Love, Comment, Subscribe by Cathy Yardley
CHAPTER 26
Lily had set up in the living room, rather than her claustrophobic bedroom. The natural light combined with her other lights would be better for what she had in mind, and it’d give her more room to work on his face—and, apparently, for him to work on hers, if that’s what he really wanted. She thought about it like the makeover: do the makeup tutorial with the camera focused on his face, and then let him see the reveal in the mirror after she was done. She imagined that he’d do the same to her. She’d originally had three looks in mind—she wasn’t sure what he had in mind. Maybe she’d just let him do one?
She sighed. He was so impulsive, so used to doing things on the fly. She wasn’t sure how he managed that. Still, she remembered his outburst from when he walked in. He was upset about someone not taking his work seriously. His agents? His family?
Her?
Guilt stabbed at her. She nibbled at her lower lip. He drove her crazy, but he’d never really been mean spirited. And while she’d raged at him in the past, she’d never done anything that deliberately hurt him. Other than perhaps kicking him in the balls in the pool that one time—she hadn’t actually meant to connect, but he’d moved forward at the last moment.
And now, with her new awareness of him—she found herself not wanting to hurt him at all, in any way.
She took a deep breath. She had to focus on the video. It was her career, and she’d come too far to lose focus now. He’d add the humor, she’d do the looks, and . . . well. That’d be that.
“Thanks,” Tobin said as he emerged from the bathroom. His hair was still damp, sticking up a little, since he’d obviously towel-dried it. He was wearing his shorts again but no shirt, and his feet were bare. “This okay? I, um, was wearing the T-shirt that is safe to get makeup stuff on, but after those hours in the car . . .” He grimaced. “Kinda sweaty and uncomfortable.”
“Oh. Um . . . let’s throw that in the washer while we’re rehearsing,” she said. “I’ve got a load of wash to do anyway. That way, by the time we’ve got the video practiced, it’ll be off and the mic won’t pick it up.”
He produced a bundle of wadded-up clothes, and she threw them in with her clothes, getting her small stacked washer going. Then she turned to find him studying her setup curiously.
“So we’re filming out here?” he asked. “Not too much echo?”
We’re not going to talk about the kissing, then.That was probably a good idea, actually. God knew, it was running through her head on a constant loop, and she wasn’t sure what would happen if they faced what had happened head on. At best, her hands would shake like crazy while she tried to apply makeup. At worst—well, she wasn’t quite sure what the worst thing that could happen would be.
Either he’d want to do more, or he’d want to pretend it never happened.
She wasn’t sure which possibility disturbed her more.
“We’ll have to test it,” she finally answered. “The lights and mics and stuff. That’s part of what the rehearsal’s for.”
“That makes sense.” He looked amused. “I don’t know that I’ve ever met any YouTuber that does a full rehearsal before filming, though. They usually just go through, fix things as they go, then smooth it all out in editing. Why not do that?”
She gestured for him to sit down on a chair that she’d dragged over to the little breakfast table she normally had out on her balcony. She then fluttered around, getting out the assortment of makeup she’d planned to use for the shoot. “I know it might feel like overkill,” she said. “My friend Mikki makes fun of me all the time for being so finicky about it. But I just like to have a sense of where I’m going and what I’m doing. I hate flailing around, and I really, really hate trying to edit a video that seems like it’s entirely comprised of rambling. I’d rather just plan, and practice, so I have good footage I can work with, right from the start.”
“My entire life feels like rambling,” Tobin remarked with a smirk. “But I don’t mind it. A lot of times, that’s how I stumble on creative stuff. Also, I hate redoing the same things over and over. It makes me fidget. I get bored and kind of stressed . . . like all the energy’s been sucked out of whatever idea I came up with.”
She wanted to bristle. Ordinarily, she would. But after seeing his little freak-out in her foyer, she instead tilted her head. “So you have ADHD?” she found herself asking.
He blinked. “You are, like, the queen of non sequiturs, you know?”
“Sorry.” She felt a blush heating her cheeks, and she set up the camera, turning it on and checking the light levels. He was looking at her curiously and possibly with a little embarrassment.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because when you say stuff like that, I kind of . . . uh, take it personally,” she said. “Like anybody who does what I do is boring and stuck up and . . . I don’t know. Lifeless.”
“What? No!” He looked appalled. “Hell no. I just know what works for me, Lils. You need to work with what’s best for you. Besides, we’ve got very different audiences . . .”
“Which seem to have some overlap,” she pointed out with a little smile.
“Yeah, that’s been fun. But I think that it’s not bad. You’re giving me structure and new ideas. I’d like to think I’m injecting a little spontaneity into your stuff and maybe helping you loosen up a little. That doesn’t mean you’re . . . what? Boring, or stuck up, or lifeless.”
