Love, Comment, Subscribe by Cathy Yardley

CHAPTER 25

The later it got, the more irritated Lily grew. She’d hoped Tobin would show up closer to lunchtime, but now it was heading toward late afternoon. He’d left her a voice mail around eleven, saying that he was going to be late because of something—the cell reception had cut out, so it had sounded garbled. If he’d looked at traffic, she thought, maybe they wouldn’t be in this mess.

It wasn’t that she was impatient to see him, she told herself. She just liked being on time.

Also, she wanted to do one run-through, a practice run. It had taken her a ridiculous amount of time trying to come up with an idea for what they were going to film. After the last session, her viewers seemed really impressed—and, honestly, they were getting just as invested in “shipping” her with Tobin as people on his channel were. They’d said that he was cute, and they were impressed by his makeover.

They’d also started asking how long the two of them had been going out. She planned on addressing the fact that they were not a couple in this video, she thought with a nod.

Of course, she’d woken up in his arms, in his bed, just a few days ago.

She closed her eyes as the memory swamped her, her heart rate picking up slightly. It wasn’t that they’d slept together, obviously. She had slept with him, but not with with him. They hadn’t had sex. It had just been a long time since she’d slept next to anyone. Even dating Rafael, they hadn’t spent the night together all that often. She usually slept with a body pillow, something that she’d snuggle up to, gripping tight, even throwing a leg over.

Maybe, just maybe, it had been a bad idea to test Tobin’s “snuggle” proclivities. But he’d been game. It probably shouldn’t be shocking that she had turned at some point in the night and clamped onto Tobin in her sleep, her arms wrapping around him like an octopus. And that her traitorous leg had hitched itself over his hip, and she’d buried her face against his shoulder.

Her cheeks burned just thinking about it.

Thankfully, he’d slept like the dead as she got up, changed out of his clothes, slipped into her own clothes, and fled like a university morning-after shame walk. It was ridiculous. She’d left a very brief but polite note, and they’d texted logistics since. He hadn’t brought up their sleeping arrangement once. Considering Tobin had no filter, she had to believe that it hadn’t affected him at all. With any luck, he never woke up enough to notice her grabby hands and uncharacteristic physicality. Because that would be fodder for way too many jokes and confusion, and frankly, she could not bear it.

That irritation, more with herself than with him, only fed her frustration at his late arrival. She was planning on doing his makeup. It wasn’t the most original thing, but she didn’t do makeup for men often, and since the menswear video had some good response, she thought that she’d show three different looks: a simple tutorial for guys who were just trying to contour a little or cover blemishes and skin flaws; a more advanced tutorial for guys who were looking for a dramatic change; and finally a full-blown colorful palette, for men who were looking for the full range of what makeup could do, including false eyelashes and bright eye shadows. Nothing muted. Tobin was no doubt going to continue screwing around, making jokes, but she would work around that. And she hated to admit it, but his face would work well with makeup. She’d told him to shave so she would have a blank canvas to work with . . . a bit of a pity, because he really was sexy when he had that shadow of a beard. She wondered what he looked like with an actual full beard.

What are you doing?

She shook her head, chastising herself. She hadn’t spent this much time with Tobin, one on one, in . . . well, ever. And it was doing weird things to her head.

Attracted to Tobin. What the hell was the world coming to?

She heard her intercom buzz, and she told Tobin to come up. She opened the door for him, then crossed her arms, tapping her foot a little. “Well, look who decided to show up,” she drawled as he walked in.

He toed off his shoes and glared at her, which was a surprise. She was expecting him to be his usual goofy self—maybe sheepishly apologetic. “This wasn’t my fault,” he said, his voice like a flat slap. “Trust me—spending five hours on the 405 isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. Stupid fucking chickens.”

“Chickens?” she echoed, then shook her head. “Well, whatever. It just means that this video is going to take even longer. Looking at another late night, I think.”

“Goody.”

It was weird. She’d never realized how relentlessly cheerful he was . . . until he wasn’t. He looked stressed, and irritated, and angry. “Do you not want to do this?” she found herself saying defensively.

“You came to me, remember?” he snapped. “You wanted the video series. You’re getting subscribers and increases in your numbers. Does it even matter what I want?” He looked around. “All right, where am I going? How do you want to do this?”

“No,” she said. “This is not going to do. This is not how I work.”

He turned to her, his expression unreadable.

“Are you telling me I just drove five hours in standstill traffic and now you’re just . . .” He made a garbled, choked noise. “Sure, fine, why not? The way today’s run? What the hell. It’s not like I actually havework of my own to do. Why would I? It’s not like I actually do anything, other than make an asshole of myself on camera, just for the LOLs! Which apparently is so easy, anyone can do it, right?”

He sat down on the bench by her front door. She heard him muttering something about the airport, and she blinked. He seemed to be having a little bit of a breakdown. “Tobin . . .”

