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MY FATHER WAS giving me a strange-looking grin over FaceTime the following Monday.
"Seriously, why are you looking at me like that?" I asked for what felt like the millionth time, and his smile only seemed to grow wider.
I'd propped my phone up with some old high school textbooks so I could lean back in my pillows and eat some corn chips while simultaneously marveling at the fact that my dad didn't have one strand of gray hair. He used to joke that if he and my mom tried for another child, they might take his hair color and look less like Frozen's Elsa and more like an Anna.
"I'm just happy to see my beautiful daughter who doesn't call to check up on me."
I let out a playful snort. "You're away on business trips all the time, Dad. I barely notice you're gone anymore."
He clutched his chest dramatically, releasing short fake gasps, and I laughed, genuinely, with no respect for the camera this time. Mark had developed a weird interest in me that I could only refer to as obsessive after he'd come across the photos I'd posted to Instagram on Friday night.
Aside from me going from having fifty-three million followers to fifty-three point five in the blink of an eye, I'd also gotten a handful of DMs from strangers I'd promptly ignored, obsessive mentions on Twitter, and several stink eyes from Mark Colton, who was absolutely positive I was keeping something from him—which wasn't far from it. Not to mention the several sections on morning gossip shows discussing the entire ordeal.
Obsessed.
Everyone was completely obsessed.
Mark wanted to break me. He wanted me to give him more than I was, to "quit with the cliffhanger," as he'd put it, so he'd ordered for constant supervision. I was trying very hard to ignore the lenses in my face, unwilling to give him the reaction he wanted.
"I'm not gonna pretend that didn't hurt," my dad said, and the line crackled a bit, but I still beamed at him.
"So, how's Venice?"
"I left Venice a week ago—you'd know that if you called more often. Stopped by Bordeaux and plan to head back to American soil sometime next week."
I felt my face go comically blank. "Please tell me you're not with my sister."
My dad put that grin back on his face. "We went wine tasting yesterday."
"Wow, thanks for loyally sticking to our agreement, Papa," I heard from somewhere off-screen, and my dad angled his phone so I could get a view of Coco sitting on the hotel carpet, casually typing away on her MacBook.
"This is my attempt at making her jealous," he offered. "She loves L.A. so much, she hardly ever leaves the house. Of course I'd want her to know I'm in our hometown."
"Why are you guys at a hotel instead of the house?" I chose to ask, since my sister was refusing to look at me.
"Don't tell her anything about our time together," Coco interjected just as his lips parted to respond to me. "It's none of her business."
