Fake It Till You Bake It(34)

“What’s up with me? What’s up with you?” she screeched into his ear.

He yanked the phone away before he suffered any permanent hearing loss, then gingerly brought it back to his ear. “Sloane, can I get you to bring it down an octave? Dogs are howling as we speak.”

“Sorry,” she said in her normal, steady tone. “I’m just so excited.”

“Excited about what? Did you get a promotion?”

“No, I didn’t get a promotion and don’t try to distract me.”

Distract her? From what? “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the fact that you’re trending on Twitter.”

Donovan stifled a groan. It couldn’t be. That lady couldn’t go viral just because she wanted to. It didn’t work like that. Did it? He’d been truthful with Jada. He didn’t do social media. He had social media accounts, of course. He wasn’t that out of touch. But the main reason he had them was to prevent randos from pretending to be him and posting crazy shit under his name. He didn’t do anything with the accounts, however. Which didn’t really endear him to his baby sister, who made her living as a social media assistant. Soon to be manager, according to her, though apparently not today.

He asked the question he didn’t want the answer to. “Why am I trending on Twitter?”

“Because you were kissing Jada from My One and Only!” There went the screeching again, but that was the least of his problems.

His stomach cratered. Shit. Thank God he hadn’t eaten yet. Okay, that was dramatic, and he didn’t do drama. He needed to chill. He’d listened to his sister enough to know trends on social media were just that. Trends. Trends came and went. In thirty minutes, some attention-seeker would do or say something truly outrageous, and he would soon be ancient history. “Can you forget about that please?”

His sister gasped. “No! I’m calling Shana.”

“Please don’t.” His big sister would undoubtedly love to add her opinion to this matter. She had an opinion on every aspect of his life. This would be too juicy to pass up.

“Too late.”

Yeah, he’d figured that out. The phone was already ringing. His older sister answered a second later. “Hello.”

“Sloane, did you see that Donovan is trending on Twitter? Because he was kissing Jada?” She made Jada sound like some scandalous, two-bit hussy. And now he sounded like some old biddy from a western from the fifties.

“Girl, I did!” Sloane answered. “Can you believe it?”

“Hello, I’m right here,” he interjected before they could really get going.

“Oh, you’re on the call, Donovan. Perfect,” Shana said. “You always were my favorite sibling, Sloane.”

He rolled his eyes and stifled a sigh.

“Now tell us everything,” she continued.

“Don’t leave anything out,” Sloane added.

His sisters were tag teaming him. Why had he not been blessed with a brother or at least a sibling who didn’t love teasing him or digging into his personal life? He took the only option available to him—stalling. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“Don’t try that with me, little brother,” Shana said, sounding exactly like their mother.

“You’re lucky Mama hasn’t found out yet,” Sloane said, no doubt thinking along the same lines as him. “She’d be on you like white on rice.”

Wasn’t that the truth? A little tug of guilt pinched near his heart. Jada hadn’t wanted him to tell anyone they weren’t dating, but he’d told her he couldn’t promise her that. And these were his sisters, who he trusted more than anyone else in the world. If he asked them to keep their mouths shut, they would. Yet he felt like he was betraying Jada, which was the height of ridiculousness. He didn’t do ridiculousness. So the truth it was, but first he had questions. “Tell me about this show.”

“It’s so great,” Shana said. “Drama-filled. It’s like potato chips. Once you eat one, you can’t stop.”

Sloane murmured in agreement. “Basically, there’s the lead, and he goes out with a bunch of women. Every week, the contestants vote on which two women they don’t want to get a date. They form coalitions. The lead has the right to veto one objection per week in his quest to find his one and only. He eliminates a few women each week after all his dates.”

Donovan clutched his phone. “What about Jada?”

“Jada was the best, or so everyone thought until the finale,” Sloane said. “She was funny and always spoke her mind with the lead, Dr. John, and the other contestants. She and John had great chemistry.”

“Dude was smitten,” Shana said. “Viewers loved him. He was genuine and there for the right reasons.”

“Finding love on a reality show? Yeah, okay.” Donovan had his doubts.

“It’s true. He was the sweetest guy. Funny and kind, but not easily bamboozled by antics. Some of the other contestants didn’t like how well Jada and he got along and tried to split them up, but it didn’t work. They were always together.”

He swallowed around the lump in his throat. “So they what? Fell in love with a bunch of cameras in their face recording their every move?”