Love, Comment, Subscribe by Cathy Yardley
CHAPTER 8
Lily didn’t usually do things on impulse. But she realized as she drove up the cul-de-sac to Tobin’s house that this might not have been the best idea she’d ever come up with.
She’d been second-guessing herself the entire two-hour drive from Los Angeles to Ponto Beach. Driving was usually a good way for her to clear her head—at least, when she was actually moving, not just sitting in exhaust-filled stopped traffic and crawling her way across LA—but now her brain seemed like it was on an infinitely running loop.
This is stupid.
No, this will work.
No, this is really stupid.
It’ll work. It has to work.
Tobin was many things: annoying, hyperactive, compulsively incapable of taking anything seriously. But the guy was also insanely creative. She could take things seriously for both of them, she thought with a frown, if it meant some of that creativity rubbed off.
She’d stopped at a bakery on the way and was now armed with doughnuts, which she knew he had a weakness for. Weirdly, she’d even remembered what kind he liked: bavarian creams. Taking a deep breath, she pulled her MINI Cooper into his driveway, then grabbed the white paper bakery bag and headed for the door.
His house was like any number of houses in Southern California: cream-colored stucco, red ceramic tile roof. She’d been here once before, when he’d first bought it a few years ago. She’d been visiting her friend Emily, and the Nerd Herd had an impromptu gathering to celebrate Tobin’s milestone. She’d remembered feeling some envy, since she was still renting. Still, it was a hell of a lot easier to buy a house in Ponto than it was to buy a condo in LA, and she’d decided to either invest her money back into her business or sock it away in savings—just in case.
She was a big fan of planning and contingencies. She had graduated from UCLA with her major in business economics and a minor in digital humanities, all in four years. She’d actually planned out her college classes—all four years’ worth—at her parents’ kitchen table during her senior year of high school. Her parents had watched, nodding with approval. They were just as meticulous as she was. Nature or nurture, she came by it honestly.
Of course . . . she didn’t have a contingency if Tobin said no to this.
She took a deep breath, going up his walkway, then rang the doorbell and waited.
Abruptly, panic gripped her. She probably should’ve called first. What if he didn’t mean it about collaborating with her? He’d had that teasing tone, like he was messing with her. And what if he hadn’t even come home the night before? He seemed kind of drunk.
She winced. What if he’d come home but wasn’t alone? She didn’t want to have a conversation with him while his hookup poured herself coffee in the background.
Gah! Gah! GAH!
She took another deep breath—and strongly considered turning on one kitten heel and driving the hell out of Ponto—when suddenly she heard a voice from the other side of the door.
“Comin’. Just give me a minute,” Tobin’s scratchy voice said; then the door opened. Lily couldn’t help it. She gaped.
He was standing in blue-plaid sleep pants, rubbing at his eye with one hand. He had serious bed head, his dark-walnut hair sticking up at odd angles, and he had stubble on his jaw.
He also wasn’t wearing a shirt.
She blinked. Apparently, he’d started exercising in the ten years since high school—fairly seriously. She suppressed a gasp, taking in the definition of his chest, the bulge of his arms, the hint of a six-pack.
Holy shit! Tobin Bui isripped!
“Lily?” He seemed just as surprised as she was, his sleep-droopy eyes widening. “What are you doing here?”
She laughed, but it sounded breathless and raspy and weird. “Um . . . I wanted to talk to you.”
He blinked. “Ohhhh-kay?”
She thrust the bakery bag forward like the world’s most aggressive gift. “I brought doughnuts,” she added. “Your favorite. I think.”
“Thanks?” He still looked confused as hell, and she did not blame him. The slow seep of embarrassment was heating her cheeks and making her squirm.
She gritted her teeth. Apparently she was going to need to just dive in and spell it out for him.
“Were you serious about collaborating with me?” she asked without preamble.
He stared at her. Then he ran his hand over his face, slowly. “Tell me you didn’t just drive all this way to talk about YouTube.”
She scowled.
