino” into the search bar, and she came up right away. Hmm, she was very pretty. I could see why Neil was smitten. Annabelle had long, straight red hair and looked to be medium height. Her feed was of the fitness/inspirational persuasion, with lots of goal-setting quotes and photos of her working out in the gym. The woman had a fantastic body, like Ripley from Aliens. She and Leanne were similar in that regard. It seemed Neil had a type, and that type was sporty, super buff ladies.

Aside from my fondness for leisurewear, I wasn’t buff or sporty at all. I’d always been too lazy to fully embrace regular exercise. Oh, well. At least my joints wouldn’t get worn down by the time I was thirty. You had to look on the bright side.

There were a few girlfriends in her pictures, all of them pretty and fit like her. Her profile stated she was a personal trainer, which explained why she was at the gym all the time. I looked up the place where she worked and found it wasn’t too far from my flat.

A crazy idea struck.

I could sign-up for a free pass and check her out in the flesh. See what kind of person Miss Annabelle was in real life. I entertained the thought for a few minutes. Annabelle might not be the perfect angel Neil imagined her to be, but I wasn’t going to discover the truth from a selectively curated social media grid. I had to see how she acted in real life. Doing some sleuthing could be fun. Then again, if Neil found out, he’d likely burst the blood vessel I had a knack for getting pumping in his forehead.

Unable to make a clear choice, I decided to sleep on it and decide for certain in the morning.

Neil

I shoved my phone in my pocket, unable to rid the visual of Afric licking my neck from my brain. Where the hell had that come from? Tingles skittered down my back at the imagery. I wasn’t sure what was going on with me lately, but somehow the content of our texts had caused my mind to wander to an unexpectedly sexy place.

And now, the image refused to leave.

It had clearly been way too long since I last had sex. Yes, that was why I was suddenly having erotic thoughts about Afric of all people. Not that she wasn’t attractive in her own unique way, but she certainly wasn’t my type.

We’d just reached the pizza place when my phone buzzed. I pulled it out, expecting another teasing message from Afric. Instead, I found a DM from Annabelle.

Hey stranger! How’s everything going with filming the new season? I’m so jealous you get to be in New York right now. x.

I scanned the message before doing something I’d never done to her before; I left her on read. I felt awful, but I just couldn’t interact with her right now. My head was too messed up, and pretending to be Callum was beginning to take its toll on me. I didn’t want to do it anymore, but unfortunately, it was a part of my job. And yes, okay, what Afric said to me about Annabelle pursuing Callum when he was in a relationship with Leanne had been bothering me a lot. I’d tried reasoning it out, telling myself she might not even know they were together, but the more I thought about it, the more unlikely that explanation seemed.

To be honest, I didn’t know how to feel about her anymore.

I decided not to think about the whole thing until I returned to London. There was way too much work to be done over here, and I didn’t have the headspace for anything else.

“You okay, Neil?” Leanne asked as she approached me.

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Yeah, I’m just a little tired. Still adjusting to the time difference.”

“It’s rough, isn’t it,” she said with a sympathetic smile. “On our last trip, it took forever for my body clock to adjust.” She held out a slice of pizza. “Here, I got you a slice with vegan cheese since I know you can’t eat dairy.”