Lily shrugged. “I know we’re really different.”
“You’ve been one of my friends for years,” he said. “I know you always had problems with being part of the Nerd Herd. I don’t know why, but it bothered you.”
She blinked at him. “You really don’t know why?”
He shook his head, studying her.
“Because people thought we were geeks,” she said. Did he really not get it?
“Age of the geek, baby,” he said with a quicksilver grin. “Not a bad thing.”
“Trust me, they weren’t thinking it in a meta, ‘hey I watch Marvel movies’ kind of way,” she said, and she couldn’t help it . . . her tone turned scathing. “They were thinking that we weren’t good enough.”
“You were in all honors and AP classes, you had over a 4.0 GPA, you were in National Honor Society and California Scholarship Federation, and you got into UCLA,” he said, enunciating every syllable. “How the hell is that not good enough?”
“Yeah, well, it got me into UCLA, but it didn’t get me to parties,” she shot back. “It didn’t make me good enough to be friends with them, did it? Certainly not good enough to date anybody! I was an outcast. We all were outcasts!”
He looked at her, and it wasn’t pity. It was . . . disappointment.
“We had each other,” he said, almost under his breath. “That was what I never understood. Why did you give a shit what they thought, when you had us?”
She sighed. This was not a good way to start their video. The last thing she wanted was to drag up the past. But here they were. “They were gorgeous,” she said. “Popular. They . . . I don’t know. They had everything I wanted, or anybody could want. They were the definition of success.”
“If they didn’t want to hang out with you, why would you want to be around them?” he pressed. “Again: you had us.”
“Yeah, but we just sort of . . . you know.”
“No,” he said, his voice dangerously low. “I really don’t.”
“We didn’t hang out because we liked each other, necessarily,” she said. “We were friends because nobody else wanted to be friends with us.”
His eyes widened, his jaw dropping a little. She immediately felt like shit.
“Okay, that’s too harsh,” she said. “I just . . . I don’t know. Emily and Tam were definitely my best friends, and I know they cared about me. But at the same time, I do wonder what would’ve happened if the popular kids decided they wanted to welcome them. Would they have turned their backs on us?”
“Would you have?” Tobin asked quietly.
Lily grimaced. “No! No. Of course not.”
“You sure about that?”
She frowned. “I wouldn’t. I think I could’ve managed both. In fact, I think I could’ve shown them how amazing a lot of us were.”
Tobin still looked suspicious, and annoyed.
“Now, I’d like to prove to them that I don’t need them,” she said.
“Is that why you’re into beauty YouTubing?” he asked. “Because you’ve got something to prove?”
She winced. Was it?
“I like makeup. I like doing what I do,” she said, even though there was an ugly undercurrent that she didn’t want to investigate. “And speaking of . . . let’s get to this, shall we?”
He nodded. “All right,” he said. “But I’m not letting you off that easily.”
She sighed. Of course he wouldn’t.
They’d done a test run of filming putting makeup on him. It was less of a full rehearsal than he was expecting, thankfully. She tested the light and the angles of how it’d be filmed, and she showed him what she was planning on doing: putting makeup on him, with him facing the camera and not being able to see what she was doing in the mirror, then the reveal would be him looking at the effects afterward. They decided to do two versions for him, two for her. Not that he had a lot of experience with any of this, but he knew he could make it lively and funny, if he could just get out of his head.
This was what he didn’t like about doing videos . . . the not being sure. And he was still mulling over what she’d said about the Herd. Which, he supposed, was right there in the name—and he’d be lying if he said that felt like he completely fit in either. His joking behavior was often mistaken for an almost preternatural confidence, but really, it was just impulsivity run amok, as well as some overcompensating coping mechanisms. He did things that were kind of crazy, and laughed with others even when part of him felt anxious or embarrassed by what was going on. It took a toll. He was better now, he thought. He knew his audience, he knew his friends, he knew what he was doing, mostly. He was doing what he enjoyed, for people who appreciated it.
Lily, he realized, was doing it to show a bunch of girls who would genuinely never give a shit that she was past it . . . and ultimately only proving that really, she kinda wasn’t.
“Hi there,” Lily said with that super-chill, super-smooth, almost meditative voice that she only used in videos. “EverLily here, with another collaboration with Tobin Bui, a.k.a. GoofyBui. Hi, Tobin!”
“Hi,” he said, smiling at what he felt was her silliness. He waved at the camera.
“Last time I collaborated with Tobin, we gave him a makeover, which a lot of you seemed to appreciate,” she said, and he wiggled his eyebrows. She rolled her eyes at him, but in a subdued way, not in a “you’re pissing me off” way. Well, it was early on in the video—he’d wait for that and maybe not court it for a change. “So today, we’re going to try doing two looks for guys who might be interested in trying out makeup. We’re not talking drag, by the way—that’s something different. This is just an appreciation of men who might want to try cosmetics but aren’t sure how.”