“Shit, I should be working on my racist stereotypical Asian voice and seeing how I can stockpile playthroughs before going on fucking tour,” he muttered to himself, trying to pull his sneakers back on and then untangling the knots in the laces. “I mean, it doesn’t really matter that I’m having trouble coming up with video ideas. Just keep pushing through! That’s how this works. That’s the only way to stay on top, right?”

She blinked. She had never, ever seen him so upset. She sat down next to him on the small bench by her doorway. “Tobin!”

He glared at her. “What?”

She took a deep breath. Then she leaned forward, slowly. He just stared at her.

She waited for him to pull away or snap at her.

He didn’t.

So she kissed him.

She didn’t know what possessed her. It was a quick brush of her lips over his, barely enough to taste. Enough to make her heart trip-hammer in her chest, though. Then she pulled back. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “I just . . . you wouldn’t listen, and you seem to be in a really bad mood, and . . .”

He stared at her like he’d never seen her before, his dark-amber eyes wide.

She sighed, sitting on the bench next to him. “When I said that’s not how I work, I didn’t mean for you to go home. I mean, you’re obviously having a bad day, and that’s going to translate to the video. You know that. So it’s best that we not just dive into filming. Why don’t you . . .” She bit her lip, thinking. “I don’t know. Are you hungry? I have some protein bowls in the fridge, or some cheese and crackers, or we could order some delivery? Or maybe, um, a quick drink? I have . . . um, water. And some pomegranate juice. And I have vodka in the freezer—Stoli Razberi, sorry, but it’ll get the job done. Oh! I might have some tequila floating around somewhere.”

He kept staring.

“Or we could, uh, go . . . for a walk?” She never went for walks. But right now, he looked like she had hit him with a wrench, which was marginally better than him being pissed as hell, but still not a huge improvement. “Blink twice if you can hear me,” she finally said, joking weakly.

He was silent for another long second.

Then he leaned over and kissed her back.

Only in his case, it wasn’t a brief kiss for shock purposes. He moved in slowly, giving her plenty of time to pull away or say no. Which, honestly, she probably should have done. She wasn’t sure what made her freeze, watching him come closer, until his features blurred and she closed her eyes and felt his lips moving against hers, first slowly, then with increasing pressure. His hand cupped her face, holding her steady.

Then his tongue brushed against her lower lip, and she kind of gasped, and then . . .

Oh, holy hell, then.

They went from leaning next to each other to wrapped up in each other. He moved, buried his hands in the hair at the back of her head, holding her close to him. Her hands clutched at his shoulders, pulling him closer to her like she wanted to pull him inside her. Their tongues danced along each other, their mouths moving ravenously, almost desperately.

She wasn’t quite sure when she shifted her weight—when he tugged her, so they weren’t sitting side by side on the bench, but she was suddenly straddling him. His hands moved to her back, supporting her, and now her hands were in his hair as their heads tilted back and forth and the kiss turned feral. She could barely recognize the sounds she was making. And her hips tilting forward . . .

Just as suddenly as they’d started, they broke apart, staring at each other this time in silent disbelief.

“Um.” She felt out of breath, like she’d just spent an hour on the treadmill, and she quickly clambered off him. “Oh.”

Should I apologize? Say that it won’t happen again?

Drag him to the bedroom?

She bit her lip. She had lost. Her damned. Mind.

He swallowed visibly, his eyes looking wild. His lips looked a little puffy. It actually looked sexy as hell.

Not again.She cleared her throat.

“A shower.” His words came out raspy, with this deep timbre that just did things to her.

Her eyes widened. “Pardon?” she squeaked.

He smirked, but it was tight, almost pained. “I . . . um, could really use a shower. It’s the best way for me to get rid of a bad mood. I brought a couple changes of clothes just in case. Once I’m out, then we can get started filming. Sound good?”

“Sounds good,” she agreed, feeling a little weak.

He winked at her. “Oh, and I was thinking of something. A twist on your video.”

“Oh?” Her voice sounded reedy to her own ears, and she still felt the aftereffects of shock.

“Yeah. When you’re doing makeup on me, I thought I could do makeup on you at the same time.”

She startled. She’d never let anyone else do her makeup—and she had lots of makeup artist friends who would be more than qualified. “That’ll be confusing,” she hedged. “Visually, I mean. How would that even work?”

“I think it’ll be funny as hell,” he countered, his voice mild and bemused. “We can practice it. But I think that it’ll be less static, give me something to do, and show us both involved rather than just you doing something to me, or a variation on the makeover video.” He waited a beat, then said quietly, “I like to be an active participant in things.”

She meant to say something cutting, but her throat had gone dry. And that kiss. Oh, holy hell, that kiss.

“We can practice it,” she said with as much dignity as she could scrape together.

He stroked her cheek. “Just give me a minute,” he said, then headed for her bathroom.

She watched him walk away, duffel bag in hand. She noticed belatedly that he was wearing a T-shirt and shorts. As usual, he looked . . . she sighed.

God. He looked good.

She was not going to survive this, she realized. She had to get some distance between them. Because she had just made out with Tobin Bui, desperately wanted to go even further, and the world officially made no sense anymore.