“But of course you did,” he continued before she could answer. “Come on in. If we’re going to talk, I desperately need coffee. And ibuprofen. I am hungover as hell.”
She followed him. His house was nicer than she remembered—of course, it had been unfurnished at the time. Now, he had a taupe couch and a big coffee table, and of course the requisite “dude-bro” huge-screen television. He also had some framed pictures, surprising her. Pictures of him with his parents, and some older people who she assumed were his grandparents, and maybe aunts and uncles. Then there were pictures of him with the Nerd Herd: Tobin, Josh, and Vinh fooling around at the beach; that time when they all tried camping out in the desert; late night on the Coronado bridge.
There was even a picture of all of them graduating from Ponto High School, the group of them so young, smiling wildly in their caps and gowns, honors cords and Hawaiian leis around their necks. They weren’t like the artistic and carefully composed photos she had hanging in her apartment, mostly black-and-white studio shots her parents had meticulously curated and professionally framed, but she had to admit, it felt . . . nice. Homey.
He also had a treadmill, a stationary bike, and a set of free weights, in what would’ve been the dining room. Which explained how he was now looking like a Men’s Health cover, she supposed.
He yawned, stretching, and she felt her mouth go a little dry at the play of muscles across his back. It had been a while, she argued with herself, since she’d been with a guy. So that would explain why she was acting so stupidly thirsty.
About Tobin frickin’ Bui, of all people.
“Coffee?” he asked, as he measured out ground coffee and got his pot started. She shrugged, not trusting herself to speak. They waited in increasingly tense silence as the stuff gurgled and finally brewed. He paused it long enough to get his own cup. Then he dumped in sugar and cream, and turned to her. “So. You want to collab. Badly enough to drive a few hours, all the way down here, to my house, to ask me in person.”
She bit her lip. “Yes,” she said. “I know it seems crazy. Believe me, I balked when Daisy suggested it, but the more I thought about it . . .”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” he said, holding up a hand, then taking a sip of coffee. “Who the hell’s Daisy?”
“The woman, last night,” Lily said, trying to curb her impatience. “Daisy Blackwell. One of the biggest beauty influencers in the world.”
“The flapper one?”
“Yes, the flapper one,” Lily agreed, suppressing a grin. It was so great to hear someone sum Daisy up so offhandedly. She’d been insulated in the beauty YouTuber bubble for so long it never occurred to her that others might not have the same level of fear and awe. “Anyway, she pointed out that it might be a good idea, and Chrysalis agreed. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought we could really help each other.”
She took a deep, steadying breath. She’d gotten up early to prepare herself, to show why, exactly, a partnership between EverLily and GoofyBui was a viable and potentially profitable one. Now, she felt her nerves melt away as she snapped into what she considered her “pitch” mentality.
“You have a large base of subscribers and followers,” she said. “You’ve definitely got a bent toward gamers, but some people just watch you because they like your humor and your creativity. I don’t think they’re just watching exclusively for playthroughs, and I don’t think they’ll mind you collaborating with a beauty YouTuber.”
He kept sipping, his expression betraying nothing. He was still listening, at least, rather than being distracted. He took out a doughnut, taking a large bite.
She took a deep breath. “And I’ve got a following that might enjoy a crossover,” she said. “My content may not be as viral,” she said, thinking gross understatement! “But it’s consistent: my viewers know when to expect videos. I haven’t deviated from that schedule in five years.” Not even when she had bronchitis, although she’d wound up doing a silent video with text overlays. It had been a bitch.
But she’d gotten it done.
Tobin blinked at that one. “Not once?” he marveled. “In five years?”
“And my viewers are really loyal,” she said. “That said, I think they’ll be open to new content, and I . . . I want to bring some more originality to my videos.”
There. She’d admitted it. It felt like showing her jugular to a jaguar, admitting a weakness, and she hated it.
She rushed forward. “What I’d like to propose is a collaboration between GoofyBui and EverLily. Maybe a short video series—half on your channel, half on mine.”