“And I,” Tobin added, trying to match her serious yet tranquilizing tone, “am going to try my hand at being a makeup artist and doing Lily’s makeup.”
She looked a little nervous at this, but she kept her zen smile in place. “So, first, we’re going to try some simple contouring, and a tiny bit of eyeliner. Tobin’s got these great light-brown eyes, kind of unusual, and a little bit of eyeliner will really make them pop.”
He was startled. “I have great eyes?”
“The color’s great,” she said, and he still grinned. She cleared her throat. “You washed up, right?”
“Yup. I used that fancy face wash and all that you told me to.”
“It just helps to have a blank canvas. And a skin-care regime is important,” she said, more to the camera than to him. She then pumped some lotion-type stuff into her palm and rubbed her fingertips over his face. He closed his eyes, which forced him to focus on the feel of her hands on his skin. She wasn’t rough: it was more like a little massage for his face, and it was really relaxing. He sighed a little, leaning into her touch.
“Can I open my eyes?”
“If you want,” she said. She had a few little bottles of concealer stuff. She looked like a cross between a painter and a mad scientist as she took his arm and blended a light color and a dark color. “Most people don’t have the exact shade of foundation to match their skin, although with brands like Fenty and other BIPOC-owned cosmetics companies finally making a broad spectrum of flesh tones, and major makeup brands jumping on the bandwagon, it’s getting easier,” she said. “Also, you want to find something that warms your skin, and you want to think about what it’s going to look like in the lighting you’re going to be in. If you’re stuck in gross fluorescent lighting, it’s going to look gross no matter what you do. And if you apply stuff in crappy bathroom lighting and then go outside, it’s going to look different.”
“How do you learn all this stuff?”
“Lots of trial and error,” she admitted. She mixed stuff on the back of his hand before she was satisfied, then took this weird egg-shaped sponge thing and sopped it up. “Lots of YouTube videos, too, of course. But really, it’s all a matter of just diving in there and trying it.”
He chuckled when she started rubbing his face with the egg thing. “Hey! That tickles!”
“Stay still,” she said, grabbing his chin and forcing his head to stay in one place. He shut his eyes and felt her move the sponge over his skin. He could smell her perfume again. He took a deep breath. There, underneath the perfume or soap or whatever, was her smell—a mix of girl and something spicy. He found himself wishing that he could lean forward farther, bury his face in the crook of her neck where it met her shoulder, and just inhale that scent.
Pervy Roomba,he mocked himself.
Which was probably stupid, especially considering they still hadn’t addressed the whole “we just kissed” thing. And not just kissed. Practically gotten busy on a low bench by the front door.
He cleared his throat and forced himself to think of something else so he didn’t start springing wood. That would be both awkward and only delay the video more, and frankly, it was going to be longer than he’d meant for it to be.
“All right. For contouring, you want to use a slightly darker foundation, and apply it in these places, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish,” she said, instructing in that gentle voice. He liked the sound of it, but he couldn’t help but think that he liked what he considered her normal voice better. When she wasn’t trying so hard, wasn’t putting up the front. Even when she was pissed at him, he realized, and smiled.
“Don’t smile,” she chastised, and his eyebrows went up.
“What? Why not?”
“Your dimples,” she said. “Messes up my ability to get even coverage.”
He winked at her, and was surprised to see her cheeks go pink. “All right. Bossy.”
She stuck out her tongue at him and made it that much harder for him to keep a straight face. He didn’t like the eyeliner bit—sharp objects by his eyeballs freaked him out—but otherwise it really wasn’t that big a deal.
“Okay, look in the mirror,” she said, turning him, and he did as instructed. To his surprise . . .
“Wow,” he said, turning his head this way and that, looking at the results. “I have a jawline! I mean, I had a jawline, but this is like . . . I mean, I could carve a wooden bowl with this sucker. And cheekbones! Look out, Tom Hiddleston!”
She shook her head, laughing.
“Not sure about the liner,” he admitted. “Just because I hate having pointy things by my eye.”
“You could use a brush,” she said. “And it’s probably more dramatic than you particularly would want to go with—it’s a little emo. For you, I mean. Not for other people.”
He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Oh, you think? You know me that well?”
“I do know you that well,” she said with a smug smile, and he grinned back at her.
“Okay, your turn,” he said, rubbing his hands together maniacally. She looked . . . concerned.
When they’d been rehearsing, she showed him the sheer volume of makeup she had. Some of it was obviously expensive, things she’d purchased because she really liked it. Other stuff was things she’d either received to test or received at parties or promotions. He’d deliberately picked things that were different from her usual subdued, classic, sophisticated palette. He also picked things he figured she wouldn’t mind losing if he used them up. “All right, all set.”
