“You have to tell me everything,” she says. “I can’t believe you never said a word, not even when you came to my house for my big announcement! And you accused me of withholding stuff in texts!”
I cringe.
“When did all this happen?” Bethany demands.
I take a long swallow of my ginger ale. “You saw the news. That’s when.”
“What about your other boyfriend?”
“It’s a long story, but we broke up.”
“How come you never said a word?”
“Because.” I keep my voice light and just slightly tart. “It’s pathetic to whine about my crappy love life to my sister, who has the love life of a romance novel heroine.”
“Oh for—! You got Ryder. Ryder Reed!”
“Wanna trade?” I joke.
“No way! Oliver’s the only man for me.” She leans closer. “That’s how you feel about Ryder, too, right?”
I swallow. My stepsister, always worried about me. “Of course.”
“Then that’s all that matters. I hope he makes you happy.”
“He does.” I smile for her benefit, then sigh. “He also makes me exhausted.”
Her hand flies to her mouth and her eyes dart around. “I can’t believe you said that here…!”
I burst out laughing. “Get your mind out of the gutter! I mean all the shopping and wedding plans.”
“Oh. Well…that’s what happens when you have a month to plan a wedding to Hollywood royalty.”
The hostess comes and tells us our table is ready. Bethany hooks her arm in mine as we get up. “You hungry?”
“Oh my god. Starving.”
Our table turns out to be a private booth in the back. I’m grateful; the last thing I want is to have my photos plastered everywhere. I know I’m a “person of interest” right now, but I have no intention of rolling over and giving up my privacy without a fight.
I glance at the menu briefly. When the waitress comes over, I ask for a cheeseburger and fries plus a glass of fully caffeinated, sugary Coca-Cola Classic. I don’t care how many calories, carbs and fat are in my lunch. I deserve it after the way this week’s gone.
I look to see if my order shocks her, but the waitress is professionally uninterested. Bethany orders the same except she substitutes OJ for the drink.
“So how’s the wedding thing going?” Bethany asks.
“I have no idea. We have a planner—supposed to be very good—who’s doing most of the work. Ryder’s bearing the entire cost since he wants the grandest event of the year.”
“Won’t that be hard to manage with his cousin’s just a few weeks ago? I saw photos, and it looked incredible.”
“Yeah. But I don’t think he cares.”
“What do you want?”
“I’m okay with anything as long as we’re married. I’m not picky.” If it were left up to me, we would be eloping in Vegas.
Bethany looks at me speculatively, but she doesn’t get to ask any follow-up questions because our server returns with the food.
I take the opportunity to quickly change the subject. “So tell me… How are things with you? I remember you saying that you were thinking about a Kickstarter campaign, but…”
“Oh.” Her eyes light up. “My webcomic site got full funding!”
“No way! Seriously? You should’ve said something so I could put in some money for you. Not to mention, Ryder has lots of followers on social media, and I’m sure he wouldn’t have minded promoting your stuff.”
She grins and raises her hands, palms out. “That’s the really cool part. I never got a chance to do the Kickstarter! I got funded before we even began the campaign.”
“How?”
“Some angel investor through some LLC. He said he’s interested in art, and he likes my webcomic site and what I’ve been doing, and he’d love to see me expand. The cool thing is, he really knows a lot about running a business and who to hire and all that. So it’s an incredible opportunity for me.”
Bethany has big plans for her webcomic site. Currently it only showcases her comics, and she’s grown a huge following with witty and sharp content. She also had a bit of help two years ago when Ryder mentioned the site in an interview, but I still think it was mostly her. If she didn’t have good content, she wouldn’t have been able to capitalize on the publicity to build her audience.
Last year she put out a “best of the year” collection in a fancy glossy hardcover edition, she sold out within a week and made a hefty profit. I could not be more proud of her.
She doesn’t want to end it there, though. She wants to start featuring other artists and help them get discovered as well, start selling advertising and subscriptions so she can pay them decent money for their work and so on.