“Doing what kind of content?”
She felt her stomach knot a little. He was the creative one. That’s why she was here. “I’m sure we can think of something,” she hedged. “I wanted to get your buy-in before we developed more concrete ideas.”
He made a vague noise. What did it mean? Was he interested? Not interested? Still fricking hungover and not paying attention?
“So, what you’re saying,” he said slowly, after finishing the doughnut in a few bites, “is that you want to use me. You want to boost your numbers, and you want to leverage my channel to get there.”
She winced like she’d been slapped. It wasn’t like he was wrong, per se, but still. “I wouldn’t put it like that, but that’s how collabs work, Tobin,” she said, feeling affronted . . . and vaguely ashamed.
“What are you bringing to the party?” he said. “Because I’m doing fine, and I don’t think that a bunch of fashion and beauty viewers are going to be signing on to my channel, frankly.”
“You’d be surprised,” she snapped. “It’s like Chrysalis says: people aren’t just one thing. And I really think it would depend on the content we produced.”
His brow wrinkled in thought. “There’s one other problem,” he pointed out. “I’m a dog, Lily.”
She blinked. “You’re a what?” she asked, confused as hell. “What, like a womanizer? Why are you telling me this? Are you planning on hitting on me or something? Because we both know that’s not going to work!”
His eyes widened. Then he burst out laughing, hard enough that he had to put his coffee cup down. “No, no. Not like that,” he said. “Like . . . like a Labrador retriever, I mean.”
“I see,” she said slowly. Although, honestly, she didn’t.
“I’m silly, and happy, and mostly harmless,” he explained. “You, on the other hand, are a cat. You’re beautiful and finicky, and despite any attempts for a dog to play with you, you would probably hiss before clawing the hell out of me.”
“That feels overly simplistic,” she protested.
“We don’t get along, Lils,” he pointed out. “I get you want to grow your channel, but there is a good chance that we would be filming a murder. I’m just not sure it’s a good idea.”
“You think I can’t be professional?” she asked, bristling.
“No,” he said with exaggerated patience. “I know you can. Just like I know, odds are good that I can’t.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“I can almost guarantee I will do something stupid,” he continued. “I will ruin your takes. I will make inappropriate jokes. I cuss like an overly imaginative sailor. If you thought I was goofy in high school . . . I assure you, it’s only gotten worse.”
“I’ve seen your content,” she protested. “It’s good, Tobin. I think I can work with it.”
“Yes,” he said, sighing. “But will you be able to work with me?”
She wanted to growl. The damned thing was—he was just voicing the same concerns she had. She wasn’t sure, not 100 percent. But she needed this.
“I know I can,” she said with more confidence than she felt.
“I’m really sorry, Lily,” he said, and to his credit, he did sound like he was. “But . . . I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Just like that, she felt her confidence crumble like a sandcastle. She refused to let it show, instead crossing her arms. “That’s fine. It’s fine,” she repeated, as if repetition would make it somehow better. “You’re probably right.”
He leaned against the counter, then yelped. “Shit, that’s cold,” he said, rubbing his lower back and glaring at the granite countertop. Then he looked down, his eyes widening. “Annnnnd I’m not wearing a shirt.”
Despite feeling tears pricking at her eyes, she smirked. “I noticed.”
“Shit,” he repeated, putting down his coffee. “Uh . . . listen, I feel bad that you came all this way for nothing. Let me put on some real clothes and . . . I dunno, take you out to breakfast or brunch or something?” He grinned. “You strike me as the brunch type.”
“I really need to record today,” she said. No way in hell was she going to keep up a brave face, choking down eggs Benedict with the guy who’d shot down her idea and refused to help her career. “But thanks.”
She turned to the door and stopped for a second when Tobin gently put his hand on her arm. “I really am sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be,” she said. “I really should’ve just called.”
With that, she walked out the door, going back to the car, and shortly thereafter pulling back out of the driveway.
Well, that was a huge waste. And the worst part?
She had no idea what to do next.