He knew exactly fuck all when it came to makeup, but he had helped some people with cosplay before, both for videos and just for conventions they’d attended. “So, Lily. This may take a while. Why don’t you tell me why you got into makeup?” he said, just to provide some patter. He took a brush and grabbed a tray of pressed eye shadow powders. “I always imagined it had to do with your family.”
She blinked. “I, um, don’t usually talk about my family.”
He wasn’t sure if that was a warning or not, so he plowed forward. They could always edit it out afterward. “I think it’s important to keep some parts of my life private too,” he said, coaxing her a little, “but I’ve found that my audience likes to learn about me a little more. It makes it more personal, gives us more of a connection.”
Lily bit her lip, something he found distracting and attractive. Damn, her lips were full.
A fact he was now well acquainted with.
She took a deep breath. “Well, my family owns an import-export business,” she said carefully. “And my mother owned a dress store and a beauty salon, really high end, connected with a spa, back when they lived in Ponto Beach. I think I learned about makeup and clothes from my time at the stores.”
He continued to pile on the makeup. Then he took another brush and mixed some lip gloss with the eye shadow he’d just used.
“Uh, that’s not lipstick,” she pointed out.
“It’s close enough. Will you let me work?”
She grumbled but quieted. Then he painted her lips. He left her cheeks alone except for some contouring. Then he turned her. “Ta-da!”
She blinked. “What the heck am I?” she said, the chill slipping out of her voice as she stared at herself in bafflement.
“Goth Lolita,” he said. “You didn’t have black lipstick, so I improvised.”
She basically had charcoal and black eye shadow, from her lashes to her eyebrows, and he’d tried to draw those batwing things, sort of like Neil Gaiman’s Death from the Sandman comics. She looked harsh. And hot, he admitted.
She blinked. “It’s not that bad,” she said. “All right. Now we wash this off, and we’ll try the next round. Okay?”
He nodded. They continued in that vein. She painted him like a rainbow, using what she called the PEACOCK palette, apparently something she was reviewing. “It’s . . . really . . . bright,” he said. “Yikes. I mean, I am sure there are a lot of people that can really rock this look, but I look like something out of Splatoon.”
“I am a better makeup artist than that,” she said haughtily, but a smile flickered at the corners of her lips.
“And the fake eyelashes . . . good grief. How do you wear them all the time?”
“You get used to them.”
“Feels like I’ve got ten pounds sitting on my eyelids.” Actually, now that he’d said that, he felt totally sleepy.
“Do you want to skip doing me?” she said, and he couldn’t help it . . . he snickered like a twelve-year-old, even as his body went a tiny bit tighter.
“Nope. Still doing you,” he said with just enough emphasis that her eyes went wide and she smacked his shoulder lightly. He got the makeup for her ready, covering her face with white, then painting those full lips red. “This is going to be fun.”
“What about you?” she asked, looking up when he told her to so he could do the liner. “How did you get into YouTube?”
He shrugged. “I just really liked watching gamers, and I kept falling into rabbit holes when I was supposed to be studying,” he said. “I mean, I knew it’d be a long shot, and that it would mean a lot of hard work. But I just loved it. I love the videos. I love my audience. It’s a hell of a lot of fun.”
“Yeah, I think so too,” she said quietly.
They kept talking, until he was finally done. And then he turned her, showing off his handiwork.
She blinked. “And this is . . . ?”
“Pennywise! The clown? From It?”
She still looked baffled.
“Oh my God. Okay, I am totally making you watch that at some point,” he said, shaking his head. “How do you not know It? It’s one of the scariest movies in years!”
“I don’t watch horror.”
“We’ll see about that,” he said, rolling his eyes. They looked at each other, flanked in the mirror. He looked like a tropical bird; she looked like a serial-killing alien clown.
“Well . . . that’ll do for today,” she said, after doing a sign-off. They looked at the clock. “It’s seven,” she said.
He sighed. They went and washed off the makeup again, and his skin felt weird after all the washing and then makeup and then washing. He felt tired, and hungry, and emotionally exhausted like he usually felt after a video, whether it had gone well or not. Most people thought it was just goofing around in front of a camera, but being “on” required more energy than it seemed. “I guess I’ll get going.”
She tapped on her phone. “Looks like there’s another accident on the 405,” she said. “Maybe . . . maybe it’d be better to wait.”
He looked at her, surprised. Then not, because of course she was going to look at traffic and weather. She was organized that way, prepared. “I guess I could . . .”
“Want to grab something to eat?” she said. “Or have something delivered?”
He tilted his head, kicking around something smartass to say. Then he just smiled.
“I’d like that.”